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Major Rally Today in Chicago to Protest Budget Cuts

By dianeravitch
June 21, 2013 //
3

There seems to be no end to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s war against the children and public schools of Chicago.

 

-MEDIA EVENT: FRIDAY, JUNE 21st, 10:00 a.m.-

 

Parents, Students and Education Advocates Express Outrage Over School Funding  

Raise Your Hand to Reveal School by School Breakdown totaling $74 million in cuts at 100 schools reported

What:        The CPS school funding crisis has reached a crisis point and students face a disastrous reduction in the quality of their educations. This multi-school parent-driven protest will illustrate the devastating reality of next year’s school budgets. Hundreds of parents, students and other supporters of many Chicago Public Schools will bring their outrage and their voices for change, to those who need to hear it most.  At issue for many schools may be:

  • Slashing of teacher and assistant principal positions
  • Elimination of Magnet Cluster status funding
  • Increases in class size to 30 and above
  • Cuts in bi-lingual education
  • Elimination or drastic reductions in music, art, physical education, foreign language, technology and other ESSENTIAL programming

 

When:         Friday, June 21, 10:00 – 11:00 a.m.

Where:       *James Thompson Center (State of Illinois Building), 100 W. Randolph

Why:             When the mayor enacted a 7-hour school day, students and parents were promised a FULL day, filled with the foundational academics AND enrichment AND resources.  Now, after shuttering 50 schools in order to “save money” and improve educational outcomes, CPS has released 2013-14 school budgets that are forcing other schools across the district to gut their staffs and programming. The result of the funding that has been put forth will be a day that is EMPTY!

Those in attendance are INSISTING that CPS, the City Council and Mayor Emanuel restore school-based devastating cuts in any way possible including:

1.     Declaring a Surplus on unallocated TIF funds to help recoup some of the losses in funding to CPS.

2.     Reallocating taxpayer money for unnecessary and unwarranted corporate and private venture TIF projects such as the DePaul University stadium, Vienna Beef relocation and Chicago Mercantile Exchange renovations to stop the bleeding at CPS and save public education in Chicago.

3.     State-level revenue and pension reform.

 

 

Who:            Hundreds of parents, students and education advocates representing some of Chicago’s best performing schools.

 

Photo Op:  Masses of school children, parents and community members rallied together for a single cause. Rolls of toilet paper will be carried as a symbol of how deep the current cuts will be hitting our schools. Signage illustrating WHAT INDIVIDUAL SCHOOL WILL BE LOSING – specific $s, # of teachers, specific programming, etc.
Spokespeople: Wendy Katten, Executive Director, Raise Your Hand

Contact: If you are interested in attending this event or if you would like to set up an interview, please contact Amy Smolensky at 312-485-0053 or amysmolensky@comcast.net.

Categories Chicago

Katie Osgood: The Difference Between Magnets and Charters

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2013 //
91

Katie Osgood teaches children in a hospital setting in Chicago. Here she responds to a comment from a charter advocate who insists that charter schools are no different from magnet schools:

Osgood writes:

In regards to magnet schools, I have always believed that there are equity issues surrounding this practice. However, they were begun with integration in mind and do tend to be, at least in Chicago, our most integrated schools (but with an overrepresentation of white/middle class students). Most that I know of do not have tests to get in, they are random lotteries (Maybe you are thinking of selective enrollment??). Magnets are also unionized schools with local school councils (democratic voice in community school governance for parents, teachers, community members and in high school, students) and some do provide special education services similar to neighborhood schools. They are staffed with fully-certified, experienced teachers and use proven creative curriculum and specialty programs. Their demographics tend to look like this:

http://www.cps.edu/Schools/Pages/school.aspx?id=610363

Charters are another beast altogether. They are almost without exception highly-segregated schools that tend to look like this: http://www.cps.edu/Schools/Pages/school.aspx?id=400033 There is no democratic voice, the teachers are often not unionized (although this is changing in Chicago, one school at a time), and many use questionable practices like hiring many uncertified teachers, having scripted curriculum, and using cruel, borderline corporal punishment “no excuses” discipline.

I would love for ALL schools to look more like magnets. I do not want all schools to look like charters. Charters provide low-quality education for low-income students of color. And that is wrong.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago

A Race for the Cool?

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2013 //
28

Sara Mosle explains why air-conditioning matters.

When elected officials hear complaints about sweltering classrooms, they sometimes reply that back in the day, there was no air-conditioning.

Mosle points out that when the end of year tests are given, children in affluent districts with air-conditioned classrooms have an advantage.

When the Chicago Teachers Union complained about the lack of air-conditioning, many thought this a ridiculous demand.

Karen Lewis proposed that the administrators at central headquarters work without air-conditioning. That, of course, was unthinkable.

Categories Chicago

CPS Policies Will Promote Privatization, Inequality

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2013 //
7

The Chicago Public Schools’ policy of closing public schools and opening charter schools will obviously promote privatization. What it will also promote is inequality and lack of transparency.

This is the contention of a panel that recently met to discuss the closure of some 50 public schools.

Categories Chicago, Privatization

A Suggestion for the President

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2013 //
19

A reader (Mom/Speducator) has an idea for President Obama. Instead of going to Mooresville, North Carolina, to talk up the high-tech classroom, she says, how about this:

“Shouldn’t he have instead traveled to Chicago to offer support to the thousands of families whose lives will be in upheaval in a matter of months.”

Categories Chicago, Closing schools, Emanuel, Rahm, Obama, Technology, Computers

A Response to Rahm’s Unprecedented School Closures

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2013 //
4

Here the Reverend John Thomas eloquently refutes the Chicago Tribune’s editorial support for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s heartless decision to close dozens of neighborhood schools.

The Tribune on one hand praises the teachers who saved the lives of their students. But then condemns the teachers of Chicago for refusing to accept the closure of their schools and just leave quietly.

Here is an excerpt:

“Unlike the teachers in Moore, Chicago teachers’ schools are not gone because of some capricious act of nature.  They are gone because of decades of very deliberate decisions by public officials, corporate interests and ordinary citizens that have eviscerated the neighborhoods of Chicago, displacing people with the demolition of public housing, gutting communities with foreclosures and the elimination of jobs.  The schools are gone because they have been replaced by charter schools, the darlings of politically well-connected school reformers making a profit on tax money while public officials eliminate the inconvenience of teachers unions.  The schools are gone because poor African Americans and Hispanics in Chicago are disenfranchised by school governance that is appointed by the mayor with limited accountability to the communities.  The schools are gone because public funding in this country remains tied to real estate taxes that benefit wealthy suburbs at the expense of the urban core.  The schools are gone because years of school reforms imposed from the latest outside savior have left front line teachers abused and demoralized and their students underachieving.  And the schools are gone because white flight that began decades ago has left the cities brown and black and poor.”

Categories Accountability, Chicago

Ellen Lubic: Whom Can We Trust?

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2013 //
19

Ellen Lubic of UCLA writes in response to an earlier post which asserted that the goal of corporate reform is gentrification, not education reform:

In support of what is being posited here, one only needs to review the landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2005 in the case of Kelo vs. City of New London. It is referred to as the “reverse Robin Hood case where land is taken from the poor and given to the rich.”

In this case a privately owned shopping center was taken by eminent domain and then sold by the city to a private corporation for redevelopment. This happened on the theory that the new development would bring more tax funding for the City.

Now this is extended by Chicago school closings, this appropriated property which indeed can be used for ostensible redevelopment…e.g. gentrification of the South Side.

Last night Charlie Rose interviewed Rahm Emanuel and the Mayor stressed his goals with his top priority being public education. He repeatedly spoke of how difficult it is to make change, but that his intention is to stick with it and keep his policy of school reform.

It is all very disheartening. Who can be trusted to work for The People…all The People?

Today, in Los Angeles, the LAUSD School Board is meeting to do budgeting, mainly of the huge new funding brought into the mix by the windfall of Prop. 30 which caused California taxes to be raised. Our Governor promised to focus distribution heavily in favor of inner city schools. The outcry from the suburbs is resounding. And now, Brown wants to spend the money mainly for implementing Common Core.

All over our county teachers and activists are beginning to emulate Chicago’s brave teachers, and committees and protest groups are being formed. It is a slow awakening in the second largest school district in the nation where Eli Broad has way too much voice and power…but I am hoping it will lead to a giant protest when our city realizes that we have the greatest amount of school closings in America, happening so quietly, fostered by Villaraigosa and Deasy, and leading to the highest number of charter schools .Putting facts before the public is difficult with so much controlled media and only one major newspaper, the LA Times, which Rupert Murdoch is intent on buying.

I know that Howard Blume reads this blog and I hope he will continue to focus on charter scams and Parent Revolution scams, all funded by the free market billionaires, Eli Broad, Rupert Murdoch, the Walton Family Foundation, etc. with the goal of making public education a free market opportunity.

Categories Chicago, Closing schools, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm, Los Angeles

Shame on TIME for Supporting Rahm’s School Closures

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2013 //
24

TIME magazine put Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on its cover and praised him as a new kind of “pragmatic” Democrat, the kind that busts unions, ignores parents, and cultivates the approval of the business community. That is certainly a ne kind of Democrat.

For a critique of TIME’s fawning coverage, read the article by Peter Hart of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting).

This is my favorite part of Hart’s critique, which shows the blatant bias in the magazine’s coverage:

“Time doesn’t dwell on criticisms of Emanuel’s policies; readers are told that “the Chicago Teachers Union, a power unto itself, loosed its heavy artillery”–which sounds menacing–and that some people “charged that the closures targeted majority-black schools with majority-black faculties.”
Could it be that people “charged” that because it was true? As the Chicago Sun-Times reported (3/6/13), “Nine out of 10 of the Chicago Public School students potentially affected by school closings this year are black.”

Categories Chicago, Closing schools, Emanuel, Rahm

Does Anyone Care?

By dianeravitch
May 31, 2013 //
18

Two mothers meet at a rally to protest the school closings in Chicago. One mother shows the other her cell phone. It has pictures of children on it. It is a Facebook page.

The second mother explains, these children will be killed if they cross the line into another neighborhood. That’s my son’s picture. He has been marked to die.

She went to the police. They turned her away. She went to school authorities. No one could help her.

Categories Chicago, Closing schools, Emanuel, Rahm, Students

Showdown in Chicago

By dianeravitch
May 29, 2013 //
5

The Chicago Public School board has made its decision, but the struggle is not over.

Parents are suing the school district.

The media sees the injustice of the massive shutdown of public schools and the shifting rationales for the draconian decision.

Articles in the Chicago press lambaste the Mayor’s indifference to the well-being of children.

Here is a video that summarizes the showdown. Parents and teachers will have their day in court, and eventually, at the ballot box.

Categories Chicago, Closing schools, Education Reform
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