If you recall, a group of valiant parents, educators, and activists conducted a hunger strike to protest the closing of Dyett High School in Chicago.
Mike Klonsky reports here on their victory.
The Dyett hunger strikers and the Bronzeville community didn’t get all their demands met by a resistant school board bent on school closings. But their struggle ended in victory, make no mistake about it. Proof — the Dyett High School for the Arts will open next week with a $14.6M upgrade one year after the 34-day hunger strike ended.
Congratulations to friend Jitu Brown and the other strikers. You won!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Congrats to Dyett’s advocates. Off topic- Reports show the increase in this blog’s views was almost 25%, in the 10 month period, between June, 2015 and March 2016. it’s a testament to Dr. Ravitch’s important work.
Here’s a news program interview with outspoken principal Troy LaRaviere, which discusses the Dyett victory, as well as his own situation:
Thank-you for this great discussion on the consequences of Rahm’s school funding policies.I have a white paper (2011) with similar formula tweeks published by Thomas B.Fordam on “modernizing” funding for IDEA & SPED.
The little tricks & traps have real life consequences that don’t become obvious until years later. Much like the “tweeking” pols made on banking laws in the 1980,90’s and 00’s that deregulated Wall St & bankrupted 99% of us in 2008.
Getting into the weeds of sneaky budgeting tricks exposes the reformer’s corrupt narrative. I hope this discussion can begin to shape policy decisions that will undo the damage done.
In the light of the Dyett victory for traditional public schools, it’s instructive to read a year-old Education Post article — written by Education Post founder and Lead Editor Peter Cunningham — where Cunningham egregiously insults and condescends to the Dyett activists and hunger strikers, whose goal he claimed at the time was both hopeless and misguided.
However, those activists’ heroic efforts, in defiance of Cunningham’s prediction, finally bore fruit this week through the re-opening of Dyett as an open-enrollment traditional public school.
In this vile September 2015 article, Cunningham derided the Dyett activists as …
“ … dangerous … destructive … counter-productive … anti-democratic … (exercising a) “colossal misjudgment” (by engaging in a) “a death-defying tactic like a hunger strike.” All of this behavior, Cunningham argued, should lead to “disqualification” of the Dyett activists’ proposal.
http://educationpost.org/dying-for-dyett/
First, to get a little context, go read Cunningham’s Twitter or past writings, and his go-to response to critics an proponents of public schools — be it regarding Nashville, or Los Angeles, or Massachusetts or wherever — is almost always:
“Listen to the parents, and give them what they want…The parents want charters, the parent want charters, the parents want charters … ”
Really Peter? Parents want their schools to be under the control of unaccountable private, corporate control, where those same parents no longer have any real decision-making power or input in the governance of their kids’ schools?
No, actually they don’t, unless those in charge (like Arne and you and others) starve the schools of funding, jack the class size sky high, fire/push out students’ favorite teachers, let the buildings themselves fall into disrepair, close class after class, and then tell them that it’s inevitable that the school is closing, anyway so the best thing to do is leave for … this charter school over here. Those are are the tactics that you and Arne — and his successors — engaged in while running Chicago schools. Those are also the tactics employed in countless states, cities, and school districts.
However, when it comes to parents who express views opposed to that of Cunningham’s corporate master, parents who want their children to attend a fully-funded traditional public school, Cunningham sings a different tune: (not exact quote 😉 )
“Don’t listen to THOSE parents! They’re anti-democratic IDIOTS who engage in dangerous stunts like dangerous, hopeless hunger strikes! They’re dupes of the failed status quo!”
Here’s EXACTLY what Cunningham said a year ago.
http://educationpost.org/dying-for-dyett/
—————————————————————-
PETER CUNNINGHAM: “A hunger strike in Chicago led by a community group vying to open a new school in the shuttered Dyett High School on the South Side has entered a dangerous stage with at least one participant hospitalized and others at increasing physical risk. The safety of the hunger strikers is paramount and overshadows the underlying issues.
“ … ”
“As a publicity tactic, the hunger strike is wildly successful and is trending madly on social media. As a strategy to win approval for its proposal, however, it’s entirely counterproductive and could even cost KOCO the prize.
(Boy, you sure got that one wrong, Peter.
This prognostication is similar to school privatizer and stock expert Whitney Tilson’s brilliant 2004 prediction (on the Motley Fool program) that Google stock would be worthless in years to come… when, to date, the Google stock has gone on to give its investors a return of over 1050%.)
Here’s more from Peter:)
PETER CUNNINGHAM: “First of all, it’s a colossal misjudgment of the new leadership at CPS, Forrest Claypool, a seasoned public servant who doesn’t blink in the face of public pressure. Two decades ago, he faced down furious aldermen all across the city when he reformed the Chicago Park District from a bloated, top-heavy patronage haven to a lean and lively community asset. They’re still mad at him.
“Mayor Emanuel tapped Claypool to help stabilize a school system facing its worst financial crisis in history. Claypool does not take kindly to anyone putting a gun to his head, especially when he is simultaneously trying to save teacher pensions while sparing school children punishing budget cuts.”
(Wrong again, Peter. After much public outcry and pressure on Mayor Emanuel, Claypool eventually folded like a cheap umbrella.)
PETER CUNNINGHAM: “Second, it defies the most generous interpretation of fair play for one applicant in a competitive RFP process to simply demand the award through a death-defying tactic like a hunger strike. KOCO even went so far as to ask Little Black Pearl to withdraw its application, which probably justifies disqualification on its face.”
(Prior to the strike, these folks DID try “fair play”. They did everything by the rules, they followed the procedures exactly as instructed, and in spite of overwhelming community the privatization folks running CPS still shut them down. The hunger strike was their last resort, not their first. Would you have said the same thing to Cesar Chavez when he led his historic hunger strike?)
PETER CUNNINGHAM: “Third, it is altogether reasonable for the new leadership at CPS to delay its decision for a month. The new Dyett High School will not open until the fall of 2016 under any circumstances. A one-month delay makes no meaningful difference.”
(Peter, you know now, and you knew full well a year ago, that once the hunger strike was ended, and the spotlight was off, Emanuel and Claypool would have NEVER chosen for Dyett to be re-opened as a traditional public school, so your call to end the strike during this proposed delay for a decision was and is disingenuous, and an attempt to sabotage the activists’ chances. That would have killed any chance of Dyett re-opening, and you know that.
Finally, you throw a bone to Jitu, but in the context of the rest of the article, this can only be viewed as a back-handed gesture of condescension.)
“KOCO’s leader, Jitu Brown, is a respected leader in the Washington Park community. His proposal deserves full and fair consideration. It’s a strong proposal and Brown has certainly been a forceful advocate for the school for years.
“KOCO’s tactics, however, are both destructive and anti-democratic. Before anyone gets seriously hurt, KOCO and its union allies should honor the public process and call off the hunger strike. If they don’t, and CPS awards the school to another applicant, they will have only themselves to blame.”
(Again and thankfully, Peter, your prediction was WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.)
Thank you for this great takedown of Cunningham, one of the slimiest and most shameless propagandists working today.
“Vile” is an accurate and appropriate description for the Cunningham quote and, for the plutocrats he defends.
Whenever I read Peter Cunningham’s agitprop, I recall Rev Barber’s analogy about our need to rise above the “snake line”
They may have won more than is apparent, I read an interview with the new principal where she said that a green tech component for the curriculum is not out of the question and sounds like a good idea. So, CPS and Rahm can pat themselves on the back and declare victory as far as I’m concerned, just as long as they turn around and walk away without further interference. That too is a win.
I thought I’d written a comment on Mike’s blog but, since I didn’t, I want to say that each & every one of the Dyett Hunger Strikers is an Education Hero to the nth degree. That grandma who was hospitalized could have lost her life.
This is one instance (& the others are teachers who speak out & brave out almost insurmountable teaching conditions & then are fired {as outspoken, Xian Barrett comes to mind} , principals like Troy LaRaviere who live out their principles, parents out in the streets who advocate opt-outs against Pear$on & other Big Test companies, CTU leaders & members, etc.) where it is REALLY “all about the children”–in REAL life, with REAL, positive results.
Unlike in Peter Cunningham’s elite world. Correct me if I’m wrong, Diane, but did you once describe him as “charming?” (Or was that one of the other deformers?) Anyway, “charming” can also describe a snake-oil salesman or a carpetbagger.
I think it would be best (& I thought the same of Michelle Rhee) if we just ignore him.
Then, like her, perhaps he will disappear from the forefront as an “education leader.”
Peter–begone, I say!
If you want to hear Cunningham on radio — from August 31, 2015 — trashing the Dyett activists, go here:
https://www.wbez.org/shows/morning-shift/dyett-hunger-strike-enters-third-week/dc2e6415-dbac-4b14-8159-8c473cb83742
(Suggestion: open a new tab on your browser, put in the link above, position new window so that the timeline and play button isjust below this browser/window you’re reading from, then play it while you read along … that’s how I transcribed stuff so fast.)
BOY, I HIT GOLD WHEN I FOUND THIS RADIO SHOW… and I mean 14-karat GOLD!
It’s a riveting show, as the other two guests are:
1) One of the hunger strikers, Reverend Robert Jones of Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church, who gives the latest on the hunger strike, and their demands;
AND
2) Eve Ewing, a Harvard University grad student who’s writing her doctoral dissertation on school closings (and a former Chicago Public School teacher); She’s one of the most knowledgeable and articulate anti-school-choice folks you’ll ever get to listen to. Cunningham had no idea how sharp she was.
Read on.
At one point, Cunningham points out that re-opening Dyett isn’t even necessary, as there are a dozen schools — most of them privately-managed charter schools — within three miles of the Dyett campus and its Bronzeville neighborhood. 11 of them are below capacity (with open seats). 5 of them are below 50% capacity:
—————————-
( 5:54 – 6:18 )
CUNNINGHAM: “It’s important to point out that there are 12 high schools within three miles of Dyett and 11 of them are below capacity. Five of them are 50% below capacity, so there’s plenty of capacity for high school students. Several of them are open-enrollment neighborhood schools, and the question is, what will … what kind of high school will attract students in that community where you have so much excess capacity (open seats)?”
—————————————-
Three points:
1) First, I thought there were hordes of parents on waiting lists dying to get into these charters — the “demand” or rationale that had been given for opening them. Why are there all these charters now “below capacity, some of them 50% below capacity”?
2) Furthermore, if there never was such a demand — as it appears to be the case — then why were these privately-managed charter schools freakin’ authorized, funded, and opened in the freakin’ first place?
3) also, having to commute three miles in urban Chicago, crossing gang boundaries, is not as convenient as the Ivory-tower-dwelling Cunningham thinks. Indeed it, can get you killed. (and that has happened… with Duncan’s and Cunningham’s culpability … Google: Derrion Albert Fenger High School)
In the next bit — which I didn’t transcribe — the hunger-striking reverend calmly states that there IS much student/parent demand for a traditional public school re-opening at Dyett, and gives the reasons and background for choosing the hunger striker’s proposal for the school.
The moderator then turns to Cunningham, and brings up the accusation that the recently-closed Dyett High School was, in fact, sabotaged into failure and closure by CPS. It was deliberately starved of funding by school officials — up to and including the Mayor and his appointed (un-elected) board. CPS officials also pressured and encouraged parents not to have their children attend Dyett.
https://www.wbez.org/shows/morning-shift/dyett-hunger-strike-enters-third-week/dc2e6415-dbac-4b14-8159-8c473cb83742
—————————-
( 6:52 – : )
MODERATOR: “You know, one of the things that you had mentioned, Mr. Cunningham, in your piece, was about how Dyett re-opened … it re-opened as a high school, it was originally a middle school … that it re-opened in the wrong place at the wrong time. That there was low enrollment. I believe last year, there were what? There were just 13 seniors just recently that graduated from Dyett.
“But the argument from others is that well, these things happened because once the city, (and) the school district CPS (the un-elected board and Mayor Emanuel) had decided it was going to phase out Dyett, that it starved the school of resources, and that was one of the reasons that it sort of it saw declining enrollment.”
(Cunningham, deliberately or not, confuses the concepts of “open enrollment” and “school choice”, which thankfully, Eve Ewing straightens out when it’s her turn… and boy does she straighten Cunningham out!)
CUNNINGHAM: “Well. I don’t think that’s fully accurate. I mean the community, in fact, was consistently choosing other schools. By the time they city made the decision to close Dyett, 70% of the high school students in the community were choosing schools outside their community, because we live in… we have an open-enrollment system (he should have said “choice system”) for high schools in Chicago today . Every kid decides where he wants to go, applies, and … either they get in or they don’t get in and they go somewhere else … but the point is that everyone chooses high schools and they (Bronzeville high school students) were choosing schools other than Dyett.”
————————————
When you listen to the end above quote, notice how Cunningham quickly and under his breath quickly glosses over how, in practice, how ruthlessly selective these supposedly “public” schools in Chicago that students are allowed to apply for — the dirty secret the corporate reformers don’t want discussed:
(quickly, almost garbled)
” … either they get in or they don’t get in and they go somewhere else …”
Yeah, no kidding, Peter! As Eve Ewing will soon make crystal clear.
The moderator quotes the Cunningham piece that says that in the 2012-2013 school year, the senior class only had 13 students.
This leaves an opening for Eve to flatten Peter.
First, she has to correct his confusing the terms “open enrollment” with a “choice system.”
Eventually she gets around to lambasting the whole concept of a choice system.
Thankfully, Ewing sets the record straight. Both a former Chicago public school teacher and a Harvard researcher, Ewing has the experience and the data to make her points:
https://www.wbez.org/shows/morning-shift/dyett-hunger-strike-enters-third-week/dc2e6415-dbac-4b14-8159-8c473cb83742
————————
( 8:01 – )
MODERATOR: “I want to bring in Eve Ewing into the conversation. Eve Ewing is writing her dissertation at Harvard University on school closings.
“Hi, Eve Ewing. Welcome to the program.”
EVE EWING: “Good morning. How are you?”
MODERATOR: “Pretty good. You recently wrote in a post about Dyett, and your story, your argument is that … look, it’s more… this has to do than with more than just one school closing. And Peter Cunningham mentioned something that has been going on in Chicago for what? Almost a decade. It happens now in New York City, and in New Orleans, that you pointed out.
“That is this whole concept of ‘open enrollment’ (wrong, it’s “choice district”), letting kids… you know, more or less doing away with boundaries .. it seems like … what you say in your piece is … that’s part of the root of this problem.”
EVE EWING: “Umm… sort of … I want to correct a couple of things. When you say ‘open enrollment’, I think what Mr. Cunningham is describing is actually a ‘choice district’ (system).
“So ‘open enrollment’ actually means that every child who wants to attend a neighborhood boundary of a school is able to attend (what the Dyett protestors want for the Dyett school building)
“Whereas what you-all (Cunningham & the Moderator) have been describing is actually the idea of ‘school choice.’ Which is that students can choose anywhere they like around the city. They don’t have to attend a neighborhood high school, as was the case in Chicago twenty or thirty years ago. (the opposite of what the Dyett protestors want)
“And (here is) what we’ve gotten from there.
“A second ago, Peter said, everybody is ‘choosing’ (their) high schools.
“Well that is NOT exactly the case, and the numbers that have been cited about all the other schools (schools available for Dyett neighborhood students to transfer to) that are surrounding Dyett’s really misleading because several of those schools are not actually accessible to the students who live in the (Dyett / Bronzeville) community.
“So for example, Mayor Emanuel mentioned King College Prep in his comments to the news media the other day. (i.e. that Dyett is not needed, in part because kids can go to King)
“And King College Prep is a selective enrollment school. That means that, in order to quality, students have to meet a certain grade cut-off in their seventh grade scores on their standardized testing, as well as their classroom grades, and that serves a very small proportion of students who come from ALL OVER the city,
“So (for Cunningham or Emanuel) to say that a school like that (King) is accessible to students in Bronzeville is really deliberately misleading in a way that I find disingenuous and disappointing, as well as the number that was just cited (by Cunningham) about the 13 students remaining at Dyett as seniors (just before closure).
“The reason that the school had only 13 students at graduation was because the incoming classes were phased out year after year, after the school announced that the school would be closing in the 2012-2013 school year.
MODERATOR: “Right, toward the end it was like … just 11 and 12, or just 12th Grade, actually.”
EVE EWING: “Exactly!”
MODERATOR: “So there were no students feeding into the higher grades, because they were not accepted.”
EVE EWING: “THEY (Dyett administrators) WERE NOT ALLOWED (by CPS officials up to and including Mayor Emanuel) TO ENROLL NEW STUDENTS. Additionally, you know, the students that were present (who remained) were really encouraged to leave, and transfer to other schools.
“And I’d like everybody to imagine if this were YOUR child, or if this were YOUR senior year in high school, or YOUR high school, what it would be like for you to be told by the district:
” ‘We don’t want YOU! We’re getting rid of YOU over time!’
“And … ummm … There’s a real sincere message of a lack of value (for students) there, that’s really consistent with how the district has treated its African-American students in this community for years now.”
——————————————-
Holy sh#%! Eve’s totally on fire, and she’s just getting warmed up.
The Moderator then gives Eve an opening to tear apart the whole “choice system” implemented by Arne Duncan and by his underling Peter Cunningham, and the mechanisms of how “choice” works… or rather does NOT work.
It’s “school choice” alright. The selective charter operators “choose” their students, not the other way around.
https://www.wbez.org/shows/morning-shift/dyett-hunger-strike-enters-third-week/dc2e6415-dbac-4b14-8159-8c473cb83742
——————————————-
( 10:49 – )
MODERATOR: “But I wonder again if this gets to the larger issue of this … this approach, this philosophy that’s not pretty entrenched, pretty ingrained not only in Chicago, but in other cities-”
EVE EWING: ” – of the choice -”
MODERATOR: “That I mentioned this whole idea of doing away with boundaries.”
EVE EWING: “Um. It is. It’s very much endemic in that, because that is an idea that works very well if you think of (choosing) a school like ‘a market’, and you think of parents like rational consumers.
“So the idea of choice assumes that people choose schools the way they choose cereal:
“You go the cereal aisle.
“You see what flavor you like.
“You see what, you know, what nutritional content is there,
” Then you make this choice based on your preferences, and based on the data available.
“And there’s A LOT of research that shows that that’s ACTUALLY NOT how this works AT ALL … in TWO directions:
“ONE: parents who are already disenfranchised from the school system — which is in Chicago, means predominantly black, and also, Latino and poor parents — are often unable to make informed choices. The district doesn’t always make it easy for them to make those decisions.
“For example, for a lot of these charter schools, you (parents) have to come to a mandatory informational session. You have to fill out supplementary and additional levels of applications to get your children into these schools, as well as a testing (minimum test score) cut-off.
“And (TWO): it’s also not rational form the point of view of white parents, because there’s a lot of research (that shows) that while parents will actually pull their children out of a majority students of color school, even if that school is doing well, even it it’s academically superior to a majority white school.
“So what we’re really seeing is that this ‘choice’ is NOT ‘informed choice’ AT ALL.”
—————————–
Wow. That was great!
In his next turn to talk, Cunningham doubles down, and rejects Ewing’s claim that the so-called “choice” system, as is, does not enable parents to become the kind of “rational consumers” necessary for a market “school choice” system to function.
https://www.wbez.org/shows/morning-shift/dyett-hunger-strike-enters-third-week/dc2e6415-dbac-4b14-8159-8c473cb83742
——————–
( 12:58 – )
CUNNINGHAM: “I tend to think that parents ARE ‘rational consumers.’ I think that they’re looking out for their kids. I think that high school students are able to travel further distances. I think that at the elementary level, obviously people are more inclined to choose schools that are close to them. But at the high school level kids travel all across the city that appeal to them, and in this case (Dyett), you have a couple of competing proposals… ”
(Cunningham then goes into the different groups wanting with proposals to seize and use the empty Dyett school building. He even makes some patronizing reference to Walter Dyett’s musical accomplishments, and the accomplishments of Dyett’s students… as if Cunningham actually gives a sh%# about African-American culture.)
————
Listen the whole thing.
One more point. Cunningham continues to talk about how under-enrolled schools are, with so many empty seats. The Moderator then asks him, if that’s the case..
WHY ARE YOU SAYING THAT WE NEED TO OPEN DOZENS MORE CHARTER SCHOOLS?
Hhere’s that particular moment worth spotlighting.
In carrying out his corporate masters’ marching orders — to help create an environment favorable to opening more corporate, privately-managed charter schools and also closing down pre-existing traditional public schools — Cunningham contradicts himself.
After saying over and over during the radio show that, all over Chicago, there are more seats than there were kids to sit in them, Cunningham now insists that there is “a demand” to open more schools
So there’s “demand?”
Really? From whom? The parents or the charter operators?
In point of fact, it’s the latter, as Cunningham claims the demand is for more privately-managed corporate charter schools?
Huh?
———————————-
( 17:11 – )
MODERATOR: “Here, we’re talking about under-capacity, right? But I’m wondering, even if there’s under-capacity, how come we keep opening up NEW schools (which Cunningham encourages)?”
CUNNINGHAM: “Well, I think there’s demand for new schools. There’s a demand for better schools, especially … we’ve had a lot of challenges getting our high schools to improve (TRANSLATION: the traditional public schools are hopeless, so we need to open charters nearby to steal away the students, and eventually close down all those traditional schools… he then goes off into an infomercial about the Noble… you guessed it .. CHARTER Schools.
In short, the fix is in, folks, with the endgame being another New Orleans, and the complete elimination of traditional public schools in Chicago, and replacement with privately-managed charter schools.)
Oh and here’s the article that Eve Ewing wrote, the one that got the attention of those on the radio show above, and earned he a well-deserved place on the radio show’s panel. You won’t see anything like this on The74, or Education Post:
“Phantoms Playing Double-Dutch: Why the Fight for Dyett is Bigger than One Chicago School Closing”
http://sevenscribes.com/phantoms-playing-double-dutch-why-the-fight-for-dyett-is-bigger-than-one-chicago-school-closing/
I would subtitle it, “The Best Article Ever Written About the Dyett School Situation, or So-Called School Choice”:
Looking forward to reading her doctoral dissertation.
——————
EVE EWING: (EXCERPTS)
“If you read any of the articles or blog posts about the hunger strike to save Dyett, or check the #saveDyett hashtag on Twitter, you’ll hear that Dyett is ‘the last open-enrollment school in Bronzeville.’ If, like the majority of Americans, you grew up in a place where there is no such thing as ‘deciding’ where you attend high school, it might be unclear what ‘open enrollment’ means.
“In Chicago, as in many large urban districts across the country, over the course of the last 15 years the concept of ‘school choice’ as a popular bipartisan idea has entrenched itself to an impressive degree.
“Whereas once upon a time, cities and counties were divided up on a map and students simply attended the school closest to where they lived (what’s known technically as a ‘catchment school,’ or in big cities, a “neighborhood school”), the era of choice has more or less changed all of that in places like Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, and other large districts that serve primarily children of color.
“Where once the only way to exercise some kind of ‘school choice’ was to attend private school, children can now stay in the public school district and apply to a magnet school, enter the lottery for a charter school, apply to a special vocational or career academy, or try to test into an academically elite “selective enrollment” school serving only a small sliver of top-performing students.
” … ”
“Charter schools, meanwhile, are more likely than traditional public schools to expel or suspend students with disabilities, and two of the city’s most high-profile charter high schools—Noble Street and Urban Prep—are also two of the most likely to lose students between freshman year and graduation.
“Unlike a charter school, where students have to enter and win a lottery to enroll, or a selective enrollment school, where students have to be deemed members of the academic top tier to enroll, an open-enrollment neighborhood high school is open to any student who lives nearby.
“That means that everyone is guaranteed a spot.((Wendell Phillips Academy, also in Bronzeville, is also an open-enrollment high school, but it is managed not directly by the district but as a turnaround school by the controversial non-profit Academy for Urban School Leadership, which CPS contracts to operate schools within the district with a great deal of autonomy.))
“And it’s not just the ‘last open enrollment school’ part that makes Dyett important—there’s also the Bronzeville part. The historic Bronzeville community on Chicago’s South Side was one of the most important arrival sites for African-Americans moving north during the Great Migration, and has been home to a bevy of intellectual, artistic, and political luminaries, from Ida B. Wells to Richard Wright, from Gwendolyn Brooks to Louis Armstrong.
” ‘Captain’ Walter Henri Dyett, for whom the school is named, was an influential black music teacher who served CPS from the 1930s until the 1960s, during which time his students included Nat King Cole, Bo Diddley, Vonn Freeman, Dinah Washington, and John Gilmore (who played saxophone with Sun Ra).
“The community of Bronzeville is no stranger to hardship or the racism that begets it: from the 1919 race riot to the high-density kitchenette buildings that packed in black residents in the 1930s and 1940s, where an entire family might have shared a room furnished with a hot plate in lieu of a real kitchen and use a bathroom in the hallway shared with other residents, to the struggles of families living in the public high-rise projects that emerged during the 1950s and 1960s—the Ida B. Wells Homes, Stateway Gardens, Robert Taylor Homes, and other names that came to strike terror in the hearts of white Chicagoans who never actually set foot south of the Loop.
“But, amidst all those challenges, school closings stand out as a particularly insidious and heart-wrenching form of hurt.
“By my count, CPS has closed 16 elementary schools in Bronzeville since 1998, bouncing students unceremoniously from one building to the next, with some students experiencing multiple closures over the short span of their elementary school education.
“Price Elementary School was closed in 2012
“Losing your school is hard for everyone involved. Really hard. When I found out that the school where I taught would be closing, I was visiting my father in Florida for spring break, and I locked myself in the bedroom and cried like a little kid. I started replaying life there in my head, over and over, like a sappy montage in a bad movie.
“Here’s me walking down the hallway for the first time, on my way to meet the principal for a job interview.
“Here’s Nathan, staying in my classroom after hours to write and illustrate a story about the Great Depression.
“Here’s Patricia standing proudly in front of the whole school and perfectly reciting her lines as Lady Capulet, despite her hearing impairment and speech impediment.
“Here’s the staff meeting where we find out that Nashae has cancer, and strategize about how we’re going to coordinate hospital visits, frozen dinners, and rides home for her sister.
“Here’s Omari connecting a circuit for the first time, and Sierra lovingly feeding Peanut, the gecko that was our class pet. Here is our school.
“Here is my personal opinion, as someone who has gone through a school closing, my professional opinion as an educator, and my scholarly opinion as a researcher who is now writing a dissertation about Bronzeville’s shuttered schools.
“I will say it without reservation to whomever will listen, so listen:
“The decision to shuffle students from one building to another in the name of numbers is shameful. The decision to do so is based on the premise that children, teachers, and schools are indistinguishable widgets, to be distributed as efficiently as possible across the landscape.
“But the fact is that schools are ecosystems, each with its own history, culture, and intricately woven set of social relationships. Schools are community anchors. They not interchangeable, nor are they disposable. Schools are home.
“Regular school closings, like I experienced, are hard. What’s happened at Dyett is arguably even harder. Since CPS opted for a slow ‘phase-out’ over several years, students and teachers had to watch as the world around them was slowly dismantled, piece by piece.
“As teachers and students left, the school’s budget was thrown into disarray, so that the students who were left had to take online courses to get credits in Spanish and social studies, and even art, music, and physical education. One girl I interviewed told me that her teacher quit, for fear that if he stuck around until the school was totally closed, he wouldn’t be able to find a job the next year. He never told his students he was leaving—they walked into the classroom one day and found a note he had left for them. Like he was dumping them.
“After CPS’s plan to close Dyett was announced four years ago, a coalition of community members led by KOCO created a proposal for it to reopen as what they have called a ‘global village academy,’ an open-enrollment neighborhood high school where teachers, parents, and local school council members would work together with educators from the local elementary schools to share resources to create a continuous educational pipeline for students from preschool to twelfth grade.
“The district ignored the idea.
“Then, in December 2014, something strange happened, something that doesn’t happen often: CPS changed its mind. Sort of. They did not accept the plan, but they did something unprecedented—issued a request for proposals from the community, seeking ‘innovative programmatic design’ from whoever had a good idea for how to bring back the school.
“To the people who had already presented a plan to bring back the school, this seemed strange and even disrespectful. During a CPS hearing, one parent shouted,
” ‘It’s not like we woke up and wrote a proposal one day in crayon… shouldn’t nobody be up here [offering a proposal] but us.’
“But they went forward with the process. The rebranded ‘Coalition to Revitalize Dyett,’ led by KOCO with support and participation from the University of Illinois-Chicago, the Botanic Garden, the Du Sable Museum of African-American History, and the Chicago Teachers Union, put together a more robust proposal.
“The final version incorporated community feedback and insight from teachers and UIC faculty, and ultimately outlined a school focused on ‘global leadership and green technology.’ The proposal says that its design team ‘envisions a high school that will be grounded in the history of Bronzeville and thoroughly integrated with the local community,’ through a ‘partnership among teachers, administrators, parents, and community residents.’
“Our model is of a sustainable school rooted in the community. This proposal comes from the people of Bronzeville who speak from the heart about a school that lives in a village of tightly interconnected feeder schools, community institutions and organizations, local school councils of dedicated and loving adults, relationships, and the meaning of place.’
” … ”
“As of this writing, neither Mayor Rahm Emanuel nor anyone from CPS has commented on the hunger strike. This morning, Irene Robinson was admitted to the hospital to receive medical support. She didn’t have to go far—Provident Hospital, across the street from Dyett, was founded by Daniel Hale Williams, the African-American doctor who performed the world’s first open heart surgery. There was once a school in Bronzeville named after Dr. Williams. It was closed in 2013.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” said Ms. Irene, hugging me from her wheelchair.
” … ”
“I remember what Martin, one of the thirteen students who stayed at Dyett until its final year, told me recently. ‘Dyett is our fort.’ Dyett is different than the other schools. Because Dyett might come back.
“And that, really, is what the hunger strike is about—the hope that what’s lost can return. Like maybe even in a city that never wanted us, and has found creative ways to show it, from the 1919 race riots to stopping and frisking people at a rate four times that of New York City, a city that broke our hearts so bad that the blues made us famous—maybe even here, black children and all of Chicago’s children can be guaranteed a high-quality education, whether or not they have high test scores or parents who enter them into a lottery. Maybe we can learn well and live well, right here in our own home.”
I just listened the WBEZ radio, and Cunningham makes no sense.
ON the one hand, he keeps saying that the city’s full of half-empty schools, yet at the end still calls for opening of more charter schools. The reason? Because there’s parent “demand” for more charter schools.” Doesn’t all the under-capacity of charters indicate there’s no demand, or need?
However, he also argues that CPS shouldn’t re-open Dyett because there’s no demand?
Seriously? When’s the last time a community organization staged a hunger strike with the goal of opening another Noble, Urban Prep, or UNO charter school? So the hunger strike doesn’t reflect demand?
Another point not made in the radio show. Rahm Emanuel closed 50 schools, over the vehement objections of the community, saying the schools didn’t have enough kids. Chicago has all the schools it needs.
However, a report leaked from TFA that it was about to expand in Chicago because … CPS, in next few years, would be opening 50 new charter schools, to be staffed by non-union TFA short-timers.
So let’s review:
50 public schools staffed by union teachers are closed, and those teachers have to screamble to find jobs, or get fired.
50 charter schools will then open, and will be staffed by non-uion TFA Corps Members.
If that’s not union-busting with TFA acting as de facto scabs, then can someone please tell me what is?
Three years ago this week, Jennifer “Edushyster” Berkshire covered the release of this TFA memo here:
http://edushyster.com/is-tfa-undermining-the-chicago-public-schools/
———————————-
Undermining the Chicago Public Schools?
An internal TFA document shows plans for a dramatic charter expansion in the Windy City
hen news broke this summer that Teach for America was expanding its presence in Chicago amid the largest school closings in that city’s history and the layoffs of thousands of teachers and school staff, the reaction was swift, furious and extended well beyond the usual chorus of TFA detractors. At the time, I argued that the heated-back-and-forth, while welcome, missed the point. In city after city, TFA has largely abandoned its earlier mission of staffing hard-to-fill positions in public schools, serving instead as a placement agency for urban charters. In Chicago, however, TFA’s role appears to go far beyond providing labor for the fast-growing charter sector. An internal TFA document indicates that the organization has a plan to dramatically expand the number of charter schools in the city.
The document, a slide from Chicago TFA’s January 2013 Board of Directors meeting, is reproduced below. (You can view the original here or here). The five year charter management organization or CMO growth plan forecasts a dramatic expansion of privately-run charters in the city. The 52 new schools projected below would serve more than 30,000 students.
5-Year-CMO-Growth-Plan
TFA Chicago’s response
I shared the document with TFA Chicago’s executive director, Josh Anderson, both to ensure that it is authentic (it is) and to give him an opportunity to respond. Here’s what I asked Anderson:
————————————–
EDUSHYSTER-to-TFA’s-John Anderson:
“This information raises some serious questions about the nature of TFA’s role in the growth of the charter sector in Chicago at the expense of traditional public schools, especially as TFA has contracts to provide corps members to teach in some of the same schools that are expanding.
“As you no doubt know, the opening of 52 additional charters will certainly mean more school closures. Can you explain TFA’s specific role in the push to open these charters? What I find most troubling about this is that TFA appears to have a “seat at the table” in determining the future shape of Chicago’s schools, yet parents don’t.
————————————–
And here is how Anderson responded:
————————————–
EDUSHYSTER-to-TFA’s-John Anderson:
“Thanks for reaching out.
“As an organization, we’re strong advocates of high quality schools of all types, and, nationally more of our corps members work in traditional schools than in charters. We work hard to tailor our growth to community needs and are always looking into ways with our partners to expand great educational opportunities for our kids. This slide is a set of outdated projections from various high-quality charter networks in the city about their potential to grow if all the necessary conditions were present. Those conditions include, first and foremost, parent demand, and, then, things like authorization, access to affordable building space, sustainable public funding, access to private capital to assist with growth costs, etc., none of which Teach For America has any direct control over. We are a partner in providing them with one source of diverse teaching and school leadership talent for open positions.
“Given the recent school closures and all our education community has gone through since January, these projections would no doubt need to be significantly adjusted by the CMOs. Moving forward, we hope the conditions improve, so that high-quality schools of all types can expand and better meet the needs of our kids and families.”
————————————–
Connecting the dots
But this blandly legalistic statement doesn’t quite convey just how wired in Chicago TFA is to the very processes that Anderson describes. TFA has close relationships with the charter organizations listed—KIPP, of course, is run and staffed by TFA alum.
Locally, TFA’s supply of corps members to staff schools like UNO and Noble at salaries far below what teachers in the Chicago Public Schools earn has been key to enabling the schools’ expansion. Then there is the charter authorization process to which Anderson refers.
The National Association of Charter School Authorizers is headquartered in Chicago and works closely with the Office of New Schools, the division of the Chicago Public Schools that oversees the application process for opening new charters in the city. While Anderson is correct that his organization has “no direct control” over the nuts and bolts of charter expansion, TFA does enjoy a unique connection.
You see, Anderson’s wife, a TFA alum, just happens to be the chief of staff for the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. [Update: Ms. Anderson says that NACSA no longer has a relationship with the Chicago Public Schools.]
Backwards planning
Whether the document reflects an “outdated” fantasy projection as Anderson contends or something far more concrete seems to hinge on the definition of the word “plan.” Interestingly, “planning” within the TFA universe conveys something very specific. What’s known as “backwards planning” or “purposeful planning” lies at the core of TFA’s pedagogical training and leadership philosophy. According to this approach, any plan, large or small, is comprised of three sequential principles: 1) develop a vision from which you can plan “backwards”; 2) develop an assessment to determine whether you’ve reached that vision; 3) design your plan. Here’s how TFA describes ‘how to get from there to here’:
—————————
TFA:
“Before taking any action, strong leaders ‐ be they in a board room, an operating room, or a classroom ‐ define the ultimate result they want, make clear how they will know they have succeeded and only then choose and design strategies to that end.”
—————————
The “strong leaders” who met in the board room of Chicago TFA on January 13, 2013 defined their ultimate result: 52 new charter schools serving more than 30,000 students. Whether they get from “there to here” remains to be seen.
Oh, and one more thing regarding the Edushyster article about charter school expansion in Chicago.
She mentions that the head of TFA’s Chicago branch, Josh Anderson, is married to Phoebe Anderson, a woman who’s leading NACSA, a key organization involved in the charter school expansion in Chicago… charter schools that, once again, will be staffed by TFA teachers, provIded by Phoebe’s husband’s organization, TFA.
This provokes the latter to chime in on the COMMENTS section, and Jennifer to respond with her usual snark:
———————–
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Phoebe Anderson September 9, 2013 at 3:50 pm
“Hi, I’m ‘Anderson’s wife, a TFA alum,’ and your article is ridden with inaccuracies – not the least of which is that NACSA has no partnership (formal or informal) with TFA. Nor do we work closely with the Office of New Schools in Chicago (and it’s no longer called that). I appreciate your efforts at journalism but next time, check your facts.
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Edushyster: September 9, 2013 at 3:56 pm
“Thanks for reaching out.
“Just a heads up: if NACSA no longer has a relationship with the Chicago Public Schools Office of New Schools you might want to update your website (which shows just such a connection, JACK, though the page was deleted shortly afterwards)
http://www.qualitycharters.org/membership/member-spotlight/chicago-public-schools-2.html
“As for the other inaccuracies, I look forward to receiving a full list so that I can correct them. Thanks!”
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
The rest of the Comments section is equally colorful.
Corporate ed. reform’s incestuous connections never end.
Go to Dr. Ravitch’s article on the secret memo detaIling the planned expansion of 52 new charter schools in Chicago:
https://dianeravitch.net/2013/09/09/chicago-bombshell-tfa-plans-to-staff-52-new-charters-as-50-public-schools-die/comment-page-1/#comments
In the Comments section is this tidbit about Josh Anderson, who’s in charge of TFA’s Chicago branch.
Apparently, it’s all in family for destroying public schools:
— bride Phoebe,
— groom Josh,
and oh …
— check out the groom’s father’s occupation / place of work, and the groom’s father’s boss:
———–
From a N.Y. Times wedding announcement:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/fashion/weddings/phoebe-harlan-joshua-anderson-weddings.html?_r=0
———————–
(CAPS mine, JACK)
“Mr. Anderson, 30, is the executive director of Teach for America-Chicago. He graduated from Princeton.
“He is the son of Joan Bradbury and Jo Anderson Jr. of Chicago. The bridegroom’s mother retired as a third-grade teacher at Francis W. Parker School, a private school in Chicago.
“HIS FATHER WORKS IN WASHINGTON AS A SENIOR ADVISOR TO ARNE DUNCAN, THE SECRETARY OF EDUCATION.”