Letters to the Sun-Times

Steven L. Kispetik, Portage Park

CPS closings devastating for my son 

Thank you so very much, Chicago Public Schools, for erasing all the progress my son has made with his behavioral/emotional disorders while at Near North Special Education School, which will be closed next week. The anxiety of the closing has caused him to revert to several of his old destructive and disobedient ways.

Prior to the announcement of the school closing, he was doing the best he has ever done, with the support of the Near North staff. He was scoring high and on a Gold level almost daily for several weeks. Since then, he has dropped down to the second-to-last level on the behavior charts and constantly talks about how he won’t see his teacher, Mr. Cunningham, again...  READ THE REST HERE.

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis

Karen Lewis: Time for investment, not austerity 

We are on the cusp of massive reductions in library, art, music and special education programming. Since 2008, the district has lost nearly $180 million from toxic swaps that could have been invested in our classrooms. At the city level, a combined city-income and commuter progressive-tax between just 0.5 and 1.5 percent can generate close to $1 billion for the city, with half going to CPS. Imagine if CPS had $600 million more in revenue in addition to nearly $300 million a year from TIFs and swaps? CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett has asked the CTU to offer revenue solutions. When will CEO Byrd-Bennett and Mayor Emanuel join the CTU and lobby for these reforms?  -- READ KAREN'S ENTIRE LETTER HERE.