Dive Brief:

• Although dozens of Chicago charters are already on a new academic “watch” list, two have been given permission to expand from the Chicago Board of Education while ten other were denied. 
• The decision enraged some students, parents, and teachers, who point to the district’s lack of funding for existing public schools.
• One principal who could lose 20 teachers due to budget restrictions says that a total of 5,000 teaching positions are already at stake. 

Dive Insight:

One of the approved charters belongs to the Noble Network of Charter Schools, which the Chicago Sun-Times reports has received significant funding from school board president Frank Clark. However, Clark, who has a Noble school named after him, abstained from the vote. The second approval went to a new KIPP campus.  

As for the watch list, the new designation “could lead to closure if scores under the district's latest school quality rating policy don't improve,” the Chicago Tribune reported. 

Some 16% of Chicago students attend charters, and critics say the schools take resources and students away from traditional public schools. Enrollment at Chicago schools is down by around 4,400 students this year, and Mayor Rahm Emmanuel has proposed a $588 million property tax increase to help fund the city's struggling traditional public schools, where budgets were slashed by $60 million dollars earlier this year.