Richard Yates Elementary School is pictured in a file photo. (WTTW News)
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The man’s brief tenure as an officer ended after he testified as a witness in a sexual assault case for the defense without informing the city. He worked for years at schools including Yates and Amundsen as both a coach and a security guard before his suspension.

Ryan Field file photo. (WTTW News)
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The $800 million proposal to revamp Ryan Field has been controversial from the very beginning. The plans call for a new state-of-the-art stadium that will be smaller in size than the nearly century-old structure it would replace, moving from a capacity of 47,000 to 35,000 for football games.

A rendering of a planned new Ryan Field in Evanston. (Credit: Northwestern University)
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The move to table the measure until next Monday allows more time to negotiate and consider a community benefits agreement with the university. 

Illinois State Capitol. (WTTW News)

State lawmakers left the capitol on Thursday without finalizing a plan to put in motion the 2021 law that seeks to diminish mayoral control over Chicago Public Schools. Competing plans from the state Senate and House are cause of the delay.

Kids with signs encouraging lawmakers to extend the Invest in Kids Act. (WTTW News)
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Donors receive state income tax credits for their contributions to the Invest in Kids program, which helps some 9,600 students across Illinois attend private and trade schools. But barring last-minute legislative action, authorization for the program runs out at the end of 2023.

Chicago Public Schools headquarters. (Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)
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The end to mayoral control of the Chicago Board of Education could come sooner than expected.

Chicago Public Schools headquarters. (Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)
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A year from now, Chicago voters will for the first time decide who will run the city’s schools. But first, Illinois legislators have a lot of decisions to make about how that process will work. Chief among their responsibilities is dividing Chicago into 20 districts.

(WTTW News)

Elementary and secondary students in Illinois showed consistent improvements in their reading and math scores while the state’s high school graduation rate reached a 13-year high for the most recently concluded school year.

A still from the “’63 Boycott” documentary by Kartemquin Films (2017).

October marks 60 years since nearly 250,000 CPS students and their parents flooded the streets of Chicago in what’s known as Freedom Day — a massive protest of segregation in Chicago Public Schools and the superintendent at the time, Benjamin Willis.

Part-time faculty members at Columbia College hold a press conference in downtown on Oct. 30, 2023. (WTTW News)

Nearly 600 part-time faculty members at Columbia College walked off the job Monday. The faculty union and administration have been contract bargaining since May.

State Sen. Robert Martwick speaks at a news conference Oct. 24, 2023. (WTTW News)
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State Sen. Robert Martwick, a Democrat who represents parts of the city’s Northwest Side, said if Chicago wants a diverse school board, it needs to remove barriers that would prevent some residents from running for board seats.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker announces his intention to create a new state agency to oversee early childhood education programs, combining functions currently managed by three state agencies. (Andrew Adams / Capitol News Illinois)
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New entity would coordinate child care, preschool, early interventions

Vowing to make Illinois the top state in the nation for child care accessibility, Gov. J.B. Pritzker unveiled a plan to consolidate all the state’s early childhood programs and funding into one new state agency. Currently, early childhood services are spread across three agencies.

Ta-Nehisi Coates appears during a Northwestern University event on Jan. 31, 2017. (Maya Miller / WTTW News)
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The first cohort of students in Northwestern University’s Prison Education Program are set to graduate next month, and when they do they’ll be joined by one of the most renowned writers and journalists in the country.

A still from the “’63 Boycott” documentary by Kartemquin Films (2017).

This Sunday marks 60 years to the day nearly 250,000 Chicago Public Schools students skipped school to boycott CPS. Students and their parents flooded the streets of Chicago in what’s known as Freedom Day, a massive protest of the segregation in CPS and the superintendent at the time, Benjamin Willis.

(WTTW News)

CPS officials said the High School Admissions Test will be held for district students on either Oct. 24 or Oct. 25 for those taking the exam in English. Students testing in Spanish, Arabic, Polish, Urdu or Simplified Chinese will take the HSAT at school on Nov. 1.

A panel of education and policy experts speaks at an event hosted by the City Club of Chicago. Pictured left to right: Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, Illinois State Board of Education Chief of Staff Kimako Patterson, 2023 Illinois Teacher of the Year Briana Morales and Advance Illinois board member Shayne Evans. (Andrew Adams / Capitol News Illinois)

The supply of education professionals continues to improve in Illinois despite strains brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, but persistent issues remain in certain regions of the state and within some teaching fields.