Mike Klonsky reports on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s latest faux pas. Rahm is opening another selective enrollment high school –in upscale Lincoln Park–while leaving less fortunate neighborhoods without a public high school. He decided to name the $60 million high school for President Obama, but the President’s team didn’t like that idea.
“Rahm’s dream of a two-tiered public school system — one tier for gentrifying neighborhoods and one for the rest of us — is turning into a political nightmare.
“The mayor has once again gotten himself into deep doo-doo with Obama’s people over the naming of another proposed expensive, new selective-enrollment high school for Lincoln Park. As I pointed out last week, Rahm thought that naming the school after the president would help mend his election campaign fences, both with Obama’s people who dislike him and with black voters still irate over his notorious mass school closings.
“But the response from White House staffers was quick and to the point. Valerie Jarrett reportedly told Rahm in no uncertain terms — don’t drag Obama’s name into your mess. He’s got enough problems of his own. And just like that, Rahm walked it back.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Does my heart good.
He can try naming after Duncan or Koch or Walton.
The Nazis had selective schools called “Napola schools”. These schools would collect the most able (or most connected) kids and train them to be the future leaders of the Nazi Reich. A good historical knowledge of Nazi Germany is really helping me understand what is going on. It’s amazing, actually.
We’ve got those in NYC, too.
http://nymag.com/nymetro/urban/education/features/n_8065/
I am not at all surprised that Stuyvesant High School is viewed as similar to Nazi schools by some posters here. More data suggesting that Godwin was very perceptive and Godwin’s corollary holds.
Godwin is the curse of anyone who recognizes patterns which indicate a despicable history is being repeated, whether outright or in variations on a theme. Godwin should be ignored in online discussions such as this and I’m glad to see Mike’s comments about this.
SHSAT+ CPS selective schools open to all residents, and with student bodies that are actually quite racially and socioeconomically diverse = Nazi-style eugenicist screening.
Suburban/zoned schools with <10% FRPL population located in communities and neighborhoods expressly and intentionally built to screen out the racially and socioeconomically undesirable = the pride of America. These schools test as well as anyone in the world!
Maybe you could look at American history and extrapolate to what is happening now. I don’t understand why everyone has to use the Nazis. I guess it is easier to compare things to an “outsider” than to look at our own historical atrocities and prejudices.
I also don’t think there is a problem with having high schools that require passing an exam.
It’s amazing, all right. I mean, there are so many similiarities to the process of applying to a CPS selective high school and the strict racial purity tests insisted upon by Nazi boarding schools that I really don’t know where to start.
http://cpsoae.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=72696&type=d&termREC_ID=&pREC_ID=121764
Of course the details aren’t exactly the same, but the underlying principle is. Well connected kids or sons of powerful Nazis got in even if they weren’t very bright or overweight. The main idea is to construct and “us” and “them” mentality. The elites and the slaves. It’s the same principle with different details and criteria.
Saying something over and over again, even if it is completely wrong is straight from Hitler. It is called “the big lie” technique. For example, telling Americans that bad teachers are to blame. It’s a ludicrous, outrageous lie, but eventually people start believing it, if it is said over and over.
Telling teachers to get good scores from students so they will keep their jobs is something like they did with work Jews at Auschwitz. They made them think they would live, even if they would eventually all die. It was a game that prolonged life (or employment) but couldn’t be won. It is the same principle, with a different result (death or loss of job).
You are lost in the details No, no one is getting killed, but lives are getting ruined, etc. You can’t see the forest for the trees. I hope I have taught you something.
Exactly, Mike. All of the concentration camps had “the big lie” enshrined on their gates, “Arbeit Macht Frei,” which means “work makes freedom.”
We have a lot of big lies to contend with today, since the elite messengers own the media. For many of these kids, the biggest lie is that this is a meritocracy and that a college degree and hard work will bring them prosperity, when “Half A Million People With College Degrees Are Working For Minimum Wage:”
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/03/31/3420987/college-degree-minimum-wage/
“Saying something over and over again, even if it is completely wrong is straight from Hitler.”
This statement is a great guide for how to make every argument an argument about whether something is like Hitler.
They should name it after Obama, so that he, Rahm and the whole avaricious privatizer gang can be linked in perpetuity.
He admitted a mistake! This is a huge breakthrough! Call a press conference!
We have SUCH low standards for political leaders. It’s just shameful. He gets huge kudos for doing such an ordinary thing. He didn’t even do it of his own volition! He had to be told to drop it.
Next up: an award for going a month without entering into a crony privatization contract!
I know he can reach this goal. I have high expectations 🙂
“The mayor seldom second-guesses himself in public for fear it might be viewed as a sign of weakness. It’s hard to remember the last time he uttered the words, “I made a mistake.”
Well played, Mr. Mayor. You’ve set the bar for decent, ordinary behavior so low anything better than completely ignoring residents and rolling right over them is now considered an A+++ on the good governance scale.
I find it ironic that pro-charter President Obama is worried about being associated with a two-tier system.
When I ride the Brown Line el past shiny, well-kept, selective-enrollment Walter Payton High School on the near north side, I always wonder whether anyone will ever open a similarly grand establishment for kids pursuing career and technical education. If, every time a selective school were opened, equal resources were devoted to a beautiful nonselective school, with thoughtfully planned curriculum and plenty of caring, well-qualified, smart adults to teach and counsel the students, I don’t think people would complain as much. But instead of having multiple pathways through education that are equally honored and important, we have “good” schools that are celebrated and given grants and endowments and other forms of extra resources, and “bad” schools that are treated as the dumping grounds for the less academically able, and those schools are shamed for their lower test scores and periodically threatened with closure. How is that fair?
He is not going to name it after Obama but still plans to build an expensive new selective enrollment school on the north side where there are a number of them already – while starving neighborhood schools on the south and west sides.
Exactly.
Of course, Obama is not going to want a school named after him. It would have his name associated with his failed policies. If he can remove or hide any trace of his failure as an educational leader, as a president, and as a human, then all the better for him. He is a mastermind of looking good while doing bad.
I would rather name a high security prison after Barack Obama to commemorate the generation that landed in jail as a result of attending his intentionally defunded public schools and being taught by his acutely demoralized teaching force.
Or maybe name a new strain of e-bola after Obama and his administration. One infection deserves another . . . . . .
Long time ago it was an rule of thumb never to name a school, major roadway, or other public institution for a still living person.
And all this from the fellow who thought he might become President. Yeah! No thanks.
Rahm and the White House still have “a connection”. Otherwise, why did they send him to meet with deBlasio before he named his selection for chancellor? I think it was to make sure Joshua Starr wasn’t selected since he has become an outspoken critic of RTTT and doesn’t believe teachers should be evaluated by test scores. He was the first to call for a moratorium on testing.
Instead we got the clocks turned back with Farina. She kept key players from the Klein staff, turned the tables on ATRs, and happily closed down Jamaica High School despite strong support to keep it open. Oh, and charters are now more powerful than ever thanks to deBlasio unwilling to take on Cuomo and then become his biggest supporter just to get some deal on Pre-Ks. It’s politics as usual.
Now Cuomo is looking revamp the evaluation process because he doesn’t understand why over 90% of teachers got good evaluations when VAM was supposed to lower that number. I expect the gloves to come off once he’s re-elected.