SPRINGFIELD – For Dora Brooks-Rodriguez and Trista Bond, it’s the second chance they’ve been waiting for. After years of volunteering at their local schools, they are now on their way to the head of the classroom. But the program that has given more than 500 an opportunity at a college education and a second...
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Author Archive
Teacher Scholarship Program Could Fall Victim to Budget Crisis
Homeless Youth Could Benefit from Bill
When the final bell rings, high school students rush to the nearest door, excited to head home, hang out with friends, watch television and eat a home-cooked meal with their families. But 19-year-old Niaesha Shivers isn’t one of them. She is one of nearly 13,000 Chicago Public School students who is homeless.
For the past...
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Journalists, Activists Debate Haiti News Coverage
On Jan. 12, a magnitude 7 earthquake hit near Port-Au-Prince and wiped out most of the city’s infrastructure in what experts say could be the worst natural disaster in modern history. The latest reports indicate that more than 200,000 have died and more than 1 million are left homeless.
These are the facts that we...
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Lawmakers Look to Teacher Training for Youth Suicide Prevention
It’s a silent epidemic that kills 100 young people in the United States every day; experts say if no action is taken in Illinois, 65,000 youths next year will be at risk. Suicide has become such a threat to young people that last year, the U.S. attorney general declared it a national health crisis.
To...
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Leaders Envision Chicago’s 2016 in “Back to the Future” Panel
City leaders’ dreams that the 2016 Olympics would come to Chicago ended in October, but their hopes for the economic development, job creation and neighborhood expansion the Games would have brought to the city are alive and well.
On a snowy afternoon on Feb. 9 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Chicago’s Neighborhood Development Awards hosted...
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Burke Faces Opposition, Narrowly Holds House Seat in 23rd District
State Rep. Dan Burke (D-Chicago) didn’t breathe easy until early Wednesday morning, when it became official that he had indeed held off Rudy Lozano, Jr. to secure his name on the November ballot.
It was the first time Burke had faced a challenge in a primary in nearly two decades of representing the 23rd House...
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State Deficit Drains Before- and After School Programs in Chicago
With the Illinois state budget deep in the red, it’s not just schools that are feeling the pinch – before- and after-school programs are in peril as well, educators say.
Illinois has reduced funding for early childhood education, including before- and after-school programs, by 10 percent, said a spokesman for state Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago),...
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In Austin, Sit-Down Restaurants a Rarity
Gritty storefronts, boarded-up gas station windows, graffiti-covered pavement and a plethora of fast food restaurants are the sights that will meet your eyes on a drive through one of Chicago’s toughest neighborhoods.
Located on the city’s West Side, Austin’s population is nearing 130,000, and as the population rises in what community activists call Chicago’s “forgotten...
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Preckwinkle Focused While Tresser Takes on Corruption at Cook County Board President Debate on Violence Against Women
It was a full house, with over 200 women and a handful of men in an audience that was anxious to hear what the next Cook County Board president would do to protect and better serve women and men who are victims of violence.
The forum, Violence Against Women, held at Loyola University, is one...
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Experts Say Fewer Local School Councils Means Less Community Involvement
Local school councils are out, Renaissance 2010 is in, and the fight against the machine has only begun. Activists and experts have taken a stand to bring back public schools and public involvement in education; they said they are fighting for their voice.
Pauline Lipman, policy studies professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago,...
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