Kids in the ten Chicago-area schools serving the fewest low-income students get recess every day — unlike kids in CPS elementary schools from the lowest-income and most-violent communities, the Sun-Times reports today.

But the Sun-Times doesn’t mention legislation passed this spring by the General Assembly that would mandate recess for CPS elementary students — legislation the newspaper editorized against last year.  (The April 11, 2007 editorial is available at the Illinois State Board of Education website.)

The legislation is the fruit of years of effort by POWER-PAC, a citywide organization of African-American and Latino parents supported by Community Organizing and Family Issues.  It’s also backed by the Healthy Schools Campaign.

In 2005 Newstips reported on a meeting between POWER-PAC and then-school board president Michael Scott, who abruptly walked out when parents raised the issue of recess.  The group’s 2005 report on school discipline “horror stories” found that very few Chicago elementary schools have recess — and many have instituted “silent lunches.”

(Newstips has also reported on POWER-PAC’s work establishing alternative disciplinary programs in West Side elementary schools and going door-to-door to promote early education.)

Over 125 POWER-PAC members visited Springfield in May to push for HB4374, which would mandate ten minutes of recess daily for all elementary school children in CPS.  The House passed the bill in April, and the Senate passed it at the end of May with an amendment allowing schools to seek a waiver from the requirement.

POWER-PAC hopes to see the amended bill adopted during the fall veto session, said organizer Kellie Magnuson.

Mandatory recess has been endorsed by the National PTA, the Centers for Disease Control, and the National Association of Elementary School Principals.  Proponents argue recess improves learning and helps reduce childhood obesity. 

The Sun-Times points out that “this year’s spate of urban violence has left many of Chicago’s public school children afraid to play outside their own homes, leave their block or go to a local park.”

Hundreds of local school council members will meet for an LSC Summit tomorrow (Saturday, August 23, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at UIC, 750 S. Halsted).  More at Newstips.org – along with a view of one community group’s fight for a “real LSC” for the new “turnaround school” at Orr High.

While Great Lakes advocates are pressing for swift congressional approval of the Great Lakes Compact, groups concerned about water privatization are working to close what they call loopholes for bottled water in the international agreement.  More at Newstips.org.

Hundreds of South Side residents rallied at Michael Reese Hospital on August 14 with community organizations calling for inclusion in Olympics planning and a legally-binding community benefits agreement to be included in Chicago’s final application for the 2016 Olympics.  More at Newstips.org.

Thirty young people from across the city have spent their summer learning about the history of social movements and strategies for social change at Chicago Freedom School.  They’ll present poetry, dance, skits, and their personal mission statements at CFS’s summer showcase, Friday, August 8 at 6 p.m. at Jones College Prep, 606 S. State.  More at Newstips.org. 

National housing advocacy groups including the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Center for Community Change are applauding the new housing recovery act — signed into law by President Bush yesterday — for establishing a National Housing Trust Fund to create and preserve affordable housing.

But folks at the National Assistance Corporation of America and the Center for Economic and Policy Research say provisions of the act that are supposed to address the foreclosure crisis are less than meets the eye.  

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The new owners of the Chicago Tribune have revived a media analysis tool pioneered by the paper (and satirized by A.J. Liebling, as noted here) 60 years ago — counting pages and column inches to measure efficiency.

But there’s a more traditional metric that they are violating, as Alan D. Mutter recently pointed out on his blog Reflections of a Newsosaur.  “The unwritten but widely honored rule of thumb in the industry has always been that a newspaper should employ one journalist for every 1,000 in daily circulation.”  

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In the wake of the controversial appearance of President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal at a journalists’ conference here last week, his ruling party has called for an anti-media campaign, Reuters reports.  

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