As I write, community activists in Chicago are demanding that Mayor Emanuel allow Dyett High School to remain open.
The local community is fighting for the school. They want it to be a school dedicated to global leadership and green technology. Only 13 students remain in the school. They remain as a symbol that the community will not give up. They will not abandon a high school that they cherish. They do not want it to be closed.
Mike Klonsky gives some background here.
Please call the mayor’s office. Tell them to restore Dyett High School as a treasure that belongs to the community, not as a place to be shuttered by the mayor.
Jitu Brown of Journey for Justice–and a new member of the board of the Network for Public Education–sent this appeal today:
Brothers and Sisters,
You may know that the Bronzeville community has waged a protracted battle for saving Dyett High School on the south side of Chicago. Students, parents and community residents are rallying at city hall at 4pm CST today, demanding support for the Dyett 13 (the remaining students who are taking art, physical ed as online classes) and support for Dyett to stay open as global leadership and green technology high school (the community’s plan). We have been disrespected, under served and ignored so today…we are taking arrests and we need your support. Starting at 3pm CST, please call Mayor Rahm Emanuel office at (312)744-5000 and Deputy Mayor Ken Bennett at (312)399-5370 and tell him this:
1. Shame on you. Parents and community should not have to go through this to have voice in their PUBLIC schools.
2. Get resources like a gym teacher and ACT prep to Dyett students NOW.
3. CPS sabotaged Dyett hs. Support the community plan for Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology H.S. NOW! We want a signed commitment from the Mayor, Barbara Byrd Bennett and David Vitale to support our planning and implementation process. NOW!
4. Dyett community must be treated with dignity and respect. If they are arrested, do not harm them! The nation is watching!
Go to twitter and Facebook today with #Dyett13 and #SaveDyettHS. Let @RahmEmanuel know that the world is watching.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dyett High School is named after Walter Henri Dyett, who taught for decades on the South Side of Chicago, primarily at Du Sable High School. Du Sable was closed under the Duncan regime.
Walter Dyett taught, among innumerable others, Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, John Gilmore, Dorothy Donegan, Pat Patrick, Joseph Jarman, Johnny Hartman, Bo Diddley and Redd Foxx.
Richard Davis, Julian Priester, Fred Hopkins, Johnny Griffin, Clifford Jordan, Gene Ammons, Leroy Jenkins… the man’s legacy as an educator is stunning, and shows the power of public school arts programs, and what they’ve contributed to this country and the world.
That Emanuel would so casually consider closing a school named after a teacher who had an incalculable effect on nurturing the talents of some of the greatest musicians this country has ever produced, after closing his alma mater, shows that we need new words to express the social and cultural depravity of the so-called reformers.
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That is one heck of a list.
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Yes, talk about a Celestial Orchestra emanating from just one school and one teacher!
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It’s obvious that Rahm Emanuel is a dictator by definition and that he doesn’t respect or follow the democratic process where the people are involved in decision making.
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A high school with only 13 students would be very very small even for my state.
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It’s a school near the end of being phased out, so the low enrollment number needs to be viewed in that context.
However, Chicago has seen an astounding net loss of 200,000+ African Americans in the last dozen or so years. Keeping every single public school open and/or unconsolidates in the face of such sweeping change is a tall expectation.
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Isn’t’ it odd that as Chicago underfunds its public schools and opens well-resourced charter schools, backed by millionaires, the public schools are losing enrollment? what a coincidence!
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Tim,
I agree that the low number is a school being phased out and the enrollment of 13 should be viewed in that context. Even at ten times that number this would be a small school that is likely to be unable to provide a well rounded curriculum. There are schools with around 130 students and even smaller in my state, but they are typically the only high school in a sparsely populated county, not schools in the middle of a densely populated urban area.
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The black exodus from Chicago began long before Illinois passed its charter school law, well back into the late 70s and early 80s.
But you’re right: I can’t prove that it was bitter, brutal hypersegregation, aided and abetted by the district model, that led people to leave. They may have learned about Ray Budde and decided to get out while the getting was good.
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Tim,
The charters were opened to lure students to leave the public schools. This is true wherever charters open. Charters create a dual school system. One that is free of troublesome students who have disabilities and don’t speak English or who are below grade level; and another that takes everyone. We are going backwards to the days before the Brown decision, with all deliberate speed.
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I can see how the temptation of a charter school is easy to resist if your student attends a wealthy public school like PS321, but for those families unable to buy their way into tha catchment area of those elite schools with few ELL students, a charter school might well appear to be the best option.
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TE,
The most common reason there are elite schools is because of the demographics/socioeconomic of the student population. Take the students from a high performing school and swap them with the students from a low-performing school, but leave the teachers in place.
What do you think will happen? The answer is simple: the scores go up in the low performing school and the scores will go down in the high performing school.
Scores don’t come from buildings and teachers. Scores come from children. The children are the ones who read or don’t read, and children are the ones who study or don’t study.
If a large ratio of at-risk children—for instance, kids with learning disabilities, kids who don’t speak English, kids who live in poverty, kids who belong to street gangs—are bussed to a high-performing school—where 80-percent or more of the children come from homes where the parents are college graduates and avid readers—and a ratio of less than 5-percent of at risk children skyrockets to 50-percent or higher, that high performing school will quickly lose its elite status, and that is guaranteed!
In fact, I think it would be a safe bet that there would soon be an exodus of teachers from that former high performing school, and parents might start selling homes and relocating.
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Lloyd,
This, of course, depends on what one means be elite schools. If you mean schools filled with the children of relatively wealthy students, than clearly SES segregation plays a role. SES segregation is reinforced by geographic admission systems. I think it likely that the teachers at one school are not greatly different from teachers at another school.
If what you mean by an elite school is one with high performing students like Stuyvensat or Thomas Jefferson, geography plays less of a role. I do think that, given the curriculum in qualified admission high schools, the faculty is not interchangeable.
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TE,
The curriculum is there because of the higher performing students and parents who are involved and also demanding. The curriculum did not make a school elite and/or high performing. The students did that. High performing students leads to more choices and challenging curriculum.
Rigorous and demanding curriculum will not motivate, for instance, at-risk children, children who live in poverty and children with learning disabilities to elevate themselves to be equal to the children who come from wealthier homes that have more educated parents.
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Lloyd,
That is all correct and perfectly consistent with my posts.
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Why do you think that firing public school teachers, closing public schools and replacing them with a rigorous CCSS and pressurized grit in prison-style Charter schools forced on at risk children who live in poverty—-after the hardest to teach children are dumped out of the corporate education reformed system—-will turn the remaining children into high achieving students without doing anything to change the causes of poverty, without a quality national early childhood education program to foster a love of reading in those children?
Do you actually think that rigor, grit, CCSS, endless bubble tests and prison camp corporate Charter schools will achieve the impossible and churn out 100-percent of all children to be college and career ready—in a country where almost 70-percent of the jobs/careers don’t require anything but a high school degree or less (actually 26 percent of the jobs don’t even require a HS degree)?
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Lloyd,
In fact I do not think many of the things you listed are true, but it is a very long list. Do you want to discuss the points one at a time?
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TE,
Let’s see if you can prove me wrong right here where everyone can watch.
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Lloyd,
Prove you wrong about what exactly?
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TE,
But you are the one who said: “In fact I do not think many of the things you listed are true, but it is a very long list. Do you want to discuss the points one at a time?”
I am not interested in spending hours digging for the support that I have seen and experienced first hand during the thirty years I was a teacher.
Therefore, list the things you do not think are true that I wrote, and then provide proof with links that supports your thinking that they are wrong.
I see no reason to be the one on the defense—according to our Constitution, I’m innocent/right until proven guilty/wrong and if we follow the method the courts use, you are the one who has to prove I was wrong/guilty.
For thirty years, I taught both children who lived in poverty and children who were from the middle class. The school where I taught was in the middle of a barrio dominated by violent street gangs and at the time the number of children on free or reduced breakfast/lunch was more than 70-percent (I understand it’s up to 80-percent now—maybe corporate charter schools opened up nearby to swallow the middle class kids and that explains the more than 10-percent jump in the poverty rate), but in the nearby hills that overlooked the barrio was the upscale middle class community and the other 30-percent who did not live in poverty came from that area.
In fact, if it were true that the cause of low performing schools was the teachers, then please explain why the majority of TFA recruits who stay in teaching longer than 2 years end up transferring away from the low performing schools where they started and seek jobs in high performing schools—about 2 percent of the total that started stays behind and continues to work in the low performing schools.
The culture of poverty is the main culprit and not teachers—even though I admit that teacher training could be more in line with one year residency programs.
Parents must be engaged and if the parents don’t introduce their young children to books at an early age, then we must have a national, early childhood education program.
Have you read all these books as I suggested:
The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession
By Dana Goldstein
http://www.danagoldstein.com/
“Ms. Goldstein’s book is meticulously fair and disarmingly balanced, serving up historical commentary instead of a searing philippic … The book skips nimbly from history to on-the-ground reporting to policy prescription, never falling on its face. If I were still teaching, I’d leave my tattered copy by the sputtering Xerox machine. I’d also recommend it to the average citizen who wants to know why Robert can’t read, and Allison can’t add.” —New York Times
Reign of Error
By Diane Ravitch
https://dianeravitch.net/
Diane Silvers Ravitch is a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. Previously, she was a U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education under President G. W. Bush. She was appointed to public office by Presidents H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
A Chronicle of Echoes:
Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education
By Mercedes K. Schneider
http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/
Schneider says, “Corporate reform” is not reform at all. Instead, it is the systematic destruction of the foundational American institution of public education. The primary motivation behind this destruction is greed. Public education in America is worth almost a trillion dollars a year. Whereas American public education is a democratic institution, its destruction is being choreographed by a few wealthy, well-positioned individuals and organizations. This book investigates and exposes the handful of people and institutions that are often working together to become the driving force behind destroying the community public school.
50 Myths and Lies That Threaten America’s Public Schools:
The Real Crisis in Education
By David C. Berliner, Gene V Glass, Associates
http://nepc.colorado.edu/author/berliner-david-c
David C. Berliner is an educational psychologist and bestselling author. He was professor and Dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education. Gene V Glass is a senior researcher at the National Education Policy Center and a research professor in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder.
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TE,
You may even want to have a look at this study out of Harvard that focused on a teacher swap.
Click to access Johnson-2012-Having-It-Both-Ways-Building-Capacity.pdf
In a nut shell. “Changing the people without changing the context in which they work is not likely to substantially improve the school.”
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Lloyd,
Where have a posted anything about a teacher swap?
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TE,
I mentioned the futility of a teacher swap in that list you disagreed with.
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Lloyd,
You began your post ” Why do you think….” I disagreed that I think all those things you stated in the list.
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TE,
If you disagreed, then point out what you disagreed with and then provide valid proof—with links to sources—-that supports your premise.
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Lloyd,
I disagreed with your CHARACTERIZATION OF WHAT I THINK. I have privileged access to what I think, so there is really no point in offering proof about WHAT I THINK.
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TE,
I’m not surprised. You are true to form.
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Lloyd,
Other than my statements about what I believe, what possible proof is there? what evidence can you offer that my statements about my own beliefs are false?
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That’s an interesting question. You ask me what evidence I can offer to prove your own beliefs are false right after you refuse to say what those thoughts are.
How can I do that when you won’t tell me what you were thinking when you disagreed with something I wrote that you also didn’t specifically target—-this feels like picking up water without using your hands.
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Lloyd,
This Meyer be a difficult distinction for you to understand, but I was disputing that you actually know what I believe, not that what I believe is incorrect.
Perhaps an example will help. Is it true that I believe that global warming is a man made phenomenon? What evidence could you present that I do or do not believe this?
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In that case, why aren’t they closing down charter schools, since there’s such a lack of pupils? Why are they even opening up new charter schools since everyone’s fleeing Chicago?
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Joe,
Are there any charter schools with 13 students?
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Why not strengthen community public schools instead of opening charters to lure away their students?
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Joe is right. This is the last neighborhood public high school in that community and there are no more neighborhood public high schools in the two adjacent communities. There is, however, an abundance of charter schools, so many parents have no choice BUT charters.
This has been going on for so long now that the pattern is clear: when neighborhood schools are starved, they are about to be shut down and replaced by charters, and parents know to start looking elsewhere, so of course there are only 13 students now.
But recent data demonstrates that the charter schools in Chicago have significantly lower growth scores than neighborhood public schools:
“Drop CPS’ reform strategy: CPS neighborhood school growth outpaces charters”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/29378381-452/drop-cps-reform-strategy-cps-neighborhood-school-growth-outpaces-charters.html#.VCKAvfnKtMg
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There was no “exodus” from Chicago in the 70s and 80s except for white people. The loss of so many black students was a direct result of city planning and the massive demolition of public housing over the past two decades –which came with promises to replace with scattered site housing for low income families that never materialized.
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Chi-Town Res is right and Tim, you need to learn your Chicago history. Harold Washington was elected mayor in 1983 – how could that possibly have happened if there had already been a mass exodus of blacks from the city? There may have been a tiny trickle, but the mass exodus didn’t start until the Richard M. years and has greatly accelerated under Rahm.
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Did anyone bother to actually look up the numbers? You can take any further accusations that I’m wrong straight to the Census Bureau:
1970: 1,100,994
1980: 1,187,003 (the high-water mark for Chicago’s black population as measured by the Census)
1983: Harold Washington elected
1989: Richard M. Daley elected
1990: 1,074,590
1997-1998: Chicago opens its first three charter schools
2000: 1,053,294
2000: 5,355 children attending Chicago charter schools
2010: 862,591
2010: 36,699 children attending Chicago charter schools
It is probable, given larger trends in black migration patterns (net outflows from southern states slowed to a trickle in the early 1970s and reversed beginning as early as 1975-1980) and suburbanization, that the peak for Chicago’s black population came at some point between the 1970 and 1980 Censuses. It is doubtful that Chicago lost 10% of its black population in the brief amount of time between Daley’s election and the 1990 Census.
I don’t disagree that the quality of the schools is likely a factor in black families deciding to leave the city–and of course the families that leave are leaving the charter options, as well. However, I think that uneven access to economic opportunity and uneven exposure to crime and violence are what have primarily driven the 30+-year-long exodus.
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You can read whatever you want into that, but I don’t see break downs by age. Are those figures for the entire black population? I see nothing about black children. And what about all the Hispanic kids attending charters? We frickin live and teach here and I saw the number of public schools increase from 450 to over 600 between the mid 80s and about 2000. That also says nothing about how many neighborhood schools were closed, which triggered students having to go to FAILING charters BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE IN THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS NOW. Some policy on choice –which clearly you adore. I know many families that have left the city precisely because of this privatization policy. And I’m sure that neoliberal politicians in both parties are just thrilled by that.
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Cripes, Tim, look at your own numbers. First you say the exodus began in the 70s, but your own numbers show an increase from 1970 to 1980. Then by 1990 we’ve lost a whole whopping 12,000 something. Then by 2000 another 19,000 something. By 2010 we’re down nearly 140,000.
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I see a loss of 115,000 from 1980 to 1990.
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Good grief.
No, Chi-Town Res, I cannot provide the racial breakdown of the aged 5-18 population who left Chicago between 1970 and 2010. That level of research sounds like it’d be well-suited for a BA thesis for someone majoring in geography or American history. All we can say for certain is that lots of blacks have left, and that they started to leave in big numbers long before the establishment of charter schools. The numbers at this link would suggest there isn’t much of a case for the argument that it is mainly people without school-aged children who are leaving: http://www.wbez.org/node/107216#enrollmentdecline
Dienne, you missed a digit in the hundred-thousandths place: 112,413 blacks left Chicago between 1980 and 1990, not a “whole whopping 12,000.” It is also likely, given swift and considerable changes in migration and suburbanization patterns, that the start of blacks leaving in appreciable numbers began prior to 1980, and that the peak black population occurred in the mid-70s.
Any other quibbles? Or can we finally agree that the black flight was substantial and sustained, and began before charter schools or the election of Mayor Daley?
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^^^hundred-thousands place, not hundred-thousandths place, of course.
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When you’ve lived and worked in Chicago for decades, you become accustomed to regularly hearing how many schools we have, from CPS, public officials as well as news reports, and the number of schools has steadily increased over the years, which was always touted as a good thing. This shows those increases just for the years from 2000- 2013:
Declining enrollment wasn’t mentioned until the “underutilization” debacle, when Rahm closed 50 neighborhood schools (to be replaced by 52 charters)
“Where did these 100,000 empty CPS seats come from?”
http://cpsapples2apples.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/where-did-these-100000-empty-cps-seats-come-from-part-i/
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Of course there was no mention of data on the white flight from Chicago, which began in the late 60s. In 1970, non-Hispanic whites made up 59% of the residents of Chicago, which had fallen to 31.7% by 2010. More whites left during the 70s and between 1990 – 2000, 150,000 whites left the city.
In this 1986 Trib article, they noted “City About Equal In Terms Of Race: Black Population Up, White Down”
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-09-23/news/8603110287_1_white-flight-migration-chicago
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Chi-Town, the numbers from CPS itself are pretty clear on the enrollment dip, regardless of the number of overall schools.
http://www.wbez.org/node/107216#enrollmentdecline
Losing 32,000 kids is in line with what you’d expect from the corresponding overall population loss that Chicago experienced between 2000-2013, if you look at the public school enrollment in cities that have a population around the same size as Chicago’s net decrease during that period.
The Tribune article is interesting–note that it does confirm that there was significant (72,000/decade) black net out-migration as early as the 70s. I suppose it is possible that Chicago’s black population peaked in mid-1985, although it seems more likely to me that the city planner underestimated out-migration in the first half of the 1980s. If her calculations were correct, it means that Chicago suffered a net loss of about 150,000 blacks between mid-1985 and 1990, which seems extreme.
I don’t know why you are bringing up white flight. Black flight and white flight aren’t necessarily a zero-sum game; they can happen simultaneously. Blacks and whites will never flee to the exact same destination, is all.
So one last time: Chicago’s blacks began to leave the city in sustained, large numbers long before the creation of charter schools and the election of Richard M. Daley, which was first manifested in a large drop in the black population between the 1980 and 1990 Census. CPS’s register shrunk and is continuing to shrink because the city’s school-age population shrunk and is continuing to shrink. There is no good reason to think that charter schools, given their still relatively low market share and their fairly late arrival in the black flight dynamic, are accelerating the process; in fact, without them black flight might even be more extensive.
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What makes you an expert on Chicago? Your characterizations of Chicago schools sound like William Bennett’s. Do you have any concept of how poverty impacts student learning, or do you think there are just better quality poor people in some places, such as at our numerous military style boot-camp charter schools?
As an educator who was born in Chicago and has lived here for over 60 years, whites leaving the city matters to me as much as blacks leaving, because since the mid-80s, many have left for the same reasons. As a teacher, a lot of have parents told me why they were moving. That includes better job opportunities in the suburbs (and other states) due to urban sprawl here, and because of the increased cost of living in Chicago, which has continued to rise while many people’s wages have stagnated. Starting in the 80s, a lot of apartment buildings across the city began turning condo, which has severely limited the number of rental units available, let alone at affordable prices. (Some condo owners then rent their units at inflated rates as well.)
For example, I live in an integrated area where most of the apartment buildings were rentals for decades. Then came the condo conversion craze. When my apartment turned condo in the late 90s, it was one of the last buildings on my block to do so. I couldn’t afford to buy it on my income and it was very challenging to find another comparable rental unit in my neighborhood. I finally found one and, like on so many other blocks, there are only two buildings left that didn’t turn condo here. I have no doubt that the condo conversion craze will soon be returning, since I am once again seeing the signs indicating this, which were there before the economy tanked. And my rent has doubled since I first moved here, while my salary has actually declined.
Turning condo is not just economically advantageous to landlords, it’s also an expedient way of pushing out middle and low income families, especially disadvantaged people of color, thereby limiting integration.
Stop blaming our schools for the economic and social ills of this society!
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Chi-Town Res,
I never claimed to be an expert on Chicago. I did live in the city, in a variety of South Side, North Side, and NW side neighborhoods, from my late teens until my mid-20s, for whatever that’s worth.
“However, I think that uneven access to economic opportunity and uneven exposure to crime and violence are what have primarily driven the 30+-year-long exodus.”
Given that I wrote these very words earlier in this comment thread, I’m not sure where you are getting that I’m blaming CPS schools for Chicago’s economic and social ills.
My point in responding to this post in the first place was to debunk the continual and recurring insinuation that charters are worsening segregation in Chicago and directly leading to steep enrollment declines at CPS schools. The first accusation is preposterous and offensive, especially given the history. Chicago has been a deeply, brutally, almost inconceivably segregated city for years, your neighborhood (Uptown, probably) being a rare exception, long before charter schools or condo conversions or other “market forces.” The second is partially true, but it overlooks huge overall losses in school-age population due to black flight, while at the same time overstating the size of the charter sector (it is only about 12-15% of the public school enrollment).
If charter schools are so awful for the kids who attend them and such an existential threat to children in CPS schools, it ought to be easy to prove it without resorting to the use of half-baked bogeymen.
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Tim, You wrote “I don’t disagree that the quality of the schools is likely a factor in black families deciding to leave the city.” Considering no one here said or implied that the quality of schools precipitated people leaving the city except you, then it looks like you don’t disagree with yourself.
I don’t have time to argue with an out-of-town charter lover about the kind of damage that rapid charter school expansion and neighborhood school closings have been doing to my city.
And, no, I do not live in Uptown. There’s more than one integrated neighborhood in Chicago, such as Beverly and Hyde Park on the South Side, where I grew up, and Rogers Park, Edgewater and West Ridge on the North Side, where I’ve lived for the past 40 years –though I have worked at schools on the West Side, South Side and the North Side.
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You were proven wrong about blacks leaving Chicago in droves well before the creation of the charter sector, and you were proven wrong that CPS’s enrollment decline is the sole result of charter school growth. Now you have abandoned making any substantive argument and have gone ad hominem.
Yes, it’s time to wrap this up.
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Privatization has been rapidly expanding here since Obama took office, while neighborhood schools have been simultaneously shut down, and many parents affected by that have told me they were moving because of it. I never said that dated to when the first charters were established. And you were proven wrong by the Tribune article which indicated a black population increase here in 1986. It was after that time that the condo conversion craze hit, which impacted many middle and low income families, both black and white, who left the city. You were also shown how Chicagoans were deceived by the increase of new schools and not told about the declining enrollment until last year.
If you think what I wrote was ad hominem, you had better tweak your sensitivity radar. Nuff said, know-it-all.
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And don’t forget that article provided about how Chicago’s traditional schools outperform charters on growth scores.
The good news for those who actually care about students who want to have and attend neighborhood schools, is that “City Hall sit-in wins concessions for Dyett High School students”
http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/city-hall-sit-wins-concessions-dyett-high-school-students/thu-09252014-1253pm
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Rahm and Rauner are good friends. Rauner has convinced Rahm that “choice” is the way to go. They talk about “choice” while visiting Rauner’s private winery, etc. There are photos. Soon, very soon, there will be nothing but militarized charters schools (for the poor), parochial schools (for the upper middle) and elite private schools (for the rich) in Chicago. Remember that the people with power (i.e. money) in Chicago send their kids to Parker, Latin, etc., and a few magnet schools. Parents with no money and power send their kids to CPS. Politicians only care about those parents with money. Do you see where Chicago is headed? Also, outside of a few “green zones”, Chicago is a very dangerous, ghetto city (don’t kid yourself). I think we had 25 shootings last weekend. Most of the money has moved to the suburbs: Wilmette, Winnetka, Lake Forest, etc. They come down to work in the grimy city, but leave quickly for the northern suburbs after work. It is a kind of “Blade Runner” feeling with the huge disparity of wealth and safety.
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Rahm needed no convincing about “choice”.
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Rahm’s famous phrase for Progressive Democrats: “f…..ing retards.”
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Well, if Rahm thinks he’s smart, I guess I’m proud to be a ” f—— retard”.
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I never had any respect at all for Emanuel after that comment.
Emanuel should have been fired on the spot, not because of any perceived slight to liberals, but because of the grotesque insensitivity to people with mental disabilities (probably the only thing I agree with Sarah Palin on)
It was bad enough that Emanuel (the Chief of Staff at the time) said it, but that Obama did nothing significant about it told me that it was most likely way he/they talked in private all the time. Apologizing to the head of the Special Olympics was woefully inadequate.But of course, there is no real accountability for anyone at the top, who do and say anything they please..
I’m pretty sure it was probably not a one time thing, either. Obama had actually made a “joke” earlier about Emanuel’s verbal habits “every day is a swearing-in ceremony … Every week the guy takes a little time away to give back to the community. Just last week he was at a local school, teaching profanity to poor children.”
Some joke.
I could really not care less about “swearing”, nor could I care less about what Emanuel or Obama think about liberals like myself (it’s no secret that they both hold us in contempt), but I do care when people say things that demean those who have no control over their situation in life — and when others allow them to get away with it.
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13 students?
Makes me think of the island school in Maine with 16 students that Diane posted about just recently
It’s an apt metaphor
“Public Island School”
The Public Island School
Is battered by the waves
Of charters and of fools
But still it never caves
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