In this post, EduShyster asks a question that more and more people are beginning to ask: Why don’t poor minority students get to have public schools?

 

There was much celebration and anticipation when the state announced it was building a new high-tech STEM school in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury called The Dearborn STEM Academy.

 

She writes:

 

Now if by chance you’ve yet to watch any of this season of As the School Turns: $70 Million Dollar Listing, here’s what you’ve missed so far. Things got off to a rousing start with the news that, after seven long seasons, the Dearborn STEM Academy was FINALLY going to get a brand new building. That sound you hear is the studio audience applauding wildly. You see, this was to be the first new public school building in Boston in more than a decade and would feature all sorts of cool STEM stuff, like state-of-the-art science, technology and engineering labs. This wasn’t just a feel good story, viewer, it was a feel great story as the $70 million project symbolized a major investment in Roxbury and in the future scientists, engineers and STEM-sters who live and go to school there.

 

But then the authorities decided it would not be a neighborhood public school but a citywide charter school. When there was strong negative reaction from the public, the city determined that the school would not be a charter but would be run by a private operator. EduShyster was suddenly reminded of what happened in Chicago:

 

If by chance you happen to be viewing this show from, say, Chicago, you’re probably feeling like this is a repeat. You see, on Chicago’s South Side a very similar battle has been playing out over the future of Dyett High School, the last open-enrollment high school in Bronzeville. After the Chicago Public Schools announced plans to close the school, students, parents and community leaders fought back, putting forward their own story line: for a community-based plan to make Dyett a neighborhood STEM school. And just like in Boston, officials in Chicago blinked. Dyett can stay open, but there’s a catch: a private operator will be brought in to run the school. Community organizer Jitu Brown—take it away. *Why can’t we have public schools? Why do low-income minority students need to have their schools run by private contractors?* As Brown sees it, handing the school to a private operator isn’t much better than closing it. *We want this school to anchor the community for the next 75 years. We’re not interested in a short-term contract that can be broken.*

 

That was not the conversation in Boston. The city is going to pick one of two finalists to run the $70 million school, both private contractors. Did anyone mention the word “privatization”?