Chicago Public Schools voted to close down dozens of public schools. As many as 40,000 children are losing their schools, many of who are children with disabilities. The vast majority of the children are African American.
Will the President and Secretary of Education speak out against this willful destruction of public schools and communities?
This is a dire situation. It is time for our leaders to defend children, communities, and schools.
There are questions of equity here that should be investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
There is no bright side to this ugly decision.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Many of the schools that are being closed around the country have a high number of English language learners.
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And rein in their buddy, Rahm-a-long-a-Ding-Dong? Highly unlikely!
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No
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Of course there’ll be no condemnation. Rahm was Obama’s Chief of Staff, so the President didn’t HAVE to be nasty. Any crisitcism of these decisions would reflect badly on Duncan’s own record. IF there’s a statement, it’ll be something to the effect of, “The Mayor had to make some tough decisions…”
Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 18:06:09 +0000 To: mkaufman27@msn.com
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So right..Just a bunch of Political Mumbo Jumbo.
Disgusted with the entire country’s Race to Nowhere!!!
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I suggest to the people of Chicago: RECALL EMANUEL NOW!!!
He says he’s “willing to take the political heat”: put him to the test. I believe he will carbonize.
If you do it quickly, you might be able to reinstate these schools before September. Or … perhaps the teachers from these schools will band together as a group and hold school anyway. What would it be like if everyone just said “no” to these schools. ADA==0. CPS would hear.
What does it take to get us-citizens to rise up and just say “no” to this privatization-madness? Is this enough? It should be….
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I don’t believe Chicago has a recall mechanism.
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Oh my … just like the parent trigger in California – no recourse if you discover you’ve made a mistake: very, very bad idea. There’s no way to impeach or recall or censure or in some way at least register ‘no confidence’??? Wow….
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Obama and Duncan are behind this. Emmanuel needs to be recalled and an elected board if education for the Chicago Public Schools. At LAUSD we just eliminated the big money from buying our board and you can also. That is what needs to happen across the U.S. If you are not with us you are against us and then you must go now. We also just beat Measure J for $90 billion without much money and we just got a train stop at Leimert Park on the Crenshaw Corridor MTA project yesterday with the celebration today. It can be done against the big power if you try and if there is a city that is trying now it is Chicago and we must all support them as you did Monica Ratliff for Board Member of LAUSD. We must all work together as the other side is doing just that for their attempt at conquest.
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Can we please stop pleading to President Obama and Arnie Duncan!
These closings and manic testing initiatives are THEIR IDEAS.
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You said it Galton. This is their playbook. They want this. They have not stepped in and will not do so. Although, Obama does tend to switch positions if it starts looking bad enough for him.
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I agree. They want this. They see what is happening as signs of their success. Having never had the same thing happen to them, they will never know. The more we plead…the more they see teachers as T.H.E. obstacle to their dream come true.
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Yes, exactly, Galton. I have been saying this repeatedly, on this blog and elsewhere.
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FOIA shows just how badly CPS and the mayor lied to Chicago. http://ilraiseyourhand.org/content/foia-shows-cps-board-members-had-no-financial-data-savings-shutter-50-public-schools
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It’s worse than that: http://www.scribd.com/doc/106337306/THE-CHICAGO-PUBLIC-SCHOOLS-ALLERGIC-TO-ACTIVISM
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Listening to the speech delivered by POTUS yesterday, I was moved with emotion. Then I remembered that he actively supports the policies of Duncan and crew. He is, perhaps, a better actor than even Ronald Reagan.
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Agree! Plus people don’t like to be called racist. This is a perfect set-up.
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Oh come now. Reagan actually cared about the country and its people.
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That’s hilarious. Good one!
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I will be happy to see “DUNCAN OUT THE DOOR”!!
I was an Obama supporter but he has made the biggest mess.
We need someone in office to clean it up and listen..but who??
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You had your chance, but didn’t look where you were leaping. A lot harder to rebuild after the destruction. Join the Tea Party.
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I am a little surpised by the question. Duncan said it was his goal to close as many schools as possible. School closures are an Obama Administration policy. The President needs to DUMP DUNCAN and try to start anew.
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You bought him. How is that hopey and changey thing working for you?
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“There are questions of equity here that should be investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.” Disparate Impact? The Thomas Perez theory of racial discrimination? Oh, puhleeeze.
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Might be time to find out for sure if there is a recall mechanism in Chicago.
Can an injunction be filed to halt or reverse the closings?
Oh, found this – a Facebook page for “Occupy Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel”: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Chicagos-Mayor-Rahm-Emanuel/224017814326215 The more the merrier!
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No Harlan…serious violations of ADA, IDEA and FAEP…Legislation which puts special needs kids in public school classrooms so they experience and live incusion and normal social-emotional expectations and interaction with peers. With the mainstream shrinking and displaced, special needs kids are excluded, underserved and pushed aside..isolated…hidden away to fall further behind and out of place. Civil Rights for the disabled began with PARC decision in 1972…and I believe will again be enforced via the courts rulings. Federal courts. The gross violations of special ed children’s classrooms today will become an entire generation of dependant non-participating adults in the ten years. This is no small matter. The legitimate complaints regarding the denial of ‘appropriate’ education services. There is big federal money allocated to special education…and it is being misused and channeled to other pockets. This will result in dozens, if not hundreds and thousands of Compensatory Education decisions…paybacks to disabled individuals for opportunity denied…and handicaps created. It will break the backs of the corporate privatizers…and then some.
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Sounds reasonable, JoJoFox. What about the entire generation of dependent non-participating adults who don’t have any disabilities but have been created by the public education communitarians? And it’s ok to kill a kid by aborting him/her, when s/he’s most vulnerable, but not ok to discard the disabled once born? Is that your position, JoJo: abortion on demand? If so, don’t you see the inconsistency of the claim that one “cares.” Join the Tea Party.
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keep posting Harlan… you are a great advertisement for why rational thinking people with a conscience are not a part of the Tea Party crowd.
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I hope I don’t damage the Tea Party by my posts. I can tell that YOU don’t see the reason in my post, but, of course, you wouldn’t want to expose your own lack of reason by any public debate or discourse.
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Not that I like the idea, but vouchers will avoid the legal consequences you outline.
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Why would that be HU? Because a private school can exclude anyone they want for whatever reasons they want.
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Exactly.
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I’m taking this as a rhetorical question, knowing that they are all in this together.
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Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
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Schools Closing..Bridges Falling…Private Emails Compromised…Testing/Testing/Testing…What a big mess someone on the Hill has made!
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YOU made it, by automatically repudiating Romney and the Tea Party. You break it; you buy it.
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Of course not. President Obama is no friend to public education. There I’ve said it. I’m tired of my unions and Dems trying to tell me otherwise. And if anyone is going to post that Romney would have been no better, save your energy. If that’s the BEST you can say about the president, don’t you realize that then it’s a DAMNING criticism?
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Love it, Laura Gonzalez. That is, in fact, Diane Ravitch’s position. Soooooooo short signted. Until Democrats are no longer in the pocket of the Chicago politicians, disasters, not just in public education, but in other public sectors such as defense, the environment, energy, JOBS (almost forgot them), and healthcare will continue and expand. It’s hard for liberals to even think that the left is just wrong, and it’s not a matter of mere free floating opinion, but a matter of emerging facts. Oh, I forgot the debt too. As long as Democrats cry “Never, never, never cut—anything,” unified action to preserve the credibility of the country as a whole won’t be taken. To put it bluntly, until Democrats join the Tea Party movement, times will be tough.
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So true, Obama is no friend to public education, for all we know, he might be against it. If actions speak louder than words, the first biracial President is presiding over the biggest destruction of public education in history. This is a national issue happening in his home state in the largest city in his home state and he doesn’t even acknowlege this. I think its time we who supported this President, accept that we were hookwinked into thinking he supported public education. He doesn’t. As for Rahm, he shouldn’t worry about advancing to any other public office, people in Chicago, Illinois and the nation know what he is. An opportunist, a racist, a spineless politician with no concern for any neighborhood or community, Just the almighty dollar. As for Obama, dido.
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At last the bitter truth is coming home to some of you.
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I honestly don’t see where President Obama or Secretary Duncan will say a word. Unfortunately what we’re seeing around the country in terms of rapid expansion of charters and massive school closures was incubated in Chicago, under Arne Duncan and Mayor Daley,under Renaissance 2010. When President Obama was elected the first time, he selected Arne Duncan to be his Education Secretary and implemented Race to the Top, which is Renaissance 2010 on steroids. School districts were financially rewarded for expanding charters, and over $250 million was set aside for school turnarounds, and the money went to political insiders that probably helped the President draft his education platform for the 2008 election. I remember Arne Duncan being quoted as saying there was nothing he could do to stop Chicago school closures.
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Diane, not only are there questions of equity that should be investigated by the DOJ and DOE, but questions regarding whether or not the Board of Education fully exercised their fiduciary duties of care and loyalty to Chicago’s citizens should be explored. There are too many articles to count that suggest that they made their decisions based on a pre-determined conclusion, and incomplete and inaccurate financial, utilization and enrollment data. The Board persisted in massive school closings even after the inaccuracies were brought to their attention. Plus, when you look at some of the relationships among some of the board members, reform groups, investors and corporations and other advocacy groups, you see apparent conflicts of interest and wonder if the members were acting independently, or at the behest of the Mayor, who is beholden to special interests, most of which are corporate.
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Is this still a question given the facts: http://www.scribd.com/doc/106337306/THE-CHICAGO-PUBLIC-SCHOOLS-ALLERGIC-TO-ACTIVISM
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???
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I agree. These closings are only happening in urban districts. The No Child Left Behind is responsible for the closing of urban public schools. The government is tired of putting money into urban schools, so now they are depending on corporations to manage the students and profit from the students. Failing schools and failing standardized tests scores are the excuses they are using to close urban public schools. The real truth is urban cities are poor and predominately Hispanic and black, so who cares. I am praying that President Obama and Secretary Duncan completely stops the NCLB, gives money to urban public schools, support students, tax payers, teachers and the union.
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I agree. These closings are only happening in urban districts. The No Child Left Behind is responsible for the closing of urban public schools. The government is tired of putting money into urban schools, so now they are depending on corporations to manage the students and profit from the students. Failing schools and failing standardized tests scores are the excuses they are using to close urban public schools. The real truth is urban cities are poor and predominately Hispanic and black, so who cares. I am praying that President Obama and Secretary Duncan completely stops the NCLB, gives money to urban public schools, supports students, tax payers, teachers and the union.
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This is about rich people and corporations making money off of poor Black and Hispanic children. They come into the urban community offering the parents free internet service, laptops, etc. These people come into the urban community because they know the people in the suburbs won’t allow these people or corporations to use their kids for profit. This is about the lack of a sound tax base. This is about urban parents accepting the fact they must discipline their children, make sure they come to school feed, prepared and willing to learn. The urban parents should be helping their child every night with their homework. That means they have to be home for their child. This is about corporations wanting to stop unions. These corporations want to take benefits and pensions away from middle class workers so they can have more money. This is about teachers who should have read years ago the NCLB law and acted against it then. It clearly informed us of the government goals to close down public schools and open up charter schools. And finally this is about our government who needs to acknowledge the public schools were doing fine before the NCLB law and all of this ridiculous testing. They need to completely abolish the NCLB law, stop competing with foreign countries, stop using testing as the only criterion for schools, use more project based learning, stop taking money from urban public schools, stop putting charters schools in only urban areas. And stop using tests to close urban schools and stop calling urban schools failing schools. They are only called failing because Black and Hispanic children attend these schools.
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