Nearly 9,000 new migrant students enrolled in Chicago Public Schools last school year; The influx, in part, helped drive CPS’s first increase in enrollment since 2011.When the district takes its official enrollment count on the 20th day of school, the public will get a better understanding of how many English learners are in CPS.

This year, district leaders pushed the usual start of the school year back by a week to help the city “accommodate an estimated influx of 75,000 visitors” and “[allow] time for students to attend, volunteer, and participate in the civic process of hosting the Convention.” Teachers are still expected to report to work for professional development days, and the Chicago Teachers Union is busing teachers to Soldier Field Thursday night to watch Harris’ acceptance speech on the big screen.

Police Supt. Larry Snelling said there were between 55 and 60 arrests, including three journalists, during the pro-Palestinian demonstration. There were only two minor significant injuries, a testament, he said, to his officers’ restraint and readiness.” Snelling also said he was abhorred by the “vicious, nasty sexually explicit things” some demonstrators yelled at female officers.

“This is a room full of powerful leaders, elected leaders, labor leaders, civic leaders, clergy,” Johnson said. “I can tell you when I look in this room today, the complexion and the direction of this room is a lot different than in 2016, and that’s a good thing.”

“I know there are local pressures, and they’re going to say, ‘Oh, we’re bidding on 2028, already,’ but it has happened. It hasn’t happened in recent history,” said Pritzker. “Chicago’s a great city to have a convention. I mean, want to bring every convention I possibly can to the city of Chicago.”

“Progressive policies have failed Chicago, and the experience is repeated in major cities across the nation. New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and San Francisco all, to one extent or another, have experimented with anti-policing as well as pro-teachers union policies, and the results have been the same: more crime, more public disorder, worse schools, a declining tax base, and dying cores.”

Chicago has struggled to recover from the pandemic, which hollowed out America’s downtowns. Vacancy rates in the central business district have set records quarter after quarter, reaching 23.1 percent in the three months through June, according to Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.

Will Johnson, of The Harris Poll: “The mayor has been pushing what he proudly calls a progressive agenda. What that broadly means is raising taxes and fees to be able to spend more on housing and social services for the city’s marginalized population. The voting population, however, isn’t progressive. Asked in our polls to describe their political ideology, 50 percent of our Chicago sample call themselves moderate, 34 percent liberal and 16 percent conservative.”

“In the 1950s, it was known as ‘the city that works,’ with public services that were the envy of the nation. A new slogan for Chicago today, however, might be ‘the city that people leave.’ The four horsemen of urban apocalypse — poverty, high crime rates, oppressive taxation, and horrible public schools — are driving an exodus from the city.”

“Three critical actions must be taken: Raise funds to make up for the contribution shortfall, improve future investment returns and secure an equitable share of the state’s teacher retirement contributions.”

Protests on the second night of the Democratic National Convention ended in arrests after a pro-Palestinian group with militant leanings led several hundred demonstrators on an improvised path through the streets of downtown Chicago after police tried to block them.

The chaotic scene developed out of a protest by a group known as Behind Enemy Lines, aiming to demonstrate against the war in Gaza. The group is not affiliated with the organizers of the much larger, and mostly peaceful, protest that took to the streets Monday near the United Center.

Around 7:30 p.m. as the protest grew more heated, protesters came face-to-face with officers, telling them, “Move! Move!” The officers in riot helmets did not move. Protesters lit what appeared to be a bundle of American flags on fire after dousing them in some kind of accelerant.

“There is a crushing irony in Chicago given the decision in 1978 to allow Nazis to march in nearby Skokie, but Jews could not march in Chicago in 2024.”