This writer explains why closing schools blights communities and causes economic Decline.
Officials in Chicago assert that hey are saving money by closing 50+ schools,but the ripple effect of school closings will leave devastated communities behind, costing taxpayers far more than any allied savings.
Unfortunately, Chicago officials are looking on the schools as if they were chain stores that did not turn a profit. In fact, they are in most places the hub of the community.
The Center for American Progress is supposedly a liberal organization, but it is a cheerleader for corporate reform. It has published report after report endorsing the main ideas of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.
It just released a new report that lauds mayoral control.
Those of us who live in cities under mayoral control know that the primary result is not to improve education or to help struggling children, but to stifle the voices of parents, students, teachers, and community members. Under mayoral control, governance is transferred to the mayor and the power elite, few of whom have children in public schools or even attended one. Mayoral control snuffs out democracy.
The timing of this report comes just as the mayor of Chicago unilaterally decided to close more than 50 public schools, decimating communities and stranding thousands of children. Is this “reform” of public schools? It also comes as the third term of Mayor Bloomberg winds down, and the authoritative Quinnipiac poll shows that only 18% want more of the same.
Mayoral control has a predictable result: it undermines democracy and allows the rich ad powerful to privatize public schools for fun and profit.
In an editorial today, the Chicago Tribune says it is time to “unchain the charters” because they have along waiting list.
The “waiting list” is sheer propaganda. No one knows if it exists. No one knows how many duplications there are. No one acknowledges that charters spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to generate demand and “waiting lists.” The lists are a marketing tool.
The Tribune wants to end public education in Chicago. Even if the charters got higher test scores than the public schools–and they don’t–this would be an abandonment of civic responsibility.
Suppose the Chicago Tribune did a poll and discovered that most of the parents in the CPS want more resources, smaller classes, arts programs, and social workers in their public schools? What if their poll showed that most parents prefer public schools, not corporate chain schools? Would they print that?
Don’t hold your breath.
Robert George, former classroom teacher and currently national director of Save Our Schools, lives in the Chicago area.
Here he urges everyone to join the March 27 rally against the mass school closings.
Thoughts on a disaster…
Have you ever witnessed a disaster? Where you troubled, shaken to your core, reminded of the need to live every day as if it is your last? Would you do anything you could to have found a way to keep what you encountered from happening or happening again?
My guess is your answer to all of the above is yes!
We are in the midst of a gathering super-storm more powerful than Katrina or Sandy. More lives will be lost; more children harmed irreparably, and more families devastated than were in the two-mega storms combined.There are those who believe Sandy and Katrina were wrought at man’s hand. While this can and will be argued, what cannot escape recognition is in this current situation, The tempest is entirely one of our doing. Human beings created the crisis that came and comes.
I am speaking of the plan to close 54 schools, co-locate 11 and turnaround 6 schools in the City of Chicago. More than 30,000 students will be affected. Counting all of those affected by the community disruption it could easily be 100, 000 persons who will be harmed.
Bob you say, ‘You exaggerate!!!!!’
I do not think so. Each day black or brown children must face the educational apartheid that is the Chicago Public Schools [CPS]. Today, we lose vibrant lives to the oblivion of unfulfilled human potential. Daily lives are actually lost to violence due to the systematic disinvestment and destruction of the heart and soul of the communities of color here in Chicago. While one might think these are separate concerns, a closer look reveals the two are one in the same. Let us look at the “facts,” figures, the maps, and the hidden message too often missed.
Ask yourself; how do you explain the more than 1200 youths that have perished since 2008? http://bit.ly/WzWMPm What might create a climate that contributes to mass murders and single shootings? Could it be that if we educate our youth they might stop killing each other and themselves?
Education is the foundation of hope and the lifeblood of opportunity.
Chicago Public Schools says of itself “It establishes policies, standards, goals and initiatives to ensure accountability and provide a high quality, world-class education for the 21st century that prepares our students for success in college, work and life.” In practice, however, CPS has and is diligently acting in ways that destroys the students and educators schools in the black and brown communities. More than 75 ,000 Children have been relocated; 101 schools closed, and thousands of black and brown teachers fired.
Now we have a tsunami of epic proportions. This week it was announced that 54 more schools will close, creating 11 more co-locations and 6 turnarounds all in the same geographic areas. Look at the map of the school closings http://graphics.chicagotribune.com/school_utilization/ Compare it to the maps of youth violence in http://bit.ly/WzWMPm. Evaluate these maps and the overlay of the two and you have the map of school to prison pipeline, the map of dropouts, and the map of youth unemployment. All are near identical.
The act to close, co-locate and turnaround 71 community schools is the act of human beings destroying other human beings. This is the disaster I ask you to contemplate.
Ponder another parallel if you please. Have you noticed that unlike in the Vietnam years, we do not see the flag draped corpse of soldiers returning home from war, the children burning from napalm. It is not that wars have ended worldwide; it is just easier to avoid looking at the pain we propagate. On television screens in American homes, we do not see what broadcaster believe will hurt our eyes Oh, images are shown…of happy school children and stories that pass for success in our schools.
Shootings, hundreds and thousands each year? These occur on city streets. These are the catastrophes we do not see, but our children do. These are the devastation Moms and Dads, Aunts, Uncles, siblings and Guardians live with daily. Children’s lives are torn asunder …
That does not mean they are not there. Open your eyes look at what we have wrought and say no more. No more; not in my name!!!!!
Join us on March 27th in Chicago if you can http://www.ctunet.com/events/stop-school-closings-2013
Please call Chicago Alderman http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/other/dataset/wards.html and
Illinois State Senate Education committee members: Ask them to stop the impending disaster by enacting an immediate meaningful and enforceable moratorium on school closings.
Chairperson William Delgado 217-782-5652, Vice Chair Kimberly Lightford, Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant 217-782-0052, Daniel Biss 217-782-2119, Bill Cunningham 217-782-5145, Iris Martinez 217-782-8191, Julie Morrison 217-782-3650, Michael Noland 217-782-7746, Steve Stadelman 217-782-8022, David Luechtefeld 217-782-8137, Jason Barickman 217-782-6597, Karen McConnaughly 217-782-1977, Sue Rezin 217-782-3840 and Chapin Rose 217-782-2960
Yesterday I ran a post about an editorial in the Chicago Tribune. The editorial touted the results of a poll which the newspaper conducted in partnership with the Joyce Foundation. The poll purportedly supported privatization, merit pay, evaluation of teachers by test scores, and every other failed nostrum of the Rahm Emanuel-ALEC crowd.
But a Chicago parent group called PURE (Parents United for Responsible Education) says that the Tribune poll is a fraud. It underrepresented parents of children who attend public schools and it underrepresented African Americans. Based on PURE’s findings, the poll shows what white Chicagoans think that the children of black Chicagoans need.
According to PURE’s analysis, the poll was skewed towards privatization and it did not report its own findings accurately:
Who responded:
Of course, the Trib claims that results were “weighted” to assure a mix consistent with city demographics…but then, like Mayor Rahm, most of the white people in Chicago send their children to private schools.
Key results the Trib decided not to tell you about:
Fresh from his skiing vacation in Utah, Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he is closing 54 public schools because he wants all the children in Chicago to get a quality education. So he closing the schools of 30,000 children.
May we see a show of hands? How many people believe that at the end of Emanuel’s term of office, all children in Chicago will have a quality education? Is he hiding his secret recipe?
To add insult to injury, he channels the father of public education, Horace Mann, in calling education “the great equalizer.” Mann was not talking about charter schools or academies or religious schools. He was talking about public schools.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, fresh from his skiing trip in Utah, and showing a bit of windburn on his face, held a press conference to explain that it was a “difficult” decision to close 54 public schools and disrupt the lives of 30,000 children.
Mayor Emanuel’s children will not be affected, fortunately. They attend the elite University of Chicago Lab School, where President Obama and Secretary Duncan sent their children. It is the same school attended by the children of former CPS board chair and billionaire Penny Pritzker.
I have no beef with people who send their children to private or religious schools, so long as they pay for it themselves and don’t ask the public to pay for their children’s private education. But it is hypocritical to believe that your own children need small classes, experienced teachers, a broad curriculum, a vibrant arts program, but the children of others who are less fortunate do not. The public can’t and won’t pay for the fine opportunities at elite private schools, but those who are in a position of power–like Obama, Duncan, Emanuel, Pritzer, and many others who call themselves “reformers”–should want the same for Other People’s Children. They should fight for it. They should exert their energies to demand equality of educational opportunity and stop promoting second-class education for Other People’s Children.
This is what John Dewey meant when he wrote: “What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.”
Mike Klonsky describes the devastation that will befall communities in Chicago as their schools are abandoned. What will happen to the children? Mayor Rahm Emanuel decided to be in Utah when his plan to devastate black communities was released.
The Chicago Tribune says that the public is ready for “reform.”
What they mean by reform is that it is time to blame teachers if kids don’t learn, and punish the teachers, like, fire them.
What they mean by reform is that the editorial board wants the public schools to be put into private hands.
They are positive about merit pay even though it has never succeeded anywhere, including Chicago. The Chicago merit pay plan was funded with $27 million from the US Department of Education’s Teacher Incentive Fund. The evaluation was funded by the Joyce Foundation, which also sponsored the Chicago Tribune’s public opinion poll.
After five years, this is what the evaluators of the Chicago merit pay plan concluded: “The final impact report found that the program did not raise student math or reading scores, but it increased teacher retention in some schools.”
The Joyce Foundation knew this. So did the Chicago Tribune. Why didn’t they so?
The public wants lots of things that have failed again and again.
Shouldn’t the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune tell the public the truth?
From a teacher:
“I worked at one of the CPS schools that is going to be closed and, contrary to the administrative determination, it is not an “underutilized” school.
“The school is truly an anchor in the community. Many teachers have worked there so long that their students today are the children of their former students, The teachers have devoted their entire careers to that school, to that community, and now they are losing their livelihoods. Their hearts are broken. This is all so utterly senseless.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 