Even as Rahm Emanuel says he has no money for schools, none at all, the cupboard is bare….. He somehow managed to find $55 million to build a private basketball stadium. Now, this is a mayor with priorities!
Archives for category: Emanuel, Rahm
Never in U.S. history has a local school board–or any other board, appointed or elected–chosen to close 49 public schools.
Never.
That’s what the Chicago Public Schools did yesterday.
Thousands of parents, students, and teachers objected, but Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his puppet board didn’t care.
Yesterday was a day of infamy in Chicago and in the history of American education.
School boards exist to protect, improve, and support public schools, not to kill them.
The New York Times has written about this story and twice said that the school closings were the largest “in recent memory.” The Times wrote this despite my telling them–twice–that these were the largest mass closure ever. I wish the reporters would explain whose “memory” they were relying on. Just yesterday I explained in an email that no public school district had ever closed 49 schools at one time. On this issue, the “Times” is not the newspaper of record but the newspaper of “recent memory.”
Why does it matter? The phraseology removes the truly historic destruction that Rahm Emanuel is inflicting on children and schools in his city. He is wantonly destroying public education. He is punishing the teachers’ union for daring to strike last fall. He will open more charter schools, staffed by non-union teachers, to pick up the kids who lost their neighborhood schools. Some of them will be named for the equity investors who fund his campaigns.
Rahm and his friends will laugh about the way he displaced 40,000 kids.
The Edwin F. Mandel Legal Clinic of the University of Chicago and a major law firm sued the Chicago Public Schools in federal court on behalf of students with disabilities and African American students. The closing of their schools, the lawsuit claims, has a damaging and disparate impact on these students.
In one lawsuit, the lawyers state:
“In violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the defendants propose to carry out the closings of 53 elementary schools in a manner that does not permit a timely and orderly process either for the proper review and revision of the individualized education programs (IEPs) for the plaintiff children and over 6,000 other children in special education programs or for the extra services and counseling such children require to make the difficult transition to unfamiliar schools and unfamiliar teachers and students. By putting off their decision on the closings to the eleventh hour, or the very end of the school year – for the largest closing of public schools in American history – the defendants place the plaintiff children and other children in special education at far greater risk than their non-disabled peers. The late date makes it impossible to conduct the closings without significant disruption to the programs in which these children participate and without adequate provision for the special safety risks faced by children with disabilities. In violation of federal law, this late, ill-timed, and ill-prepared program for the closing of 53 elementary schools will have a discriminatory impact upon the plaintiff children and other children with disabilities, compared to their non-disabled peers.”
The second lawsuit charges the school board, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, and the city not only with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, but engaging in racial discrimination:
“I]n violation of Section 5 of the Illinois Civil Rights Act of 2003 (ICRA), 740 ILCS 23/5, and by repeatedly selecting African American students to bear the costs of the closings, the defendants have unlawfully used “criteria and methods of administration” that have the “effect” of subjecting the plaintiffs’ children and other African American children represented by the plaintiff parents to discrimination because of race. In conducting closings since 2001, the defendants have used various shifting criteria that they allege to be race neutral but that always have the effect of singling out poor and marginalized African American children to bear the educational and human costs of the closings. For the 72 schools that defendants have closed to date, African American children make up more than 90 percent of the displaced children; and in currently proposed closings, they make up more than 80 percent of the displaced children. Yet African American children constitute only 42 percent of the children in the public schools.”
Ben Joravsky is the best journalist covering education in Chicago today.
In this post, titled “Mayor Emanuel’s FOIA Policy: Don’t Ask, Because We Won’t Tell,” Joravsky shows how a public school parent sued to find out basic facts about major decisions. The answer was, no, we can’t tell you that because there are no records, or the records were destroyed. Or something. Accountable? No. transparent? No.
Read this for a demonstration of the arrogance of power.
This just in from the Chicago Teachers Union, which is fighting to preserve public education in that city. The mass closure of 54 public schools is unprecedented in American history.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Stephanie Gadlin
May 9, 2013 312/329-6250
StephanieGadlin@ctulocal1.com
Thousands prepare for a three-day march against school closings as Chicago’s mayor continues his assault on working-class people under the guise of education reform
CHICAGO – As the city braces itself for the largest assault on public education in the country, thousands of parents, students, teachers, clergy, citizens and community leaders are preparing for a “long march” against school closings on May 18, 19 and 20. Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) President Karen Lewis said the non-violent demonstration is necessary because “we have a mayor who refuses to listen to reason, research and logic,” in his campaign to destroy 54 school communities which will impact about 50,000 children.
The 30-plus mile march is themed, “Our City. Our Schools. Our Voice,” and will include simultaneous routes from the West and South sides of the city. Protestors intend to walk each day past many of the 54 school communities slated for closure and their efforts will culminate in a mass demonstration downtown. It is sponsored by the CTU, the Grassroots Education Movement, SEIU Local 1, Unite Here Local 1 and Chicago PEACE, an interdenominational coalition of clergy leaders from across the city. Donations are pouring in from across the country.
“Despite the testimony of thousands of parents, teachers and people who work and live in the school communities impacted, Rahm Emanuel is dedicated to entering the history books as having destroyed the most public schools in one year than anyone,” Lewis said. “He refuses to listen to independent hearing officers, law enforcement officials, educators, researchers, parents and the students themselves. We have no choice but to use the power of organizing and direct action to engage in what will be a long fight to restore sanity to our school district.”
The march kicks off at 10:00 a.m. on May 18 on the South Side at Jesse Owens Elementary School, 12450 S. State St., and on the near West Side at Jean de Lafayette Elementary School, 2714 W. Augusta Blvd.
“School closings hurt children academically and the mayor’s plan will also put thousands of students’ safety at risk and many public school employees may lose their jobs,” Lewis said. “We must do whatever is necessary to stop this assault on the working class and the poor. Instead of just getting angry we must organize. Tell Emanuel, the Board, the school CEO and their corporate sponsors that this is our city, these are our schools and we will use our voice to fight for justice.”
Independent hearing officers reviewed the Chicago Public Schools’ list of 54 slated closings and have recommended removing 14 from the list saying those schools don’t meet the state standards and are in violation of the law. The mayor’s hand-picked Chicago Board of Education will vote on the issue on Wednesday, May 22. Shortly thereafter, a massive voter registration drive will commence throughout the city.
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Suppose you were mayor of Chicago and had complete control of the public schools.
Suppose one of your high schools had an outstanding record by any measure.
Suppose it had an excellent IB program.
Would it occur to you to make the entire school an IB school?
Would it occur to you to get rid of some of the veteran teachers, just to shake things up?
Probably not.
But it did occur to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and today there was a mass student walkout to protest the mayor’s autocratic effort to break what was working.
Thanks to Ben Joravsky for a great article, and to Fred Klonsky for blogging Ben’s article, and to Chaya R for bringing it to my attention.
Ben J. proves that great journalism is alive and well.
Karen Lewis taught a powerful lesson from the Torah at a synagogue in Evanston.
This is the rabbi’s account of her moving reading of Numbers, in which she connects the Biblical story to recent events in Chicago.
“Her portion, Shelach Lecha (Numbers 13:1-15:41) relates, among other things, the story of the twelve scouts send by by Moses to report on the Promised Land. Ten of them return with words of discouragement – they reported that they saw giants in the land. “We felt like grasshoppers to ourselves,” they said, “”and so we must have looked to them!”
“In her presentation, she pointed out that forces of domination in society can often have this effect on us. In the case of Chicago schools, it is easy to feel cowed by the powerful political-corporate interests that are decimating public education in our city – and in fact, in cities around the nation. The key, Lewis said, is not to be daunted or to give in to a slave mentality that “idealizes Egypt.” The answer, as ever, is to organize and fight back.”
Once again, the powerful oppress the weak. It falls to us to defend the powerless. We must not be intimidated by the oppressor.
Matt Farmer, Chicago public school parent, asks an important question: when does Mayor Rahm Emanuel consider a class of 23 to be underutilized? When does he think it is just right?
A public school in Chicago can be closed down if it has a class size of 23.
But where is it just right?
Jewish leaders in Chicago stand in solidarity against mass school closings:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Release date: April 15, 2013
Chicago, IL
Contact:
Miriam Grossman, Jewish Solidarity and Action for Schools
miriamlevia.grossman@gmail.com
(609) 273-4932
JEWISH COMMUNITY RALLIES AGAINST SCHOOL CLOSINGS WITH LETTER TO MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL
Jewish community members will gather on Thursday, April 18th at 4:30pm to deliver a letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel that demands an end to the planned CPS school closings. Organized by the group Jewish Solidarity and Action for Schools (JSAS), the letter calls on Jews and the greater community “to show our public officials, Jewish and non-Jewish, that while CPS’s ill-conceived and destabilizing reforms put some children at risk more than others, the resistance will come from people of all ages, races, and neighborhoods.”
In this spirit the group will arrive at Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office with cries of “Don’t cut down the tree of knowledge!” and “What would your Bubbie say?” There, Rabbi Brant Rosen will lead the group in prayer before the delivery of the letter.
Citing the disproportionate effect of the school closings on African American and Latino neighborhoods, the letter expresses outrage at the racism inherent in the school closings. It reads: “These discriminatory school closings fly in the face of our Jewish and human values…The proposed school closings would exacerbate inequity, particularly along lines of race and class. They would undermine the promise of our education system to be open to all of us, no matter what neighborhood we live in… Although injustice may not affect all of us equally, we all must struggle together for our liberation.” The letter is signed by over 150 Jews including important Rabbis and religious leaders from the Chicago area.
This event is part of JSAS’s ongoing participation in the movement to stop school closings, led by the Chicago Teachers’ Union and Grassroots Education Movement. JSAS formed as a place for the Jewish community to stand in solidarity and act for education justice in the city of Chicago and beyond.
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