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Community activists and parents at Brian Piccolo Elementary Specialty School in West Humboldt Park ended an overnight campus sit-in Saturday staged to protest a vote scheduled Wednesday on whether to designate Piccolo a turnaround school. (Tribune)

Illinois' Supreme Court sided with Chicago Public Schools on Friday in a protracted legal battle with the Chicago Teachers Union over the fate of hundreds of teachers laid off in 2010. The court ruled 5-2 that, unlike other school districts throughout Illinois, Chicago's public school system does not have to take a candidate's qualifications or experience into consideration when filling a vacant teaching position. (Tribune)

Jim Warren, columnist for the soon-to-be-suspended Chicago News Cooperative, offers a wry take on the Noble Network of Charter School's fines for infractions system.

A white teacher who says he was disciplined for using the n-word in a “teachable moment” about the perils of racism with his sixth-grade class has filed a federal lawsuit, alleging his principal, who is black, and Chicago Public Schools violated his civil rights by suspending him without pay for five days. (Sun-Times)

IN THE STATE
Huntley Unit District 158 has received a $39.4 million grant to help pay off some of the district’s existing debts and offset portions of future construction costs. (Daily Herald)

IN THE NATION
A new superintendent Erroll Davis Jr. is working to heal Atlanta Public Schools, which had been scarred by a cheating scandal under the former chief.

An analysis of state, federal and local education funding shows that total school revenue has climbed in Missouri and Illinois in recent years at a rate that approaches or slightly exceeds inflation. In Missouri, spending rose to $9.3 billion in 2011, up from $8.9 billion in the 2008 fiscal year, just prior to the economic collapse. Illinois schools drew in $25.4 billion in state, local and federal aid in 2010, $1.8 billion higher than two years prior, though state revenue for schools has since declined. (Post-Dispatch)

On Jan. 1, the Missouri State School Board revoked the Kansas City public school district's accreditation. Now parents have a hard choice to make: leave or keep their children at a failed school? (NPR)

A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that New York City was allowed to prevent dozens of religious groups from holding services in the schools. (The New York Times)

Even though one-third of Illinois schools have been placed on financial watch lists by the state Board of Education, leading Democrats are moving closer to a plan that would shift some teacher retirement costs from the state to schools. (The New York Times)

A growing number of school systems in Georgia are converting into charter districts under a 2007 law that frees them from class size and teacher pay restrictions, among other state education rules. (The Augusta Chronicle)

Data suggest that D.C. public charter schools are pretty quick to lower the disciplinary hammer on their smallest students. Officials reported 434 “suspension incidences” at the Pre-K (76) Kindergarten (112) and first grade (246) at public charter schools in 2010-11. (The Washington Post)