CPS closings vote shows it’s time for an elected school board

Mark Brown: Before Wednesday, I’d never thought it would make much sense for Chicago to switch to an elected school board, given the problems we already face electing good people to the offices we now fill. Then I changed my mind while watching Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s six appointees to the Board of Education vote unanimously to close 50 schools next year despite thoughtful and impassioned pleas from community members begging them to reconsider.

• Census: Despite population growth, Chicago still at a loss

  Chicago gained nearly 10,000 people from July 2011 to July 2012, but was the slowest-growing major city in the country according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Thursday.

  Census data shows cities booming, Chicago with modest population gain

   The top 10 cities in Illinois

   
• Former Mayor Daley’s staff saw parking-meter problems brewing, records show
• Schaumburg official injured in Oklahoma tornado shares harrowing experience
• Jury deliberates whether Donald Trump ‘conned’ 87-year-old woman
• Police: Two bodies found in car trunk on South Side
  Updated: 2013-05-23 08:57:46
• Man gets 50 years in prison for killing man he pimped to his pregnant wife
• Two seriously injured after CTA bus crashes into building