Parkland Costs and Unit 4 Charter School

Parkland Costs Didn't Go Up?

The full article explains how they're not giving the state, which they say has "abandoned us," any credit. Which sounds harsh, but may be accurate:

No tuition, fee hikes next year
For the first time in 26 years, Parkland College students won’t be paying more in tuition and fees next year.

The governing board of the Champaign- based community college voted unanimously Wednesday to freeze tuition and fees for in-district students at $164 per credit hour. Tuition and fees for out-of-district, out-of-state and international students also will remain the same as this year.

It’s the first time since 1992-93 school year — when tuition and fees were $33 a credit hour — that there won’t be an increase.

Unit 4 Charter School Request

A proposal Unit 4 rejected back in 2001 may get a second look due to concerning and years long tracking of racial disparity data. From today's News-Gazette:

Black-focused charter school to be requested
A six-year decline in academic achievement for black Unit 4 students in grades 3-8 has some community members poised to ask the district to create a charter school on Champaign’s north end.

The school, which would be called North Champaign Academy and serve grades K-5, has been offered as a solution to the rising numbers of black students in Unit 4 who are performing at levels below state expectations for their grade. Organizers shared the highlights of their vision with The News-Gazette ahead of Monday night’s school board meeting, when they plan to make a formal request to the school board.

Some of the troubling statistics cited from the Illinois State Board of Education and the Census Bureau:

The numbers that concern the charter school backers come from 2011-17: — In 2011, black thirdgraders comprised 15.2 percent of Unit 4’s lowestachieving students in the reading category.

— By 2017, that number was 52.1 percent...

 “The percentage of poor people in the black community has remained constant throughout the years — and that’s part of the impetus for trying to change that paradigm,” Banks said.

In Champaign County, black residents are twice as likely as white to live in poverty. Data from the 2015 U.S. Census Bureau population estimates showed that 41.5 percent of African-Americans had incomes below the poverty level, while the rate for whites was 17.2 percent.