The fourth revolution

"I was surprised by the level of incoherence in the system."

• Brizard on teachers and principals

Brizard on teachers and principals

An excerpt from Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard's interview on Thursday with the Tribune editorial board:

How to scrub the stain of the Burge era

In 1983, when Stanley Wrice said police had beaten him into confessing to a brutal rape he didn't commit, the judge wasn't buying it.

Short lives, troubling questions

The agonizing decisions began even before they were born. Kameron and Kaydon Hayes were joined at the chest. They shared a liver and a...

More safe havens for unwanted newborns

Ten years ago today, Illinois enacted a law that allows a parent to anonymously give up a newborn at a designated "safe haven." Since then,...

Third time's the charm

Finally, the people who control health care in Illinois, the people whose names you don't know, saw the wisdom in just getting out of the...

Quinn on gambling bill: 'It's not … strong enough'

On Tuesday, Gov. Pat Quinn gave the clearest signal yet that he won't let the massive gambling expansion bill he calls "top-heavy" become...

• The real effects of gambling

'Don't be evil'

Not every day does Google drop $12.5 billion in Chicago. But Monday's disclosure that the search behemoth wants to acquire one of the...

Perry and the Texas job machine

Texas Gov. Rick Perry only started campaigning last weekend, but instantly, he's a top-tier contender in the Republican presidential...

Beware the jerks at work

Office politics can be deadly. Now there are numbers to prove it.

Eyes on the road, please

The Illinois Tollway makes a strong case for its plan to rebuild and widen the 52-year-old Jane Addams Memorial Tollway.

Prevention's costs

One of the mantras of the massive health care reform law passed last year was: Prevention, prevention, prevention. Through screenings,...

How to feed millions

With the stock market gyrating, unemployment a constant worry and housing in a depression, Americans hardly can be blamed for ignoring...

Nuclear fallout

Putting off hard decisions, squandering valuable time that could be used to implement solutions, leaving an inexcusable burden on future...

The deadest deadbeat

What is Illinois state government worth? That is, what if you weighed all the state's assets against its liabilities? Companies do this...

• Illinois ranks at the bottom for state government net assets.

Listen to Quinn on scholarships

We'd like to take this moment to call for a round of applause — and a show of hands.

Reinventing CPS

"We can no longer afford to operate as we have in the past, and in this difficult economy we cannot ask taxpayers for more. We have to...

Look who's in school

In Los Angeles, new backpacks have been filled with freshly sharpened pencils, unmarred binders and inch-thick stacks of paper. In Atlanta,...

The Fed didn't blink

After all the political buck-passing in the wake of the U.S. government credit downgrade, how refreshing to hear grown-ups enter the...

Park somewhere else

Ald. Rey Colon, 35th, recently pushed an ordinance through the City Council that allows free parking on Logan Square's historic boulevards...

Another chance

Cook County's health system is running a projected $96 million revenue shortfall this year. Administrators should learn next week if they...

Fear, panic and leadership

It's an old truism that the stock market balances fear and greed. Lately, fear has come out on top.

Feeding the 7 billion

The human population will top 7 billion later this year, on its way to 9 billion in 2050.

'The Deficits Dozen'

Sunday was splendid for beach-goers and bikers. But it also brought nasty tail winds from the first credit downgrade in United States...

The stimulus we need

This should be the moment — a reprise of 1986 — when Democrats and Republicans join forces to pass ambitious tax reform.

Fear strikes out

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has shown he will stop at nothing to suppress the opposition that has arisen during the Arab Spring. But he...

Next year, send a check

By any measure, Lollapalooza is a behemoth. Last year, the music festival grossed about $20 million. It posted a new attendance record: 240,...

Flying Government Air

Want a small taste of how we got to a $14.3 trillion national debt?

Bad influence

Someone who drinks to excess and gets behind the wheel of a car can be prosecuted and punished for driving under the influence. Everyone...

Chicago Forward: Education

How about a Payback Control Board?

Gov. Pat Quinn is denying that politics played a role in the daughter of a politically powerful couple getting a six-figure position with...

Cheaters A disturbing pattern in education. Is it happening here?

"Across Atlanta Public Schools, staff worked feverishly in secret to transform testing failures into successes. Teachers and principals...

Amaze us, 'supercommittee'

There's cause for gloom as Congress and the president boot the hard decisions in their debt-ceiling-and-deficits deal to a so-called...

School's out

The state's 44 regional school superintendents aren't getting paid. In late June, Gov. Pat Quinn zeroed out $11.3 million in the state...

Don't lose your focus

"You mean to tell me that the success of the program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of (expletive) bond...

The cost of uncertainty

For a few minutes, anyway, America's political leaders got the applause they craved from the financial markets Monday morning.

Hold your applause …

Let's be sure to attach the word "tentative" to the debt ceiling deal that members of Congress will begin debating Monday — and then...

Let's play breast-feeding

First there was Chatty Cathy, the baby doll who said "I love you" (or one of 10 other phrases) when a child pulled the string on her neck....

For a dead guy, the bomber looks good

Halfway up a wee hill, the fuselage had landed in the backyards of Rosebank Crescent. Bob Edgar … counted 18 bodies in his own...

What others are saying

Liberals hoped that Obama would overturn conservative policies and launch a new era of government activism. Although Republicans routinely...

Greetings, Dr. Raju

Memo to: Dr. Ramanathan Raju, CEO of Cook County Health and Hospitals System

Convalescing with Castro

When Hugo Chavez's Twitter account went silent for 12 days in early June, the whole world knew something was up.

1,500 miles, looking for love

He was young, lean and, at 140 pounds, more agile than musclebound. He most likely had learned enough about girls' scents to find them...

Still failing some basics

Last spring, the new leaders at Chicago State University visited the Tribune editorial board to deliver a message: This school has had a lot...

Let there be lights

After the General Assembly approved legislation in May to build a better electricity network and cut red tape for ComEd and Ameren, two...

America's Jericho moment

In the Old Testament version, Joshua's Israelites marched around and around Jericho, blew their ram's horns, and shouted their battle cry....

• Keeping the pressure on

Death on the farm

Jade Garza and Hannah Kendall, of Sterling, Ill., were 14-year-old best friends whose Facebook page describes how they laughed together...

• Teens die after detasseling electrocution

Labor says: Cut here

Now this is the kind of labor-management dispute we love.

Keeping the pressure on

Neither of them wants to admit that he's at the whim of forces he can't control. But the two congressional leaders pushing rival plans to...

Resolve not

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress a variety of specific responsibilities, among them levying taxes, establishing post offices,...

Fill-in-the-blank extremism

Norway's homegrown terrorist is an admirer of the Unabomber and a student of the ways of Timothy McVeigh who nods to the work of Osama bin...

Lessons from Pooh

In the midst of this summer's blockbuster movie season, filmgoers are being bombarded by boy wizards, bone-crushing transformers, and...

Airport modesty

Airline security has required some concessions in privacy, but last year the stakes got higher. The Transportation Security Administration,...

What a debt deal means

There's going to be a day when you see sullen liberal and conservative members of Congress pretending to make nice at an Oval Office signing...

Medicaid folly

About one in five llinoisans gets health coverage through Medicaid. Do all those people actually live in Illinois? Do some of them earn...

The HALT Act

How bitterly partisan is Washington? Take a look at the Hinder the Administration's Legalization Temptation Act, the HALT Act.

Bachmann's headache

Migraine sufferers are all around us. Twelve percent of Americans — almost one in eight — are occasionally affected, and most of...

Fast & Furious: The blame game

You've probably heard about the ATF operation called Operation Fast and Furious. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives...

A new deal at O'Hare

The giant Westfield Group knows food courts. It knows shopping centers. It doesn't, however, know Richard M. Daley, at least not as well...

The end of 'Men'

If you are a man of a certain age — not young, not ancient — then you know there's not much on television devoted to your...

Bonus time!

Good news from the state capital.

Get this done

Sunday dawns in Washington with a chance that, by nightfall, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders will cut a grand deal to...

A Libya stalemate

The war that tugged the U.S. and its allies into Libya is in its fourth month. NATO warplanes have flown more than 11,500 sorties against...

Stop this train

The Obama administration has showered Illinois with about $1.6 billion for high-speed rail and other upgraded service, part of its vision...

Power outage: Libya war shows limits of War Powers Act

Under the War Powers Act, President Barack Obama had until Friday to get congressional authorization to continue U.S. military operations in...

Daley's decades

"… And as we enter this new season, it's time to leave behind old setbacks, disappointments and battles. Because in the campaign...

Obama gets in the game

At a press conference Feb. 15, President Barack Obama defended his reluctance to offer a long-range plan for curbing the federal debt. To do...

Obama's case for war

One of the main problems with the Obama administration's policy on Libya has been its confusing incoherence. Americans have been given...

Obama and Libya

For the Obama administration, the crisis in Libya represents more of a risk than an opportunity. Moammar Gadhafi has always been a tyrant,...

Ticketgate

By now you're probably familiar with the plight of Mark Geinosky, who got 24 bogus parking tickets in 14 months. The Tribune's What's Your...

• Jon Yates' "What's Your Problem?": Two years later, ticket case keeps ticking

Marital spat

Attorney General Eric Holder surprised many people, and provoked a few, when he said the administration will no longer fight in court to...

Tacking right

President Barack Obama had been readying himself for Tuesday night's State of the Union address since the Nov. 2 election, the electorate'...

Judicial arrogance

With startling arrogance and audaciously twisted reasoning, two appellate judges ignored more than 100 years of legal precedent, invented a...

Low blow

After watching a race between horses, dogs or Pinewood Derby cars, spectators don't ascribe the outcome to the superior character of the...

… for e-tailers, too

It's nostalgic to recall the early days of e-commerce, when forcing online retailers to collect sales tax would have threatened their...

Curb free rides …

Rod Blagojevich didn't do the math before decreeing that senior citizens should ride the buses and trains for free. His only calculation was...

Call the health vote

Republicans swept to control of the U.S. House in November with a bold promise that resonated with voters: "We are here because we heard the...

Just a Quinncidence

On Wednesday this lame-duck legislature quacks its last. Don't be astonished if, in coming months, you read exposes about exiting...

Thanks, Lois

Chicago Cultural Affairs Commissioner Lois Weisberg, the only remaining member of Mayor Richard M. Daley's original cabinet, announced...

Sounds of silence

Back when we were in fourth grade, Miss Luhman had a very effective method for controlling a class that grew too rowdy.

Speak up

In 2005, a judge deemed Seung-Hui Cho "an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness," and ordered him to undergo mental...

The Davis file

With all the talk of financial crises in Illinois governments, it would be easy to overlook the $1 million that Chicago Public Schools and...

Drop this lawsuit

Hard to imagine United Airlines and American Airlines filing a joint lawsuit against Chicago if their booster-in-chief weren't retiring in...

Mayor Chainsaw

Different times call for different mayors. Mediator, manager, uniter, developer, good cop, bad cop, salesman, visionary … in 21 years,...

Meet the landlord

All the bluster on Capitol Hill about punishing China for suppressing the value of its currency misses the bigger picture: We and the...

Lockdown, pay up

Here's something to digest with your big new Illinois income tax increase:

Tequila uprise?

Many Latinos have grown frustrated by the failure of Democrats and Republicans to craft a comprehensive reform of national immigration...

The power of a teacher

A few weeks ago, we asked readers to tell us about the one adult other than a parent who most profoundly affected their childhood. Not...

Chicago's next mayor

Beyond the challenges that face every U.S. metropolis — uneven schools, violent crime, job shortages and more — you already know...

What others are saying

We have a news media that is psychologically ill-informed but politically inflamed, so it naturally leans toward political explanations....

Freedom falters

This week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got a chilly reception when she told a conference of Arab leaders in Qatar of the urgent...

Snarl of the Tiger Mom

Abusive? Hypercompetitive? Dictatorial?

Shake, shake, shake

If Gov. Pat Quinn really wants to vacuum up all the money he possibly can for the state, he needs to take more careful aim.

Obama's challenge

Barack Obama showed a talent for political strategy in 2008, upending the favorite, Hillary Clinton, in the Democratic primaries and...

Bedbug U.

Good night, sleep tight. Try not to think about those bloodsucking little Cimex lectularius pests, coming soon to a mattress near...

In Illinois, bilingual learning for non-English speakers now starts in preschool

With his navy slacks and dress shirt still creased from his mother's iron, 4-year-old Edenzoe Diaz reported for his first day of preschool...

CPS report card shows many schools struggling

By Chicago Public Schools' own reckoning, about a quarter of its elementary schools and more than 40 percent of its high schools are...

Move it, Washington

Looking closely at your 401(k) has been painful lately, and it's going to get even worse.

Obama, Bush and terror

President Barack Obama took office 16 months ago with a clear anti-terror mission: Don't be Bush. Obama generally avoided the George W. Bush...

The education president

Rhode Island's Central Falls High School faces a world of problems. Not quite half of the freshmen class of 2005 went on to graduate last...