Education | CHICAGOOD

Chicagood is an online magazine launched by The Chi-Town Project. It is a magazine for social conscious Chicagoans that focuses on social awareness issues and those who step up to make Chicago a better place for tomorrow. We also like to have fun and celebrate what it means to be Chicagoan and what is good in our city. Be Chicagood.

We love saying that we live in the greatest city in the world. The beautiful skylines, innovative monuments and strong-willed spirits that dwell within the city gives us more reason to boast about Chicago’s greatness. However, as we progress into a rapidly changing future, many of our great city’s downfalls become glaringly obvious as we strive to become a world class city. Poverty, corruption, education and gang violence are only few of the many social awareness issues that have surfaced within Chicago’s inner walls. That’s where The Chi-Town Project steps in. We serve as a platform of fresh ideas, as a series of projects with the ability to ignite passion, discussion and action among Chicagoans for the greater good. Together we can strive for one ultimate goal: guiding Chicago to a better tomorrow. As a curation of social goodness, we celebrate not only the city’s identity but also the achievements that define what makes Chicagood. Join us as we inspIre. dreAM. aCHIeve.

Chicago Public Schools sees highest-ever graduation rate this year!

We have some good news! Chicago Public Schools is seeing the highest ever graduation rate this year!

CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard says this year’s graduation rate is projected at 60.6 percent. CPS cites increased graduation rates over the past five years. Brizard calls it “impressive,” but says more work needs to be done to make sure every CPS student graduates and is ready for college or a career.

Brizard singled out schools for individual graduation rate growth. One school was Phoenix Military Academy, where the graduation rate went from 42 percent in 2007 and 2008 to nearly 75 percent in 2010 and 2011.

There are about 405,000 CPS students who attend more than 675 schools. It’s the third-largest school system in the U.S.

Congrats Class of 2012!

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Truck Farm Chicago Helps Kids Understand What They’re Eating

On Good Magazine’s Good Maker, rounding out the Top 3 in March’s challenge is a Chicago start up called Truck Farm. During the Month of March, Good readers nominated local woman who makes a world of difference. Truck Farmer, Shari Brown got the nod and deserving so.

The idea is simple. Shari took a biodiesel pickup truck and planted a mini farm in its bed and then toured Chicago connecting over 2700 kids to good food in 2011. This “Garden on Wheels” is a traveling education tool. Shari’s passion for sharing good food and educating people is very contagious. Through the Truck Farm project she was able to teach and empower young Chicagoans to be active, grow food locally, cook and eat healthy. They like to say that what they do shows that good food can be grown anywhere there’s sun, space, and creativity. And we agree. This project is so simple and creative but will be so valuable and effective to our communities!

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Dabble in Something New

Bored? Want to learn about doing your own craftbeer? Want to learn how to code html? What about cooking or painting? Yea we know, it’s something we’d all love to learn someday but signing up for classes is a big commitment, time and can get pretty costly.

What if there was a website where you can find classes in just about anything for a low price of $20 that’s near you. Heck yea, SIGN ME UP!

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Slow Housing Market Forcing many Families to Stay Put in Chicago. What does this mean for CPS?

The Situation

For many families in Chicago, once their child is of age to enter school, the idea was to sell their home in Chicago and move to a better school district with safer neighborhoods and bigger homes in the burbs. But with the sluggish economy and crippled housing market, many families are not able to sell their homes. Instead they are forced to stay put in Chicago, meaning a small but growing group of middle-class families are turning to Chicago’s public and private schools. Mayor Rahm and The Chicago Public School are now faced with a new element in dealing with improving Chicago Public Schools. This can be a good thing or a more of a headache in the plans the City has to revamp their education system.

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More Success from Urban Prep: 100% Of (Remaining) Class of 2012 Accepted to College

Urban Prep Academy for Young Men has emerged from the troubled communities of Englewood where it serves as an unlikely success story. Year after year they are showing impressive numbers of 100% graduation rates and high college retention rates the following year. Sounds all great, but are Charter Schools really the hope they claim to be?

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Tinkering School Chicago is Chicagood!

Now this is Chicagood. A school that lets their students play with hammers, saws, climb trees, weld metal and more. For students that sounds glorious; for parents, well you’re probably thinking we’re crazy and about to bust out your lawyer’s contact information. Hold on to that and let us explain.

Tinkering School, is something I wish I had been able to go to as a kid. It provides an environment where children experience hands-on exploration of open-ended problems while developing patient problem solving, adventure and self-directed learning skills. Kids come in and laid before them are all sorts of materials and tools to help them achieve their goals and explore their creativity. Just as important, kids learn what responsibility and trust is while working with these materials and tools.

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Open City launches New App to Help Parents Know Which Chicago Public Schools Tier They Live In

Open City is a great civic startup. Periodically they release a new app that aims to bring open gov and open source apps to your hands that make our city work better. A few of their past apps includes:

Vacant Building Finder- an app that locates all vacant buildings in Chicago.

ClearStreets- see where snow plows have been patrolling

Chicago Lobbyist- aims to bring transparency of how government and lobbyists interact

Look at Cook- explore Cook County’s budget from 1993 to 2011 and learn how the money is being spent.

Metra Schedule- a look at how trains and schedules are effected by Metra’s budget cuts

Now they are introducing a new App called Chicago Public School Tiers which simply lets parents know what tier they live in, information they need when applying for one of Chicago’s top selective schools. Selective schools in Chicago are required to reserve the same number of spots for the students from each of the four tiers that the Chicago Public School divides the city up into. Tier 4 areas make more money and have more education. Tier 1 areas make less money have less education. This is a great and simple app that Open City has added to their list of great apps that makes information and our lives better in Chicago.

Open City- your apps
are Chicagood!

Congrats to Moneythink- White House Campus Champions of Change Challenge

The votes are in for the White House’s Campus Champions of Change Challenge, a competition for college students addressing social awareness issues, like homelessness, hunger, sustainability concerns, and more.

Voters had until March 3 to choose from 15 final candidates. The top five vote recipients, who will attend a White House event and host an episode of mtvU’s signature program Dean’s List. One of the 5 winners a University of Chicago project, Moneythink.

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Money from Cheaters and Deadbeats will be used for Children

Seems a little ironic how the money earned from the state lottery was used to fund the education system in Chicago. It’s like using money from gambling and using it to educate our future generation of Chicagoans. “Hi son, gambling got your through school. Now be a shining example for Chicago in this world!”

Now, Mayor Emanuel announced that he will be spending an estimated $8.8 million collected from “Cheaters” and “Deadbeats”, to fund programs for children and the police. The money is from folks who owe City Hall money from outstanding debts and fines from such things like parking, red light citations, and so forth. The city already has collected $5.2 million in outstanding debt in about three weeks using an ordinance that allows the city to intercept state income tax refunds from people across Illinois. Another $3.3 million is expected to be collected later.

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Victory for Chicago Students. CPS Awards Teaching Skills Over Tenure

No school should place the interests of educators above the needs of students, and that’s precisely what the Illinois Supreme Court ruled last Friday when they found the ruling favoring Chicago Public School over the Chicago Teachers Union.

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Awesome Tools and Resources for Aspiring Young Architects

Chicago is the home of some of the best architecture in the world. There’s no doubt about it. Chicago has always been at the forefront in great architecture and now The Chicago Architectural Foundation has launched a free online tool for aspiring young architects and designers.

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Progress Seen at City ‘Turnaround’ Schools

According to a report by the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research, efforts to reform targeted failing Chicago Public schools is paying off to some effect. At a first glance, students appear to still score below district standards however on state tests, underperforming elementary schools improved reading skills enough to cut in half the gap that once existed between their performance and district standards and did well enough in math to cut the gap by two-thirds.

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