The national conversation around gun violence generally centers around mass shootings, school shootings and gang activity. These problems need to be addressed, but may overshadow the largest group affected: suicide victims.
Last month, about a dozen people gathered in the basement of a church in Champaign, Ill. to learn how traumatic experiences affect the lives of children and young adults, and what they can do to mitigate its effects.
What I heard at both events: safety concerns, frustration with legislators and calls for action around gun laws. Hope for children, love for community and citizens flexing their civic muscles. In my role as Illinois Newsroom Engagement Strategist, I attended two events related to the debate over guns. At March 24th’s “March for Our Lives”
Earlier this month, we posted a story about discipline practices inside Noble Network of Charter Schools , which educates approximately one out of 10…
Every Sunday, a group of women meets in the basement of a church in Chicago’s Ravenswood neighborhood to sort and package boxes of books. The boxes are sent to women
Passing a state budget is arguably the most important thing the Illinois General Assembly does every year — or at least should do every year. After last year’s drama — when a two-year standoff ended with a Republican revolt against Governor Bruce Rauner — it’s an open question about how things will go this year.
The trend toward school choice has educators across the country looking at Chicago’s Noble Charter Schools — an award-winning network of mostly high schools that specializes in helping inner-city kids achieve the kind of SAT scores that propel them into four-year universities. But despite its prestigious reputation, Noble has a peculiarly high teacher turnover rate.
Thousands of students, teachers, parents and victims carried signs and marched across Illinois in the cold, snow and sleet on Saturday as part of the nationwide March for Our Lives against gun violence. The marches were largely led by students, many of them moved to action after last month’s high school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
Hundreds of classes have been canceled and dozens more relocated as a strike by graduate employees at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign continues into a second week. On Tuesday night, graduate workers occupied the office of university president Tim Killeen. Strikers have a variety of demands, but one of the most contentious points focuses on the future of
The publisher of a newsletter about the criminal justice system filed a lawsuit this week against the Illinois Department of Corrections alleging that multiple state prisons barred inmates from receiving all or part of several publications.
Gov. Bruce Rauner is scheduled to unveil his fourth budget proposal Wednesday in a speech to the General Assembly. Illinois lawmakers only enacted a budget for one of the three years he’s been in office. That led to service cuts and some layoffs, but the state didn’t collapse. For most people, life went on as
About 100 teachers and school support staff spent the better part of three hours inside a junior high school gymnasium in rural, east central Illinois in early January. They were role playing people living in poverty.
Five of the six Democrats running for governor were in Peoria over the Martin Luther King Day weekend. They were making largely similar cases to voters at a forum on criminal and economic justice. The five candidates seem to agree on a lot of big picture policy ideas, so Democratic voters will have to decide
If you’ve seen Gov. Bruce Rauner’s campaign commercials , you might think the school funding issue was settled last summer. But as often happens with…
With roughly three months to go until Illinois’ primary election, there are seven men seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination to be governor of Illinois. One of the key questions facing primary voters: To counter the vast wealth of incumbent Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, do Democrats need their own billionaire at the top of the ticket?