This year Chicago Public Schools announced plans to close, turnaround or phase out over 15 schools. If the latest round is approved, Chicago will have shut down or turned around more than 100 schools over the last decade. In most cases, the buildings remain schools; but some could face the wrecking ball. WBEZ blogger Lee Bey hopes once the final bell rings, those cultural gems among Chicago’s historic schools will be salvaged. That is the subject of one of his recent posts on his WBEZ blog. Also found on WBEZ’s website, a map that plots out school closings and turnarounds over the last decade in Chicago created by WBEZ’s web team, Catalyst Chicago’s Sarah Karp and WBEZ’s education reporter Linda Lutton. To get the lay of the land and the buildings, Eight Forty-Eight spoke with Lee Bey and Linda Lutton.

Music Button: Sao Paulo Underground, “Just Lovin’”, from the album Tres Cabecas Loucuras, (Cuneiform)