Author: Chicago Unheard

Black Voices, Black Choices: “I Want My Children to Receive Training Based on Their Life Purpose”

For many Black families, school isn’t just about reading, writing, and arithmetic.  School is about purpose, potential, and passion.  That is what drives the mother we focus on in today’s “Black Voices, Black Choices”…a desire to see her children do what they were put on this earth to do and have a school environment designed to help them do it.…

Black Voices, Black Choices: Four Children, 3 Schools…Whatever It Takes

Today’s Black Voices, Black Choices feature is from a mom who is doing everything she can to get the best education for her children.  Every day she gets her four children to three different schools – one selective enrollment school, a magnet school and a charter school – so that they each can get an education that is suited to…

Black Voices, Black Choices: “I wish they knew that Black children love to learn.”

It’s Black History Month.  For the next 28 days (yes, Black History Month just happens to be the shortest month of the year), we will introduce our readers to 28 Black families from around Chicago and the school choices that they are making.  Black families are making all kinds of interesting school choices, not because they are ideologues or education…

Chicago Public Schools at it Again

Chicago Public Schools often manages to get in their own way by not focusing on what’s most important (in this case the education of our children) and leaning into their values (equity, fairness, justice, and accountability). Earlier this month CPS released a request for proposals (RFP) for 40 of the school buildings they closed in 2013. As noted in several news sources (Chicago…

Chicago (and Illinois) Celebrates School Choice Week

This week is National School Choice Week.  All across America, people are celebrating the advances that we have made on creating more school options for students and families.  Even though you might not find big rallies and parades making much of this fact, don’t forget that Chicago is a school choice city. The city is home to 130 public charter…

It’s the Most Stressful Time of the Year If You’re Applying to CPS Schools

The Chicago education system is becoming a system of choice (even though the quality of options available to poor Black and Brown families is still too limited).  But, with so much choice, it can be kind of stressful for families as they try to wade through it all.  The Chicago Sun-Times recently highlighted what some families go through at this…