On July 31, the Chicago Board of Education proposed providing $5.5 million to sustain Chicago Arts High School — formerly ChiArts — for one year under its current model. More than half of the Department of Arts Education budget would be redirected to support one school, limiting investments that expand arts education across the district. The board postponed a vote until Aug. 27.
No one wants to see students lose access to a school that provides meaningful opportunities for young artists. When the high school’s board voted not to renew its operating agreement with Chicago Public Schools, the district rightly stepped in to ensure students could continue their education.
But should solving one school’s financial challenges come at the expense of arts opportunities for students across Chicago?
Just over a year ago, the CPS board unanimously adopted a five-year Arts Education Plan committing to equitable access to high quality arts education in every neighborhood. That commitment has produced measurable progress. At Ingenuity — our nonprofit that pushes equity in public school arts education — data shows a 23 percentage point increase in arts staffing at CPS schools over the past six years. Yet the work is not complete: Only 39% of schools have reached the highest level of arts education.
Chicago Arts High School serves about 520 students. The Department of Arts Education supports a districtwide strategy serving more than 316,000 students.
Redirecting districtwide funding may close this year’s gap, but it does not resolve the underlying structural challenge. History also shows that budget shifts are rarely temporary; once funding is redirected, it can be extraordinarily difficult to restore those dollars to districtwide initiatives.
This is not a debate about whether CPS values the arts. It does. It is not a debate about whether Chicago Arts High School provides meaningful opportunities for students. It does. The question is whether Chicago will allow one school’s financial challenges to diminish opportunities for students across the district.
CPS must protect its commitment to arts education for every student while ensuring that every school operates sustainably, equitably and in alignment with CPS’ public mission.
Nicole Upton, executive director, Ingenuity
Strong financial ecosystems spur housing
WBEZ’s Alden Loury’s recent column headlined, “Without housing on South, West sides, Chicago’s Black communities won’t grow” accurately highlights the stark population and housing loss across the South and West sides. But focusing primarily on residential construction puts the cart before the horse.
Building homes alone will not reverse population decline if the underlying economic conditions such as access to business capital, commercial corridors, public safety and employment anchors remain unaddressed. People move where economic opportunity, service access and wealth creation exist.
Downtown and the Near South/West sides boomed because commercial density, transit infrastructure and capital deployment paved the way for residential demand.
To genuinely stabilize and grow Black communities in Chicago, the focus must extend beyond housing stock to a comprehensive economic playbook:
- Commercial anchor priority: Retail, healthcare and job centers must lead. As seen in the historic revitalization of Pullman, commercial and industrial investment create the payroll base that allows residents to buy and maintain homes.
- Mixed-use density over isolated housing: Capital should target transit-oriented microdcorridors that combine ground-floor local commerce with residential units above, restoring walkability and essential neighborhood services like groceries and pharmacies.
- Ownership over tenancy: Reversing wealth loss requires aggressively expanding pathways to homeownership and property acquisition (using land trusts and vacant lot infill programs) rather than overrelying on subsidized rental developments.
Rebuilding Chicago’s Black population base isn’t just about building walls; it’s about building the financial ecosystem that allows residents to build generational wealth and stay.
Robert Williams, Roseland
Fears about decline of reading unfounded
The current fears of “the end of reading” and “post-literacy” relate to changing social organization and technologies of communications.
The Atlantic’s Rose Horowitch’s recent piece headlined “The End of Reading Is Here” and New York Times’ David Wallace-Wells’ column headlined “Is This What a Post-Literate Era Looks Like?” summarize those fears.
There has never been a single form of literacy and such fears have always persisted.
The classics were dictated to white slaves, not written by individual authors. “The Odyssey” is a distillation of oral folk tales collected by Homer. Plato and Socrates, among many, feared the impact of writing on comprehension and memory.
Until the 19th century, most reading remained oral and collective. This included schoolrooms, churches and homes. In factories, one worker read to peers, especially daily newspapers.
Fears about the decline or “end” of reading followed radio in 1920s and television in 1950s. They accompanied the internet, social media and artificial intelligence eras. Yet, we fail to expect changing forms of literacy.
Outcries that students and their elders do not — and often cannot — read repeat. Part of “culture wars,” they are intolerant of change. They are supported by misleading exams and studies, and the “reading wars” of different forms of phonics versus phonetics instruction. Screen reading and audio are not counted as forms of reading.
Young people learn to read in many different ways, including via pictures and sounds. New technologies benefit many of them, including those who are differently abled.
Students and adults do read. Book sales do rise, and book clubs and library use have increased.
Skeptics rarely ask, “what is reading?” across media and different texts. There is no one form of reading. That students need to learn to read different texts differently is seldom considered.
There is no place for diverse human reading realities in today’s “illiteracy myths.” That must change.
Harvey J. Graff, professor emeritus of English and History, Ohio State University, Lincoln Park
Ordinance would help ousted renters
I am a tenant who supports Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Protecting Renters Ordinance. The ordinance includes “just cause” provisions — an essential protection for tenants. Currently, tenants live under the reality that their landlord could choose not to renew their lease for any reason, making housing for tenants less secure.
Under the just cause provisions, a landlord would need to provide one of four reasons for not renewing a lease, along with relocation assistance. Those reasons:
- Owner or a relative is moving into the unit
- Rehab/repair
- Condo conversion
- Removal from the market
The Just cause provisions are essential to mitigate gentrification, i.e., the large-scale displacement of working class people from their homes by corporate landlords and subsequent rise of housing costs. Many landlords buy buildings at low cost, terminate current tenants’ leases, then raise the rent. For those who are displaced, being uprooted can be economically and emotionally devastating.
At the City Council’s Housing and Real Estate Committee hearing earlier this summer, advocates for smaller mom-and-pop landlords expressed concerns about the cost of the ordinance. But relocation assistance would only be triggered by one of the reasons in the above list. Small landlords, who hold 35% of the rental supply, per the DePaul Institute for Housing Studies, will use no-fault lease terminations infrequently and will pay less relocation assistance. In contrast, corporate landlords, who hold the rest of the rental supply, rely on no-fault lease nonrenewals as part of their business model.
Just cause is not radical. It has been enacted in 11 states and over 25 municipalities in the country. All businesses are regulated for health and safety. Why should landlords be different?
Rachael Wilson, Bridgeport
Winning
How’s your family farm improving?
How’s our new “forever war?”
How great is your price for fuel?
Next month will it cost more?
How’s the price of fertilizer?
How’s your new high price for feed?
How’s doing all the work yourself?
Since ICE kidnapped your team
How great’s your rural hospital?
How’s your access to healthcare?
How’s your mental health been doing?
How’s it feel when no one cares?
Could AI steal your job next year?
How’s that data center next door?
The whole neighborhood’s polluted
And there’s a never-ending roar
How’s your VA clinic improving?
With no nurses or doctors around?
Suicide hotline wait times get longer
When they shut call centers down
How great’s high mortgage rates?
How great is your spiking rent?
How’s your shi—y, little apartment?
Forty-five — can’t buy a house yet?
How great is life in your police state?
Masked feds in your neighborhood?
How’s it being surveilled, searched, seized?
Do civil rights violations feel good?
How’s your tanking dollar value?
How great’s your food security?
How great are SNAP’s reduced benefits?
How’s the balance on your EBT?
And how great’s no more abortions?
How great are your 10 grandkids?
You feed and house them now?
You’re 60 doing a lifetime bid.
How great’s the kids’ school funding?
Illiterate, but know who to hate?
How great’s winning what you voted for?
Just so you could discriminate.
Nathan Kempthorne, Navy and Air Force veteran, Rogers Park
Vaccine vacuousness
Tuesday’s Sun Times had an Associated Press story about President Donald Trump signing an executive order that recommends separating three childhood vaccines into three shots done at three different office visits. This decision, based on reports, have no scientific advantages. To the contrary, it raises concerns in the legitimate medical circles that it could put children at risk due to delays in decades-long proven vaccines.
There are other consequences. Parents would have to make three office visits instead of one. This likely will lead to missed time from jobs and the added expenses that result, as well as decreased production. Also, with the cost of healthcare soaring and cuts being made by this administration, insurance companies will now be on the hook for three office visits instead of one. For those who don’t have insurance, it’ll be a huge financial undertaking. Then there’s the fact that tripling the number of visits will make it harder to schedule appointments for physicians who will see their workload tripled.
These are the consequences that arise from having a president and health secretary who ignore science to push their dangerous personal agendas. Hopefully, for those of us who trust science, the choice of receiving all three vaccines in one visit will still be an option.
John Farrell, DeKalb
Fauci’s foes set bad precedent
Those intent on prosecuting Dr. Anthony Fauci deny the dangers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and are still incensed that people had to wear masks, schools were closed and remote learning became a thing. Agreed, it wasn’t an easy time, but that’s because we were dealing with a global pandemic!
Many of us remember the severity of the pandemic, especially those of us who lost loved ones. I miss my friend Antoinette every day. She was like a mom to me, but COVID took her. Dr. Fauci worked tirelessly to prevent deaths like hers. Back in 2020, people thanked doctors and nurses for their unwavering devotion. Where is the thanks now? Denial that it was that bad and holding the doctor who helped us through it in contempt?
These unwarranted attacks on Dr. Fauci make me feel as though I am trapped in a horror movie. The next time we face a global outbreak, who will dare to lead us in making the best choices based on scientific research if there’s a threat of imprisonment? I fear for Dr. Fauci, but I fear for the rest of us, too.
Diane O’Neill, North Center
Birthright bias?
So do President Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s efforts to limit birthright citizenship through executive orders apply to white babies, or just babies of color?
Gael Mennecke, Beverly
Appreciation for two Sun-Times vets
Thanks for two Sun-Times treasures: Lee Bey and Neil Steinberg.
I so appreciated Lee for explaining the status of the two towers at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive. And when I visited the Steelworkers Park recently, I knew about it because of Lee’s writing.
Beth Najberg, Near North Side