Jan Resseger reviews fifteen years of corporate education reform led by Arne Duncan and Rahm Emanuel and finds failure, disruption, and racism.
It started in 2004 when Arne launched his Renaissance 2010 initiative, pledging to close 100 “failing schools” and replace them, in large part with charter schools. Rahm continued it by closing 49 schools on a single day.
Resseger relies on the brilliant analysis of the school closings by Eve Ewing, where she showed the pain inflicted on black families and communities by the closings.
Corporate school reform in Chicago, while claiming to be neutral and based on data, has always operated with racist implications. Ewing provides the numbers: “Of the students who would be affected by the closures, 88 percent were black; 90 percent of the schools were majority black, and 71 percent had mostly black teachers—a big deal in a country where 84 percent of public school teachers are white.”(Ghosts in the Schoolyard, p. 5).
Resseger then turns to a new study by Stephanie Farmer of Roosevelt University, which found that the city’s school-based budgeting disadvantaged the poorest schools, where black children were concentrated.
A new report from Roosevelt University sociologist, Stephanie Farmer now documents that Student Based Budgeting Concentrates Low Budget Schools in Chicago’s Black Neighborhoods.
Farmer explains: “In 2014, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) adopted a system-wide Student Based Budgeting model for determining individual school budgets… Our findings show that CPS’ putatively color-blind Student Based Budgeting reproduces racial inequality by concentrating low-budget public schools almost exclusively in Chicago’s Black neighborhoods… Since the 1990s, the Chicago Board of Education (CBOE) has adopted various reforms to make Chicago Public Schools work more like a business than a public good. CBOE’s school choice reform of the early 2000s created a marketplace of schools by closing neighborhood public schools to make way for new types of schools, many of which were privatized charter schools.”
There is a rumor in Washington that Rahm wants to be Secretary of Education in the next Democratic Administration. Nothing in his record qualifies him for the job. He failed. Arne Duncan failed. The nation is living with the consequences of their failed ideas, which were inherited from George W. Bush, Rod Paige, Sandy Kreisler, and Margaret Spellings.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
RAHM is not a good person and knows NOTHING except how to BULLY others. He sickens me.
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Rahmbo: Last Blood
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“There is a rumor in Washington that Rahm wants to be Secretary of Education in the next Democratic Administration. ” This line alone should scare the beejeebees out of any who know what’s going on in the education game.
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Yikes!
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BTW, I read an article written by Emanuel in February, 2019. In it he claims his administration made great strides in Chicago. He admits to a tough time with the union. The most interesting part though is that he tries to detach himself from “reform.” He claims we should support good schools regardless of type. He also seems to be interested in the role a principal plays in a school. This article is hardly a “mea culpa,” and it seems to wreak of the same hubris Emanuel is known for. This guy should never lead the DOE.https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/policymakers-need-new-path-education-reform/581995/
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When someone says, “I’m for good schools of every kind,” they support charters and vouchers. Rahm is old wine in an old bottle.
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Rahm made cold-eye calculations on selling school choice to communities. He wanted those school properties and he knew how to make it happen
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Ew. That’s the LAST person we need as Secretary of Education.
I’m starting to think it would be better if the Secretary of Education didn’t exist at all. It could hardly be worse than it has been for the last 20 years.
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Laquan McDonald would not want Rahm the Racist to be a cabinet member. There are rumors in Washington he wants to be secretary of education?! What a disaster for America that would be. Rahm is worse than Betsy. There are also rumors in Washington that the Wall Street Democrats have a losing strategy and widely despised tactics such that lead to rightwing reactionary victories. When will they admit it? When we rise up and force them out of power. Stay in the private sector where you belong, Rahm the Racist Reverse Robin Hood.
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Rham & Duncan’s education plans came straight out of the Jim Crow south after Brown v BoEd ended segregation in public ed. They can posture & disseminate to the echo chamber inside CAP, the DNC & the NYTimes, but they can’t dispute the history behind their racist, school choice policies.
https://southernspaces.org/2019/segregationists-libertarians-and-modern-school-choice-movement?fbclid=IwAR2M4-XxDt9isuO5G388pwDbwvYk_bRuUbe9EIm1OBsTMgLhUUgR-HxCkQ8
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I have a friend who is an editor in Nashville who told me about a book by a guy who wrote about school desegregation in Alabama.
At first, it was all very overt segregation. But the courts weren’t having that anymore. Finally after the courts had ruled and the segregationists realized they lost, they started in for…wait for it…SCHOOL TESTING.
They launched this huge regime of heavy duty testing during the busing in the name of “quality schools.” If they could flunk those black kids out, they’d have their schools back again. I mean, surely everybody could see those kids could not read, right? And they should just go pick cotton, why put them in school?
When they failed to get the blacks out, they turned to private schools, vouchers & charters and all the efforts we’re familiar with to divert funding away from the public schools.
Rahm & Duncan owe the country an apology and then they need to go away.
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“There is a rumor in Washington that Rahm wants to be Secretary of Education in the next Democratic Administration.”
Please let this rumor have originated from the Onion.
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Rahm might want to be in a Democratic cabinet, but other than someone like Cory Booker, I doubt most Democrats would touch him at his point.
And Cory Booker has zero chance of getting the nomination.
Cory and Rahm were made for each other. A couple of losers.
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yeah but obama said arnie duncan was a good basketball player when they were buddies…..wink wink
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Yes, Jan R and you have both said it like it was and we are left with all the pieces of the debris. Like the climate crisis, we are running out of time in our education crisis. I’m working right alongside you and many others to create positive change. We’re on a high learning curve and a high creative curve. Our votes matter, but getting the best leadership matters even more. I’ve known since the last election who is the best to carry us through this and take away the college debt and knocking out the financial burdens of those who have graduated but can not make enough to pay huge monthly education loans. Student voices are spreading out in the climate crisis and in gun control, and they will be heard in education. I see an entire change in our learning environments so we can eliminate the trauma and create wonderful learning spaces that nurture each individual and the community they build together in respect and purpose. There is no more time for muddling or upsetting ourselves about the past. Some day is today.
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