Charges of insider contracts surface in building and maintaining a $25 million UNO charter school. Carol Marin talks with the Chicago Sun-Times reporters who uncovered the story.

Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund executive director Kevin Huber joins us with the dire state of his fund.

A technology park in the middle of the city -- University of Illinois announces a new research lab modeled on Bell Labs. Vice president of research Larry Schook joins us.

Lands' End founder Gary Comer dedicated much of his life to revitalizing his childhood home: Pocket Town, in Greater Grand Crossing. How much good has his $86 million (and counting) done? Chicago magazine editor Elly Fishman joins us with the story.

Stolen computers, pornography and lunch program fraud. There's a new report outlining misconduct in city schools. We have the results.

Keeping all Chicago Public high schools open is just one recommendation from an interim report guiding CPS closures. We hear from the head of the school closure commission.

In the wake of the elementary school rampage in Connecticut, the Chicago Public Schools' security chief joins us to discuss school safety here.

Memorials, vigils and funerals were held today for some of the victims of the school shooting rampage in Connecticut. We take a closer look.

Chicago’s high school dropout rate – about 35 percent – is at the heart of the city’s problems with poverty, violence and unemployment. We delve deeper on a special episode of Chicago Tonight.

Is Chicago on the right path in fighting its chronic high school dropout problem? Our panelists – young people, educators at challenging schools, researchers and thought leaders – answer candid questions from members of our studio audience and viewers at home in a 30-minute web-exclusive conversation.

In Chicago Tonight’s American Graduate Special, we delve deeper into the city’s dropout epidemic. Young people, educators, researchers and leaders come together as panelists and audience members. Take a look at our behind-the-scenes slideshow of the American Graduate Special.

With a high school dropout rate around 35 percent, Chicago is a city full of out-of-school teenagers. Educators, activists, reformers, and district officials have competing ideas on how to reverse this trend. Yet students’ perspectives are often missing from the conversation on dropout prevention. We talk with young people – two who left CPS without a high school diploma, and one who decided to stay in school – about their ideas to change the system.

Students who are truant in their K-8 years are much more likely to drop out of high school later down the road. Elizabeth Brackett reports on one elementary school’s hands-on approach to combat the truancy crisis.

We talk with the educators who try to keep kids from falling off the grid, one student and one day at a time.

How do you narrow the college achievement gap between low- and high-income students? A new program in Chicago schools is trying a new strategy: teaching character.

Communities across Chicago are concerned with the city’s alarming high school dropout rate. But what would a comprehensive, district-wide dropout prevention campaign actually look like? And is CPS on the right path to unraveling this problem? We evaluate the big picture with University of Chicago researcher Elaine Allensworth and alternative schools leader Jack Wuest.