In 2004,Arne Duncan, the new Superintendent of the Chicago public schools announced his radical plan to turn around the entire school system. He called it Renaissance 2010. The plan involved closing over 80 public schools with low test scores and replacing them with 100 shiny new charter schools. Most studies have found little or no impact on test scores.
Now, writes Jan Resseger, it is possible to see the damage done by Renaissance to families and communities.
Renaissance 2010 was a tragedy.
Resseger writes:
“On Tuesday evening’s PBS NewsHour, I was surprised as I listened to an interview about the tragic gun violence in Chicago last weekend to hear the speaker name public high school closures as among the causes. Certainly exploding economic inequality, poverty, lack of jobs, the presence of street gangs, and other structural factors are contributing to this long, hot summer in Chicago. But Lance Williams, a professor at Northeastern Illinois University, blamed Renaissance 2010, a now-20-year-old charter school expansion program, for today’s violence.
“Professor Williams expressed particular concern about the phase out of neighborhood high schools: “(Y)ou’re seeing the violence on the West Side and the South Sides of Chicago because, about 20 years ago, in the early 2000s, the city of Chicago implemented some very, very bad public policy. The most damaging of those policies was the policy of Renaissance 2010, when Chicago basically privatized, through charter schools, neighborhood public elementary and high schools. It became a serious problem, because many of the high schools and communities that had long traditions of street organizations caused young African-American males to be afraid to leave out of their communities, going to new schools throughout the city of Chicago. So, basically, from the early 2000s, too many young Afrcan-American males haven’t been going to school, meaning that they don’t have life prospects. They can’t get jobs. They’re self-medicated to deal with the stress in their community. And it’s driving a lot of the violence.”
“The other speaker in the NewsHour‘s interview, Tamar Manasseh, runs a volunteer organization providing community meals at the corner of Chicago’s 75th Street and South Stewart Avenue—meals that provide food, and meals that try to build community to compensate for the destruction of community institutions. Ms. Manasseh explained: “And it’s not just about the kids. It’s about the wellness of the entire community… There are 100 other organizations just like me who are out here every day in their own way making a contribution to making communities better… Englewood will not have any public schools in the fall. And these kids that Professor Williams spoke of, they will have no options of a public high school in Englewood.”
“The research literature has documented that in Chicago, Portfolio School Reform and the subsequent expansion of school choice has been undermining public schools, which have previously been central institutions binding communities together. This PBS NewsHour interview is the first I’ve seen in the mainstream press to connect the dots between the expansion of school choice and the shredding of the fabric of Chicago’s neighborhoods.”
In 2013, Mayor Rahm Emanuel compounded the harm done to Chicago’s black communities by closing 50 schools in one day.
“Here is how the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research describes the impact of the 2013 public school closures on Chicago’s South and West Sides: “When the closures took place at the end of the 2012-13 school year, nearly 12,000 students were attending the 47 elementary schools that closed that year, close to 17,000 students were attending the 48 designated welcoming schools, and around 1,100 staff were employed in the closed schools.” The report continues: “Our findings show that the reality of school closures was much more complex than policymakers anticipated…. Interviews with affected students and staff revealed major challenges with logistics, relationships and school culture… Closed school staff and students came into welcoming schools grieving and, in some cases, resentful that their schools closed while other schools stayed open. Welcoming school staff said they were not adequately supported to serve the new population and to address resulting divisions. Furthermore, leaders did not know what it took to be a successful welcoming school… Staff and students said that it took a long period of time to build new school cultures and feel like a cohesive community.”
“The Consortium on School Research continues: “When schools closed, it severed the longstanding social connections that families and staff had with their schools and with one another, resulting in a period of mourning… The intensity of the feelings of loss were amplified in cases where schools had been open for decades, with generations of families attending the same neighborhood school. Losing their closed schools was not easy and the majority of interviewees spoke about the difficulty they had integrating and socializing into the welcoming schools.” “Even though welcoming school staff and students did not lose their schools per se, many also expressed feelings of loss because incorporating a large number of new students required adjustments… Creating strong relationships and building trust in welcoming schools after schools closed was difficult.. Displaced staff and students, who had just lost their schools, had to go into unfamiliar school environments and start anew. Welcoming school communities also did not want to lose or change the way their schools were previously.”
Please read the post.
Nothing good came of Renaissance 2010, other than to boost Arne Duncan’s reputation as a “Reformer” who was unafraid to close schools, shred communities, and trample on the lives of black people.
Jan has included an eloquent statement on her website. Everyone needs to meditate on the message.
“That all citizens will be given an equal start through a sound education is one of the most basic, promised rights of our democracy. Our chronic refusal as a nation to guarantee that right for all children…. is rooted in a kind of moral blindness, or at least a failure of moral imagination…. It is a failure which threatens our future as a nation of citizens called to a common purpose… tied to one another by a common bond.” —Senator Paul Wellstone — March 31, 2000
Arne is not the only cause of the extreme violence and displacement of students in Chicago, but he certainly exacerbated the problems and has demonstrated fully that he has no moral center in regard to education–true when he was Superintendent in Chicago, true when he was Secretary of Education, true in his afterlife chasing money as if an expert in anything related to education.
The fight for public education- “The duty is to shelter the innocent from injustice and to protect the weak from oppression”. A profound thank you to those fighting against the barren souls of hedge funders and tech tyrants.
Nobody knows for the sure the total devastation caused by closing at least fifty public schools at once. We do know that there are multiple gangs on the Chicago streets. Closings public schools forced students to cross into other gang territories, and we do know there was a large uptick in the numbers of shootings and deaths after the school closures. We will never know how many of these acts of violence were due to mass school closures.
I do remember reading at one point about the metamorphosis of the gangs into just short of terrorist organizations. My words not the article’s, and perhaps they are too inflammatory. Anyway, the gist of what was said was that the gangs fractured into smaller groups led by young, unseasoned members when the city essentially jailed most of the senior leadership, guys in their forties. While the activity was illegal, at least the young bloods were under strict supervision. There was a structure to gang culture that all obeyed. In the same way, community schools that had served their communities for generations provided a structure for community life where all could meet in relative peace. When they were closed, the trust was lost, too, and a voice for the community was lost. Mrs. Johnson, your fourth grade teacher, no longer lived down the block. I remember standing in the hall at the high school in which I worked when one of my students walked by in a group of other students. She was in the middle of some profane pronouncement when she saw me and stopped mid tirade with an embarrassed shrug. Chicago lost the power of a lot of Mrs. Johnson’s when they closed those fifty schools.
cx: a lot of Mrs. Johnsons
I remember reading about this at the time and speduktr adds even more insight.
The kids had to cross over into what was often enemy gang territory. It got messy.
I think the linked article, excellent as it is, is a little soft on that point. It cites the large numbers of kids who dropped out because of fears related to leaving their community neighborhoods, but it leaves out one very important reason for those fears. Both on the part of the kids and their parents.
Take a look at the synonyms for “reformer” and discover that Arne the Reformer is also Arnie the radical, Arnie the propagandist, Arne the instigator, Arne the malcontent, Arne the heretic, Arnie the fomenter, Arne the ringleader, Arne the zealot, Arne the demagogue, Arne the disrupter, Arne the troublemaker, Arne the subversive, Arne the fanatic, and Arne the anarchist.
Arne’s actions reveal that he is all of those synonyms of “reformer” and nothing else.
https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/reformer
Lloyd, That is a good little refresher on the meanings and connotations of labels. I am reminded of the positions taken by writers for the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation. The dubious moral logic built into this economic theory is that ripping kids from their parents under the banner of “protecting our borders” is just fine and dandy–disruption is good when it is innovative.
The CCIDI is promoting a book insisting that the intenet will address equity if we just get everyone to use some of the apps they are hyping in an online marketplace and a book forthcoming August 18 that claims “success” is all about who you know, your social capital. You can acquire that by using the internet to “connect” with tutors, mentors, underemployed people who have an interest in helping each person who finds a link in a version of Angies List or ebay “services providers” also software and YouTubes for a connection to “industry experts.”
If you have not come across it, you might enjoy a romp through Beth Levin’s English Verb Classes and Alternations: A preliminary investigation. It is not a thesaurus but a fascinating look at how verbs express arguments. It makes me wish to be a kid again and learning English as never before.
“The CCIDI is promoting a book insisting that the intenet will address equity if we just get everyone to use some of the apps they are hyping”
BIG smile – :o)
Have you heard of the Math Babe, Cathy O’Neil? She founded a company that analyzes (inspects) apps to reveal programmed, built-in bias. She’s written about this on her blog.
https://mathbabe.org/
O’Neil says, “We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we pay for health insurance—are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated.” From her book that was Longlisted for the National Book Award.
With a focus on stripping naked the ‘Theory’ side of the issue.
She also has Bloomberg View column out about the failure of the Gates Foundation’s Education Reform:
Here’s How Not to Improve Public Schools
The Gates Foundation’s big-data experiment wasn’t just a failure. It did real harm.
https://mathbabe.org/2018/06/27/the-failure-of-ed-reform/
Lloyd. Re Cathy O’Neil. Yes I have the book, and check into her blog to find updates. First say her on C-Span talking about the book, then just published.
Deform has not been positive. It has not even been neutral.
It has caused great harm.
Perhaps it is time to hold Arne Duncan, Rahm Emanuel, Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates and all of their sychophantic think tank wankers accountable.
By holding them accountable, does that include the inquisition’s rack, dunking them in boiling oil, and the French Revolution’s guillotine — I hope?
Think wank? Or racism wink tank? Wink wank? Definitely not think tank.
Big props to hero Jitu Brown for always getting it right, and to PBS for getting it right this time. Arne Duncan is the worst sort.
You’re right that “think tank” is an oxfordmoron.
These organizations are primarily populated with intellectual prostitutes.
I added two words.
These organizations are primarily populated with “Ivy League” intellectual prostitutes.
I suspect that their Ivy League educations programmed them to be intellectual prostitutes for corporations and billionaires. To them being a prostitute for corporations is the way life works.
I saw this on twitter, along with Peter Cunningham’s response:
“Really reckless thing to say. Chicago is leading the nation in student growth in part because of Renaissance 2010.”
I guess the point is that if you can post some better stats and manufacture selective success, what you do to communities and the violence it might encourage is besides the point.
But then again, he accompanied Duncan to Parkland Fla. to talk to 50 parents, whose kids already know how to fight for change, into having their children skip school to teach the NRA and politicians a lesson about gun control.
I figured Chicago would have been a more logical target of their activism. It’s closer and suffers with violence more chronically. But what do I know.
Hmmm. Are higher test scores the reward in exchange for unparalleled youth violence?
Or the violence is acceptable collateral damage as long as your spreadsheets and formulas show favorable data.
“Chicago is leading the nation in student growth in part because of Renaissance 2010.”
I think Cunningham must be talking about student obesity, which is above 50% in some under resourced Chicago neighborhoods.
Amara Enyia, who will run against Rahm next year, “denounces the audacity of the mayor criticising communities, when he has closed schools and health clinics, has the power to direct investment toward them, or ensure police are acting under the law.”