School-based health centers on rise nationally, locally

The Tribune reports that the number of school-based health centers is rising nationwide, with nine opening in Illinois during the 2009-10 academic year. Illinois has about 60 centers, half of which are in Chicago, according to the Illinois Coalition for School Health Centers, an advocacy group that is part the Illinois Maternal & Child Health Coalition. Located primarily in low-income areas with significant uninsured populations, school-based health centers provide relief for the nation's health care
systems, help to reduce student absenteeism and improve health literacy in families, advocates say.
Interim CPS chief Terry Mazany tells the Chicago Defender the district will temporarily move students attending school in one building of a South Side high school into a newly built building next month to make way for demolition to create a park. But community leaders say the plan to shuffle students is nothing more than psychological abuse.
Ald. Patrick O'Connor (40th Ward) has joined with Servenext, a grassroots project that promotes volunteerism, in a book drive to aid Chicago Public Schools. Donated books will be placed in classroom libraries, as part of a CPS effort to install a new system using everyday books to help teach literacy to students across the city, the alderman's website says. The drive will continue through Jan. 16, 2011.
In light of CPS' recent tabling charter school options, the Illinois Network of Charter Schools released an open letter on PR Newswire. "Charter public schools represent growth and achievement in a district which is otherwise losing students to poverty, apathy, and frustrated desire every year," Andrew Broy, INCS president says in the letter.
In the nation
D.C. Mayor-elect Vincent Gray taps outsiders to tackle city's public education system. (The Washington Post)
A new proposal from the Massachusetts Teachers Association to link teacher assessments to student test scores runs into controversy in Boston. (WBUR)