Contact: Madison Donzis, madison@fitzgibbonmedia.com, 210.488.6220
Nearly 300 Call on Chicago Mayor to Implement Green Technology Proposal for Dyett High School Immediately
Educators, Academics, and More From Across the Country Issue Letter to Rahm Emanuel on 26th Day of Hunger Strike
** See the Letter Here: http://bit.ly/1KINZcx **
Amidst the hunger strike crisis in Chicago over the fate of Dyett High School, almost 300 educators, researchers, academics, and community groups nationwide have issued a letter to Rahm Emanuel urging him to invest in the Coalition’s Global Leadership and Green Technology plan for the school. The groups and individuals applaud the decision to open Dyett as an open-enrollment school, but believe more needs to be done.
See the letter here: http://bit.ly/1KINZcx
The education advocates call on Emanuel to take the following next steps:
A curricular emphasis on green technology and to include “Green Technology” in the name of the school,
The involvement of members of the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School on the design team and in the selection of the principal,
An elected and fully empowered Local School Council.
“Not only is it absolutely crucial that Dyett re-open under the Coalition’s proposal, it is imperative to set a precedent for transformative community schools nationwide by ensuring that these strikers, along with students, parents, teachers and community members are engaged in an all-inclusive decision-making process,” said Keron Blair, Director of AROS.
“Though the hunger strikers have successfully fought for open-enrollment at Dyett, they are continuing to fast and stand firm in their demand for the Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology plan. Had members of the community been actively included in the initial planning stages for the school, they would not have to now endure day 26 of their hunger strike.
“We have got to do what needs to be done to bring these folks home to their children and families. We won’t give up until Rahm Emanuel does what is right for the school, and does it now.”
Yesterday, the 15 hunger strikers visited the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) headquarters demanding a meeting with Forrest Claypool to begin the planning for the new Dyett High School.
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The Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) is a national community/labor table of organizations of parents, students, teachers and community members who are fighting for the public schools our children deserve.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Rahmeses!, let those people go, to school.
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In trying to drill down to the basic truth of why the hunger strike is still going on, why it is still needed and putting aside the egos of the mayor, CPS and the board who continue to stonewall and deny, I realized that there is a much simpler, more pragmatic explanation for why they do not want to give the Dyett hunger strikers and the community they represent a green technology/global leadership school.
Quite simply, the idea is so good and well thought out that such a school would out compete all the charter schools in the area and draw students away from them since unlike the charters, the green tech school plan really does completely fulfill the mantras of “college and career ready” and “school choice” in a way that no charter in the city, state or indeed the nation does now.
Rahm and CPS are being protectionist of their charter cronies, of all the charter pushers market positions and preventing an inconvenient, embarrassing truth from spreading, that a poor, black inner city community can surpass them all at their own game by turning the craven sales pitches of “school choice” and “college and career ready” into a true grass roots, community-only sourced high quality high school that would become one of the best in the city and so become a model for the entire nation.
More significantly, it would be an example of the effectiveness and power of community action against the overwhelming financial power and influence of the reformers. That is the last thing the reformers want, to have their hypocrisy and bad policies exposed for what they are by the very people targeted by them, by poor black people who are showing the entire nation the right way to do it.
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Jon,
I think that you have expressed the political reality of this standoff perfectly.
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This!!!
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Jon Lubar: well articulated.
Indeed, what would be the point in caving in to genuine community desires and needs if that results in the “competition” being better than what the rheephormsters are willing to provide?
After all, the point is not to provide a “better” or “superior” or “quality” education for the students and their parents and their associated communities—that’s so 20th century.
No. if you are “in it to win it”—meaning garnering all the $tudent $ucce$$ that charter supporters and privatizers can for themselves—then you need to defend mediocrity and failure until your last dying breath.
But, to be honest, the self-styled “new civil rights movement of our time” is true to itself by instinctively fighting even the notion that the vast majority deserves anything but meager crumbs from the education table.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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A good link on the background of all this, the links in the article are great as well..
http://chicagoreporter.com/dyett-hunger-strike-highlights-cps-broken-promises/
Below is a list of statements in support of the model itself as well as the strikers.
http://www.teachersforjustice.org/p/global-solidarity-support-for-dyett.html?m=1
Here is a link from the article that gives the specific history of how Dyett was targeted.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-farmer/one-public-schools-death-_b_1124719.html
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Last but not least, concerning the so called compromise, it was a classic Chicago back room deal where an ally of the mayor, the black preacher who had previously been at the center of the paid protesters scandal, “accepted” the proposal for an “arts” school concocted by CPS. The mayor and CPS have said that this was a proposal that had support in the community, but no mass gathering of the community ever took place in support of it, no indication of any broad based community support is evident anywhere. One wonders what form the 30 pieces of silver took as they passed from hand to hand.
Here are some links about the paid protesters.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/10/1052919/-Rahm-Rent-A-Protesters-Get-Confused
http://www.wbez.org/story/paid-protesters-new-force-school-closings-debate-95792
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The ed reform slogan for portfolio plans is “seed, feed and weed”.
They don’t want to “seed” this school and they “weeded” the prior school. Once you get the slogans down it gets a lot easier to understand what they’re up to in any given state/city.
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So that’s why Scott’s hired Michelle Rhee Johnson.
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Maybe the Dyett people will submit proposal to LP Jobs (see Curmudgucation post) as a design for an inspired high school. A neighborhood high school w green/leadership focus would be a “super” high school.
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All excellent comments here. It is correct that this school would be too efficient, and would actually prepare students to be not only “college & career ready” but ready to be leaders. The technology part of the curriculum would most certainly create marketable skills for each student, enabling her/him to obtain a real, well-paying job (and probably after a good college education, majoring in a field where employees are needed). The leadership part of the equation would provide valuable leadership training, which requires critical thinking skills, excellent ability to communicate and…uh-oh…creativity, which might lead to (gulp!) questioning of the status quo, not least of all (gasp!) demonstrating the understanding needed to debate issues and to (NOOOOOOO!)
QUESTION & CHALLENGE THE POWERS THAT BE–as our heroes in education have all done, TELL TRUTH TO POWER.
Nope, Chicago…can’t have this in OUR backyard. No Dyett grad wiould be WalMart ready.
These children are not deserving of a good, well-rounded, real education. They are, after all, “other people’s children.”
And THAT is why the hunger strike continues.
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Rahm eats well! He eats kids for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.
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