Despite declining enrollments, despite the closing of 50 public schools, the Chicago Public Schools board (hand-picked by Mayor Rahm Emanuel) is seeking to expand the number of charter schools. The great advantage of charters, from the Mayor’s point of view, is that they are mostly non-union. So think of it as payback to the Chicago Teachers Union for its insistence on adequate resources for the public schools.

 

Despite declining student enrollment and dozens of dramatically under-enrolled schools, Chicago is seeking potential new charter schools for the city.

 

 

In a Request for Proposals issued Wednesday, CPS says it’s looking for dual language schools, “Next Generation” schools that would blend technology and traditional teaching, and—in a first—it wants a “trauma-informed school,” where staff would get training to support students with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or exposure to trauma.

 

 

The district is prepared to give charters that already run schools approval for up to four additional campuses. And it’s poised to grant approvals now for campuses that wouldn’t open for several years, to allow more time for planning a school’s opening, the district says in a press release.

 

 

In recent years, the district had named Neighborhood Advisory Councils where community members could give input into charter proposals. Those are now scrapped, saving roughly $170,000, CPS says. Instead, charter schools themselves will “directly engage residents in obtaining the support of their desired school community,” according to the release.

 
“It looks like they’re making it even less democratic,” said Wendy Katten, director of the parent group Raise Your Hand, which has had members serve on the advisory councils.

 

 

Katten says many considered the NACs “flawed” because CPS seemed frequently to ignore the advice of the councils, but “at least it was an opportunity to look at the proposal, to really scrutinize it as a community. To take (that) away—and to have the charter operators do the community engagement—that’s even more of a sham than what currently has existed. The real question is, our city needs a massive debate about opening any kind of new schools in a city that has just hemorrhaged students,” said Katten.