Time: 9:30am-11:00am (Central Time)
Location: Equip for Equality, 20 N. Michigan, Suite 300, Chicago, IL 60602​
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Topic and Speaker:
The focus of the meeting will be Literacy and Students with Disabilities. There are over 50,000 students with disabilities in Chicago. Only 15% of Chicago fourth grade students with disabilities perform at or above a basic level in reading as compared to 64% of non-disabled students. Other cities have effectively chipped away at the reading achievement gap, while in Chicago it only widens. Students with poor reading skills are more likely to drop out of school, be unemployed, and be the victim or perpetrator of a crime involving violence. Because 87% of students with disabilities in Chicago are low-income and 90% are children of color, these subgroups are especially vulnerable to the negative life outcomes associated with poor literacy attainment.
Jackie Ross is an Equal Justice Fellow at Equip for Equality, sponsored by Discover and Mayer Brown. Jackie’s fellowship is dedicated to helping students with disabilities in Chicago achieve literacy. At the Consortium meeting, Jackie will provide an overview of her project, the root causes of the literacy epidemic in Chicago, the legal tools to target them, and recent litigation aimed at defining literacy as a fundamental right and addressing wide scale school district failures to support student achievement.
CLE Credit:
This meeting is eligible for 1.5 hours of Continuing Legal Education Credit.
Accommodations:
Next Consortium Meetings:
December 5, 2018
