community

Some 110 students from 11 Detroit area high schools that have been chosen for the first year of GM Student Corps, a program the automaker is sponsoring to pair the high school students with GM retirees and current employees on community service projects throughout the city.

The Chicago Teachers Union's decision to go to court to try to stop the city from closing 53 elementary schools, while not unexpected, makes clear that the Board of Education's vote on the proposal next week will not put an end to the controversy.

The Valley Settlement Project is drawing immigrants and other disenfranchised residents of the Roaring Fork Valley into the fabric of the local culture. The 7-month-old project has completely turned around individual lives and sent a positive ripple effect throughout nearby communities, which are home to 18,000 immigrant residents.

A set of grants from JPMorgan Chase will boost community services at three Detroit public schools in an effort to make them more vital neighborhood hubs, district and state officials announced Monday.

Control of American public schools has an increasing top-down flavor. School districts, mostly urban with lower-income students of color, are labeled “failing,” and the state or a big-city mayor takes control.

As the saying goes, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Unfortunately, that saying does not bode well for the thousands of children who will be displaced when 54 schools shut down this year.

Three of Philadelphia's most innovative traditional public schools are set to expand, thanks to $6 million in grants from the nonprofit Philadelphia School Partnership. All told, Center City's Science Leadership Academy, Germantown's Hill-Freedman Middle School, and the Navy Yard's Sustainability Workshop are expected to add 1,600 new students over the next three years.

Although the Cleveland School District is leaving its longtime offices on East Sixth Street this summer, school board member Eric Wobser wants the district to increase its presence downtown. Wobser has proposed using all $4.5 million from the sale of the district headquarters to the Drury hotel chain for creating a new school downtown, or expanding one or both of the district schools already there.

Residents and business owners near Washington Elementary School (Flint, Mich.) want to work with the Flint School District to ensure the school doesn’t become an eyesore and a spot for criminal activity.