Top Education Stories You Don’t Want to Miss: October 1 – October 7, 2022
By The Illinois Network of Charter Schools
“The Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS) released its latest issue brief, “How Public Schools Can Combat the Scourge of Gun Violence: Lessons from Chicago Charter Public Schools.” This issue brief examines how charter public schools champion innovative practices to address the trauma that students carry into school every day due to gun violence in their neighborhoods and how schools can build student leadership and advocates to prevent violence. This is a critical issue for Chicago’s charter public schools because charter families tend to be concentrated on the South and West sides and travel across the city to attend their school of choice. In addition, the majority of charter public schools are located in neighborhoods with high crime rates. In the 15 neighborhoods with the highest gun-crime rates in Chicago, there are 18,666 charter students across 46 schools—32.7% of total charter enrollment.”
Illinois criticized over funding equity for low-income schools
By Karen Ann Cullotta for The Chicago Tribune
“A state program intended to deliver equitable funding for Illinois school districts in low-income communities was lambasted by critics who are asking lawmakers in Springfield for more than $1 billion a year to meet the new law’s 2027 deadline to fully fund public education. According to a recent report from the Partnership for Equity and Education Rights Illinois and the Education Law Center, despite five years of using the state’s new Evidence-Based Funding formula, 1.7 million students from 83% of Illinois school districts still attend underfunded schools.”
Childhood Social-Emotional Development a Concern as Students Return to In-Person Learning
By Eunice Alpasan for WTTW
“There are growing concerns about how COVID-19 has affected children’s social-emotional development and wellbeing as students, parents and teachers have navigated the return to in-person learning. Social-emotional learning is about developing skills that help people navigate all parts of our lives, said Justina Schlund, senior director of content and field learning at the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning.”
