Stories by Matt Masterson

Six former employees of the shuttered Center for Employment Training’s Chicago location allegedly swindled millions from the U.S. government using “fake students” and forged records.

House Bill 768 passed through the state House and Senate easily last year, but the governor’s veto of the legislation, which seeks to limit state oversight of local decisions to shutter underperforming charter schools, doesn’t come as a surprise.

Plans for a new Englewood high school have been at the center of fierce debate for months. Wednesday’s vote marks the first wave of neighborhood school closures within the district since it shuttered 50 elementary schools in 2013.

As Chicago Public Schools moves to finalize the planned closures of four Englewood high schools, community members are claiming the district “manufactured consent” for the controversial plan.

Illinois maintains the most regressive education funding formula in the nation, according to a new report. But with a new formula adopted last year, there’s finally hope the state can make its way out of the basement.

Early childhood care advocates say Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed budget will hamper their ability to expand high-quality services to low-income families.

A new report from the CPS inspector general uncovers loopholes and opaque rules that led to thousands of improper admissions made at district elementary schools during the 2016-17 school year.

We don’t need more guns in schools, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday, “we need more teachers in schools, more students who are not scared so they can be focused not on their fears, but their studies.”

Chicago Public Schools is now the first district of any size to earn the honor twice. Since 2011 – the first year it was named AP District of the Year – the number of CPS students taking the exams has jumped by 44 percent.

Bill Amor spent two decades behind bars for a murder he says he didn’t commit. On Wednesday, a DuPage County judge agreed – and acquitted him in a retrial of a 1995 arson case.

She’s officially been on the job for only a few weeks, but Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson is already earning recognition for her work to improve the district.

“I saw each and every one of you from the darkened window of my car,” Erin Bauer wrote in an open letter Tuesday. “The good people in this world far outnumber the bad. Grace and I are humbled, as Paul would be.”

A 29-year-old Streamwood man faces felony murder charges after he allegedly stole and crashed a taxi, killing a 69-year-old Lincoln Park woman.

A Cook County judge has denied bond for Shomari Legghette, a four-time felon charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Chicago Police Department Commander Paul Bauer this week.

Shomari Legghette, 44, was charged a day after the fatal shooting of Chicago Police Commander Paul Bauer. He was allegedly wearing body armor and carrying a firearm containing an extended-round magazine.

The Chicago Police Department on Wednesday continued mourning the loss of 53-year-old Commander Paul Bauer a day after he was shot and killed in the line of duty.

Online dating scams have cost victims in the U.S. and Canada nearly $1 billion over the past three years, according to a new report from the Better Business Bureau. And hundreds of these reports have come from the greater Chicago area.

“It’s a difficult day for us, but we will get through it,” an emotional Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Tuesday following the shooting death of 18th District Commander Paul Bauer.

Under a revised plan, students at Hope, Harper and TEAM Englewood high schools will now be allowed to stay at their schools through graduation instead of being forced out this summer.

Defense attorneys say they need more than a year to adequately prepare for trial in the case of a Champaign man facing the death penalty in the disappearance and death of a University of Illinois scholar.

Before the snow even started to fall Thursday evening, Chicago Public Schools took the rare step of canceling all Friday classes.

Nevest Coleman spent nearly two decades in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Now he’s suing the city of Chicago, claiming he was beaten and coerced into giving a false confession.

About 15,000 Chicago Public Schools students are homeless, and a proposal to close four Englewood high schools would disproportionately harm part of that population, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless says. 

A new bill would turn Cook County Jail into a temporary polling site and require that jails across the state provide detainees with voter registration applications.

Reports of carjackings rose more than 45 percent in Chicago last year, and through the first weeks of 2018, there have been more than three carjackings reported in the city per day, on average. 

Chicago Police are seeking a man they believe is responsible for two knifepoint robberies on the North Side that occurred after the suspect met the victims through a dating app.