Eve Ewing has a fabulous bio, as author, academic, playwright, poet, and comic book hero.
She is also the author of the recent book about Rahm Emanuel’s historic closing of 50 schools in a single day, called “Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side.” I reviewed it here. It was the first book to my knowledge that tells the story of school closings from the perspective of the students, families, teachers, and communities.
Here she appears on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
Speaking of ghosts, she will haunt Rahm Emanuel forever. Her book will be remembered long after he is forgotten.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ewing outlines the problems that have allowed institutional racism in our country. When Emanuel closed fifty schools, he also blew up communities and families. He pulled the anchor out and set the ships adrift in a sea of chaos. We know that the murder rate spiked after Emanuel’s callous treatment of minority communities.
I would also argue that charter schools continue our racist proclivities. I still cannot understand how it is sound policy to allow public money to be used to establish separate and unequal schools that enhance segregation. Ewing is right that we must consider education a “common good,” as determined by those that first envisioned common schools. The whole concept depends on bringing diverse groups together and allowing them to learn together, but we must invest in all, not some. The results benefit society as a whole, not individuals trying to push others out of the way to rise to the top. Public education built our nation, and it is a public asset for all.
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Yes, I have always suspected it is not a coincidence that Chicago’s murder rate went up after Rahm undermined such an important community institution as the neighborhood school in so many poor neighborhoods.
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“I still cannot understand how it is sound policy to allow public money to be used to establish separate and unequal schools that enhance segregation .”
This is how we fight it: using your words.
Charters snuck in 20 yrs ago looking to progressives like help for poor inner-city school kids, & everybody piled on: libertarians [dump public schools], Evangelists & Catholics [religious ed on the public dime], IT titans [sell hw & sw], pols [fatten campaign coffers], & fraudsters. Now that charters have ‘grown up,’ we have enough data to show they are exactly what you say here, & need to shout it from the rooftops. At minimum, we should be able to enlighten progressives– & they may be able to shame neolib Dems hiding behind pseudo-progressive platitudes.
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a good description for neoliberal policy vs. commonwealth policy: individuals pushing others out of the way to rise to the top vs. results benefiting society as a whole
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She speaks as eloquently as she writes. Also, Eve L. Ewing will be among many haunting Rahm (and Barack) for a long time to come.
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If there is a heaven and hell, we all know where Rahm is headed, and if that hell is what Dante described, Rahm will have to be carved up so he can suffer in several of the nine levels of that hell for eternity.
But Rahm won’t be alone. Trump, Eva, Betsy, and a lot of others will be there screaming in agony right alongside him.
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It’s all about gentrification.
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a power so great in force (big money/political backing) that many parents/kids/teachers fighting so hard to save a school or a neighborhood win a district fight here or there only to have the gentrification steamroller level not only them but everything they fought for
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