Harvard Elementary School in Englewood was a teacher’s worst nightmare. Kids ran in and out of classrooms in the middle of class, started fights, and swore at faculty. Principals cycled through without making any impact. In 2007, less than a third of Harvard students passed the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT), putting the school in the bottom ranks of Illinois public schools.

Then everything changed. One Friday afternoon in March of 2007, children came home from Harvard bearing notes for their parents. The news was drastic: the school was going to be handed over to a nonprofit organization, the Academy for Urban School Leadership, to be turned around. All the adults at the school—everyone from teachers to janitors—would be replaced, and when the kids returned the following fall it would be to a newly renovated building with an entirely new staff. Read the rest of this entry »

True wealth lies in a healthy spirit and body. This truism seems to suggest that wealth is within everyone’s reach. In the United States, however, living a healthy lifestyle can seem like a luxury of the upper and upper-middle classes. Not only do the poor lack monetary wealth, they often do not have the same opportunities to eat as healthily and exercise as regularly as those with higher incomes. Although it may seem counterintuitive, the prevalence of obesity is significantly higher in poor communities than in affluent communities, and higher among African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans than Caucasians.

Chicago’s Englewood community could be described as a “food desert” due to its lack of grocery stores, particularly those that carry fresh produce. This term is usually applied to poor communities where junk food-stocking corner stores are the only source of groceries for miles. But a self-described “urban goddess, a hip hop head, an activist, and a Christian” have come up with a creative approach to a healthy food store hoping not only to eradicate the food desert, but to transform healthy living into an integral part of urban minority culture. Their project, the Graffiti and Grub market, opened on June 19 at 59th and Wentworth. Read the rest of this entry »

Seated in a circle eating fried chicken and fries, the girls at the Dreamcatcher Foundation are listening to their director, Brenda Myers-Powell, tell a story. Her voice is loud and becomes increasingly intense; her whole person conveys an energy that puts the room on edge. But close up, her eyes contrast with her loud energy; they’re gentle and soft, a bit sad even, as if they’re catching a glimpse of a painful scene from the past. Read the rest of this entry »

Education administrators in business suits are gathered, miniature complimentary bottles of San Pellegrino in hand. This is the “CPS Senior Staff Retreat,” and at the front of the Gleacher Center meeting room sits Ron Huberman, the newly-ordained CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, recently transferred by Mayor Daley from his position as the head of the Chicago Transit Authority. The meeting is nearly at an end, but first Huberman approaches the podium and declares his delight in introducing two final speakers, who turn out to be administrators from the CTA. As the woman at the podium begins to describe in-depth the methods of reducing gap times between city buses, I turn to look at the faces around me, searching for signs of incredulity or disbelief to match my own. Read the rest of this entry »

Though soil has been trucked in and piled thick on top of the concrete, cracked pavement still emerges at the edges of this empty lot in Englewood. Adjacent residential streets are scattered with discarded couches, and those couches are scattered with rusty springs and mildew stains. A couple of portable trailers nestle up to three hoophouses—that’s “unheated greenhouses” to those of us without green thumbs—half full of beautiful red kale, dying tomato plants and neat rows of spinach. From a fourth, open patch of land springs forth lettuce. Low-lying strawberry plants run down the center of the lot. This is the Wood Street Urban Farm, an organic farm on a formerly abandoned lot in the middle of Englewood. Since its owners bought the land from the city for $1 in 2006, it has been the only year-round functioning farm in Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »

A new appetite is growing in Englewood. And at Sikia, the appetite only gets bigger with every dish served. As the restaurant outlet of the Washburne Culinary Institute of Kennedy-King College, Sikia gives its culinary students the opportunity to practice their skills in a real restaurant setting, creating a high-end dining experience on the South Side. Englewood, too often characterized by its high crime levels, is now home to the newly rebuilt Kennedy-King College, where students and recent WCI graduates are bringing a fresh taste to the area. Read the rest of this entry »