Joanne Barkan just published an insightful article about Chicago, in which she asks “Who Is Really Victimizing the Kids?”
One of the most startling facts that she reports is that the proportion of African-American teachers was 45% in 1995, when Mayor Richard Daley took control of the schools. Today it is 19%.
Can any of the multiple defenders of the “reformers” in Chicago explain the disappearance of black teachers in CPS? The Chicago Tribune editorial board? Mayor Emanuel? Penny Pritzker? Nick Kristof?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Can we get them to answer why what they want to do the public schools, is NOT what they want for their kids, first?
FIRE DUNCAN! Hire Ravitch!
This “19%” statistic is questionable. Earlier this week I spent a good 20 minutes googling trying to find the source of this statistic, but from all that I can tell the current official CPS data is that they 29% black teachers.
http://www.cps.edu/about_cps/at-a-glance/pages/stats_and_facts.aspx
The 19% seems to originate from the recent Reuters article, and could be faulty reporting.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-usa-chicago-schools-analysis-idUSBRE8890VS20120910
Here is a great discussion about the different statistics:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021315059
The only explanation that would seem to validate that 19% statistic is that the 29% includes non-union/charter teachers, while the 19% is just union teachers alone. Which would make sense because the 19% statistic in the Reuters article was provided by the CTU itself. Although they do not make this specification in the article, which makes me question this theory. I wish they could come out and clarify where the 19% comes from.
Other facts to keep in mind:
There are currently 21,320 teachers in Chicago. Mayor Emanuel fired 1,000 all at once, after two months in office. (Arne Duncan, former CEO of CPS, fired 1,300 teachers over a stretch of eight years.) 43% of teachers fired by Emanuel were black teachers, even though 29% of all Chicago teachers are black (according to the CPS website). There are currently 400,000 students in CPS. 42% of those students are black.
What % of charter teachers are black? Typically small number
Tomorrow is CONSTITUTION Day. I posted that on my facebook page and one parent in WI said, her child is learning Social Justice.
The public schools are crashing and burning because literacy is not the common goal.
Progressives killed the public schools. I wonder if anyone will actually try to save them.
The opening lines of the Constitution are as follows:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Social Justice is in no way antithetical to the Constitution.
You might be interested in learning that the first public kindergartens in the United States were founded by a progressive in the 1900s, Susan Blow. Without progressives, public schools wouldn’t even exist.
“Progressives killed the public schools.”
Say whaaaaattttt???? Please explain who these “progressives” are and how they “killed” the public schools.
The same demographic change of African-American to European teaching force has occurred in Washington, DC but in a shorter time frame. There has also been a very striking change in the makeup of the downtown office and administrative/Principal positions. I’m sure that old-time Washingtonians could or would have never have predicted such a change. In 1988, the number of white male Social Studies teachers could be counted on two hands. Today, that’s not the case. Meanwhile, the kids are no better off and continue to suffer through the teacher churn and administrative miss fires.
Same thing happening to teacher workforce in NYC under Klein.
Diane
Diane,
Loved that you mentioned Ms. Pritzker!!
I suspect that the drop in the percentage of black teachers has to do with which schools are targeted for closing. Since most of the schools are in high poverty areas that are largely black (and Latino), black teachers are disproportionately affected by school closures.