Mike Klonsky points out that the policies of Trump and DeVos will cement the segregation and inequality that is now baked into the two-tier system in Chicago.
“Modern school reform has become nearly synonymous with racial re-segregation and two-tier education. There’s one tier for the elite and one big tier for the rest of us. Sociologists call it social-reproduction, wherein school systems become institutions that transmit social inequality from one generation to the next.
The election of Donald Trump and his selection of Betsy DeVos, with her single-minded emphasis on “school choice”, as education secretary, promises to make the gap between the tiers even wider. But the use of charters, vouchers and selective-enrollment schools as competitive forces vis-a-vis traditional public schools predates Trump/DeVos by decades.
“Ironically, selective-enrollment schools and charters originally were envisioned as tools for desegregation. Selective enrollment and magnet high schools in particular were created in the 1970s after consent decrees forced school districts to desegregate.
“The news out of Chicago, where Mayor Rahm Emanuel has autocratic power over the public schools, is that the city’s selective-enrollment high schools have become even more exclusive. In 2009 the Chicago deseg consent decree was liquidated by a federal judge with support from Arne Duncan and selective-enrollment and charters have dropped all pretense of being about racial equality.
“DNAinfo reports:
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Getting into a selective enrollment high school got even harder this year — so much so that members of next year’s freshman class at Walter Payton College Prep High School who won one of the coveted seats outright earned at least 898 points out of a possible 900 points, according to cutoff-score data released by the district.”
“While some provisions are made to admit a quota of “economically disadvantaged” students to schools like Payton, those students are often re-segregated or tracked to lower tiers within the school itself.
Imagine what happens when the only route into a selective school requires a near perfect score on a standardized test.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
—-cago has been Rahm-ed. I don’t GET those deformers.
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Chicago will NEVER get back to itself as the windy city until creepy Rahm is out of there plain and simple,. The people of Chicago really need Rahm to leave Chicago after he created this hell hole better known now as the murder capital of the US. Shame shame shame but hey Rahm was an Obama buddy just like Arnie Duncan his basketball buddy so what the heck.
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“Sociologists call it social-reproduction, wherein school systems become institutions that transmit social inequality from one generation to the next.”
And a very similar phenomena happens on a personal level with the standards and testing regime and what schooling does to the individual. To quote what NoBrick has quoted before:
“‘So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.’ [Wilson’s words]
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.” [my commentary]
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^^Like!^^
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Is there a major city in America where there aren’t some charters with “middle class” neighborhood boundaries and where the selective magnet school don’t under enroll poor students? My question is sincere. It would seem to require an elaborate system to prevent such a situation.
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It might worthy to consider REIT’s (Real estate investment trusts) and .01% general real estate transactions when considering the push/pull of segregation/desegregation. I believe this is a slimy two pronged approach.
Identify the region to be acquired. Sort children by race and intel, sending the best test takers in one direction and leaving all others to an array of lessor options. While this is happening ,the communities of color becomes divided because it lacks a common objective – fighting for a local public school. Nothing binding the community that is spoked every which way, developers and real estate billionaires like ELI BROAD put up millions to defeat the grass roots measure to halt luxury development and loads more to reinstate school board Charter school rubber stampers like Monica Garcia.
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