Click HERE to watch video.

CHICAGO--With various local education organizations planning to scream, march and protest, Wednesday’s School Board meeting promises to be anything but quiet.

The organizations—including the Chicago Teachers Union, the Caucus of Rank and File Educators and Parents United For Responsible Education—are raising their voices against a proposal to close or reorganize 22 public schools across the city, which the Board of Education is expected to vote on at the meeting.Read more

CHICAGO--The Caucus of Rank and File Educators, a faction within the Chicago Teachers Union, met Wednesday to plan a protest of the closings and reorganizations of 22 public schools.

In four meetings across the city, CORE strategized on how to make a Feb. 25 protest at the Chicago Public Schools building downtown bigger and more effective than one held last month that, according to CORE member Christine Mayle, had approximately 500 demonstrators. The goal this time is to have three times that number, Mayle said.Read more

CHICAGO--A group of local education activists met Tuesday to figure out how to keep Chicago Public Schools from closing a Bronzeville elementary at the end of the school year and moving its students to a neighboring school.

Part of the Bronzeville Education Advocacy Movement’s strategy to keep Abbott Elementary School, 3630 S. Wells St., from being closed is to pressure certain Chicago heavyweights, including State Representatives Ken Dunkin and Ward 3 Alderman Pat Dowell, to support a recent proposal to put a moratorium on all school closings and reorganizations for a year.Read more

[This series aired on my Miami education site, teachdade.com (TD). Click HERE to view the whole series.]

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, TD would like to announce, “1000 Years in the Classroom,” a new project showcasing the insight, sincerity, frustration and wisdom of the Miami-Dade County Public School system’s most under-appreciated asset, its veteran teachers. Here’s the gist: TD intends to conduct short video interviews with veteran teachers from schools across MDCPS’s nine districts, asking them all one simple question: How do you think the district can improve? It is our belief that these “old pros” hold the answers to many of MDCPS’s problems.

We are eager to hear each educator’s unique ideas, as well as to learn the concepts that overlap from classroom to classroom. The goal is to interview a diverse group of Dade County teachers whose combined experience equals at least 1000 years. Once this is accomplished, the plan is to patch the interviews together in a documentary-style production and to present it to the School Board at one of its monthly meetings. The result, ideally, will be drastic improvements in the way our schools operate here in Dade County.Read more