The Chicago Tribune obtained a copy of a secret document describing the plan of Chicago Public Schools to close 95 schools, mostly in minority neighborhoods. The plan was dated September 10.
This represents a dramatic elimination of public schools in Chicago.
The city says it will slow down charter growth, at least this year, but there can be little doubt that the school closings will create a growing pool of displaced students for Chicago’s growing charter sector.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Displacing these students is step one. Forcibly distributing them to privately run for-profit schools will be next. Wealthy students will continue to get “the education they can afford” in the schools of their choice, others will be put on the factory path that is being designed for them. This is a continuation of the push to turn people into data that can be manipulated and invested in: making money for the data masters and collectors, exploiting the humans that have been turned into manipulated data points. Please help oppose the Rhee/Murdoch/Klein/Gates…wave of using technology and standardized testing to separate us from each other. We need to USE technology to keep us connected to each other and informed.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/cease-harmful-public-education-policies-relying-standardized-testing/w8ZrZwVT
Very well voiced. I agree entirely – I just hope that the UK where I live avoid this path. It seems inevitable when education becomes centrally controlled via curricula and testing.
That’s awful. And I wonder if this is going to start happening in other states as well…? Everyone has a right to and deserves and education. Some of our greatest people came from poor families.
Comment from Ed Shyster blog…reposting: See, register and sign. Then spread the word and get others to sign. This petition was meant to get support for a halt to the industry driven over-reliance on standardized testing as achievement measures
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/cease-harmful-public-education-policies-relying-standardized-testing/w8ZrZwVT
Dallas ISD closed 11 schools last year, also generally in Black neighborhoods. Part of the crisis is the disfunction of separate middle schools. Dallas ISD now looses almost as high a percentage of students between the 5th and 6th grade, probably because of the negative reputation of middle schools, as between 9th and 10th grade. We need to move back to K-8 schools. That would focus more attention on the local public school and eliminate many of the issues now present in middle schools. Urban middle schools are especially distructive.
I could not open the link. 95 schools must be a large percentage of the schools in Chicago. Sounds to me like they’re trying to bust the CTU using a new approach.
The link works for me. It is about 15% of all schools in Chicago. The charter schools, with only a few exceptions, are non-union. So it is reasonable to see this as a way to shrink the union by displacing its members. By the way, over the past 15 years, due in part to school closings in black neighborhoods, the proportion of African American teachers has declined in Chicago from 45% of the teaching staff to 19%.
I think my computer is having issues again. I smell an antiunion rat here, but of course in their twisted way, this is all “for the kids”.
Google the report by WBEZ’s Linda Lutton called, “Independence of independent schools commission questioned.” Useful comments, too.
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
It would be revealing to have a senate hearing on the privatization of America’s schools. Is there any mechanism that even permits returning schools back to public, community oversight once they become charters? Ask your senator now.
Steve I think you’re on to something. Where are the lawsuits from PTA’s/parents?
Very sad, awful, dishonest, and most of all dangerous. These people are bad.
Having taught in the CPS, I know that it has been a matter of political games for several years. Unfortunately, it is the children that have lost as a result of these actions. I am, though, more optimistic because Karen Lewis and the CTU along with community activists and parents are more involved than in the past.
Emmanuel has proven over and over again that he cannot be trusted for anything. Shame on Chicago if he gets elected again. You have a union and union leader who is proven to be “For Real.” Now the question is will the superintendent actually do what she says or is it “The Same Old Story?” Their math is out of control and they do not factor in the other factors in real numbers of the true “all said and done” costs or, more importantly, the human costs. CPS administrators have blown away money at that district like LAUSD does and that is not a compliment. Is it any wonder that our children are having trouble when it starts at the top and they are supposed to be the leaders. Why do the worst go to the top now?
Chicago residents and parents and especially students it is up to you as it is up to us here in LAUSD. Students, I want you to think about doing what a student here in California thought up with his high school pals. Their idea is to have students have real imput in real time to the top. He wants students statewide, not just districtwide, to organize study situations and problems and have direct input to the top of the state. Here that would be the California State Board of Education. There is presently one student member on the State Board of Education. However, the students only meet once a year. Students know more about what interests them, outside of core subject, than most adults. Many adults, especially the higher up, have their personal fianancial, career, and power, or empire, so to speak, in front of their job description which is to get the most for the youth. This is why the California Title 1 Parent Organization is going to change its name to the California Title 1 Parent Organization. This organization has a $2.5 billion dollar lawsuit against LAUSD on Title 1 in both Federal and Superior Court in California. We must use any and all legal means available to restore “Real Public Education.”