Magnet Expansion Effort Reveals Challenges for High School Transformation Plan

The timing couldn't have been more revealing:

Just a week after announcing its big new plan to revamp neighborhood high schools -- about which I and others have expressed some healthy skepticism -- the Chicago Board of Education initiated a big and probably long-overdue effort to monitor and improve the results of a previous big plan -- the five-year old effort to create neighborhood magnet "cluster" schools.

Magnet schools must improve or lose funding Sun Times
Wide gap found in magnet schools Tribune

As the high school plan and Ren10 unfold, it's a timely illustration of what can happen to even the best of plans if they're not implemented thoughtfully, overseen regularly, and pushed to improve over time.

Analyzing Chicago's Plan to Transform High Schools WBEZ (audio)
Duncan: Improvements made, but students must do better Defender
Partnership to aid 7 troubled schools Tribune
Parents unhappy over release of information... Daily Southtown
Schools ordered to spend equally Tribune
30 years later, Whitney Young shows critics Sun Times
Chinese: The "It" Language Tribune