MEDIA ALERT: TUESDAY FORUM
PARENTS DEMAND HALT TO CHARTER EXPANSION-
Community Organizations across Chicago Urge CPS to Vote Against Proposed Charter Expansion and Refocus on Protection/Funding of Neighborhood Schools
What: Following the closure of 50 neighborhood schools due to budget and a so-called “underutilization crisis,” parents and community members are furious at the proposal for the creation of 21 new charter schools, which will come up for vote at the School Board on January 22nd – bringing the total numbers of potential new CPS charter schools to 31 in the next two years.
Held in the Brighton Park community, this public forum will bring together community groups, area professors, parents and students from around the city to shed light on the facts surrounding rapid charter proliferation and the harm it is causing to district schools. The forum will address action steps to halt this expansion.
Date: Tuesday, January 14
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Shields Middle School, 2611 W. 48th Street
Why: Despite tremendous CPS budget cuts, a one billion dollar deficit and the recent closing of 50 neighborhood schools, the Board is planning to vote to open up to 31 new charter schools in the next two years. Parents and community members are outraged as neighborhood schools continue to receive funding cuts that have forced elimination of critical teaching and support positions as well as fundamental education programming.
Topics will include:
· Charter impact on special education
· Financing issues and lack of transparency with charter budgets
· Academic performance of charters vs. neighborhood schools
Speakers and supporters to include:
· Students who have been counseled out of charters will offer testimony.
· Researchers:
· Members from the following organizations will be present: Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Albany Park Neighborhood Council, Blocks Together, Raise Your Hand, Parents4Teachers, Teachers for Social Justice,
Contact: If you plan to attend this event or have any questions, please contact Wendy Katten at 773-704-0336, wkatten@yahoo.com.
Amy Smolensky
amysmolensky@comcast.net
312-485-0053
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Clueless in Chicago….parents are not rallying against charters, its Chicago’s unions…the same folks who prevent the good people of
the Windy city to NOT have a Walmart to shop in. City was better
run when Capone ruled.
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Wrong on all counts, aj.
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Clueless ajbruno14, Chicago is very much ruled by Capone gangster types today. The union-busting mayor Daley got you your Walmarts, along with a whole slew of workers who are not paid a living wage. Rahm is just as ruthless and destined to soon be voted out of office by citizens who’ve had enough of machine politicians.
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You are the clueless one, aj. Wendy Katten–parent leader of the parent group Raise Your Hand. First sentence: “Community organizations across Chicago…” meaning…community organizations across Chicago: Rogers Park Parents Network, KOCO (Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization), P.U.R.E. (Parents United for Responsible Education). Yes, PARENTS rallying against charters, aj.
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You do understand Walmart is repsonsible of siphoning off hundreds of millions of federal aid to its poverty workers and about half of the current account deficit in China. How many hundreds of thousands of jobs can one company destroy. The icing on the cake is Walmart’s low tax yield means more money to destroy public education and other civic functions through their hick foundation.
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Bruno, that’s Italian right?
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A very uncomfortable question Sandy.
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Just returned from the meeting. The speakers were great: Charter expenditures v. traditional public school (TPS) expendditures; racial inequities in charter schools; and inequities among students with exceptionalities in charter v. TPS. Action steps such as call-ins and legislator contacts. All wonderful ideas that were done on behalf of keeping the 50 schools open. We need something new that does not require data or rational actions. We need to boycott the schools. Keep our children home on Wednesday, Jan. 22, so that it hits Chicago in the pocket. One day out of testing preparation won’t make that much difference to children’s learning, but a big difference in state aid.. It was amazing that one presenter put up the faces and names of the UNO schemers, but failed to put up the names and faces of our offical appointed Chicago Board of Education, also corporate supporters. Let’s find a way to stop this. The CPS board will approve the new charters just like they did the school closings, if they don’t have any real opposition that they can feel.
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Thanks for the report, educatorwhome. Also–while you’re at it–why don’t you parents boycott the actual TESTS (ISATs)? THIS should be the year to STOP all this Pear$on testing, to STOP the flow of money that is going to Pear$on & away from our Chicago Public Schools. Indeed, a huge portion of any budget deficit could be solved by KEEPING the money in CPS for the students, and not year after year wasting the budget by sending the big $$$$ to Pear$on for tests & test prep materials.
Go to the United Opt Out website & click on Illinois to see the rules and procedures for opting out NOW!!
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Is there an association of Local School Councils (LSCs)? If not, there really should be so organize one and unite. Since LSCs are the only elected education officials (besides the tyrannical mayor who will soon be voted out), an alliance of LSCs could publish no-confidence votes regarding the mayor, his appointed puppet school board and their pro-corporate “reform” policies. etc., including in the Reader.
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Yet again, the forces of disaster capitalism have reaped their benefit on the backs of working people and students, and in blatant contradiction of what works in education. “Code words like “underutilization” are used as justification for the slow but orderly march of privatization into the territory of the public school system.” I wrote those words (in another forum) in June, as a jaded prediction. I was sincerely hoping I wasn’t correct.
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