WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

Changing the culture of place is not an easy assignment. At Manley Career Academy High School on Chicago's poverty-racked West Side, a lot of hard work is happening in Room 113, known as the Peace Room.Student Sharell Jones is here because she wants to explode."

Tuition could go up again for students at the University of Illinois. Starting this fall, students at the U of I could pay an extra 6.9 percent on their tuition. That's if the Board of Trustees vote in favor of the increase.If approved, new in-state students at the Urbana-Champaign campus

Gwendolyn DuBose Rogers was a student at Talladega College in Birmingham, Alabama, in the late 1940s. That’s where she met Professor Lore Rasmussen.Rasmussen fled Germany for the U.S. in 1938.

Shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, laws were passed barring Jews from working in the public sector. That meant many of the most important minds were tossed out of their jobs at major universities.

When Maria Hernandez read in the newspaper Monday that her daughter’s school could be closed, she had one thought:“Here we go again,” Hernandez said.Hernandez fought a plan to “phase out” her daughter’s West Town school two years ago— and lost.

Federal officials say Illinois will get more than $22 million for low achieving schools through a school improvement program.