Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Chicagoans Protest Mayor Emanuel's Corporate School Plan
"Support our schools, don't close them”
UPDATE: After hearing several hours of testimony from community members and after their own discussions, the Chicago Public Schools board went with their original plan to close or turn around 17 schools.
Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis said of the decision:
“By ignoring hundreds of hours of testimony of parents on how they never received the support they needed to strengthen their schools and increase student performance, they have created a huge gulf of ill will in our city,” Lewis said, reading from a prepared statement.
“They don’t care about the (students) or the neighborhoods they come from,” Lewis said. “All they see are data points and dollar signs.”
ABC Chicago has video from the meeting last night showing tears, anger and frustration over the board's plan:
* * *
EARLIER: Parents, teachers, students and activists flooded the Chicago Public Schools board meeting demanding they rethink the plan to close or "turn around" 17 schools, a plan many see as a path toward privatizing the public school system.
Ten schools are slated for turnaround -- in which all the employees are removed -- and seven for closing, NBC Chicago reports. And adds that "the schools are among the lowest performing in the district for the past 10 years."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson emphasized the funding discrepancies between schools in poor versus affluent neighborhoods as essential to the problem. The Chicago Tribune reports:
As he waited in line this morning to attend the meeting, Jackson said inequities in Chicago's public school system amount to educational "apartheid," echoing sentiments expressed in a Chicago Teachers Union report last week.
"It's a type of segregation when, within the same school system, you have an upper tier and a lower tier," Jackson said. "It is apartheid. You have 160 schools (on the South Side) without a library. You have (selective enrollment high schools) Payton and Whitney Young and you have Marshall. It is apartheid.
One of the schools slated for "turnaround" is Brian Piccolo Elementary School, which serves 550 black and Latino students in grades pre-K through 8, Labor Notes reports:
Parents raised the stakes in the ongoing battle over school closings and the corporate takeover of education when they occupied a classroom inside a Chicago elementary school Friday night.
Brian Piccolo Elementary School, serving 550 black and Latino students in grades pre-K through 8 on the city’s west side, has been targeted for “turnaround” by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his appointed school board.
The plan includes firing all the staff—from principal to lunchroom workers—and reopening the school under control of a private contractor, Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL). The 13 occupying parents and allies, who held the site for nearly 24 hours, didn’t win a reversal of the turnaround.
But the occupiers did force all seven school board members to each engage a team of parents and community members in intensive discussions on the future of the school, cracking a wall of silence from city leaders and dramatizing parent and community opposition to the corporate education agenda sweeping the city—and the nation.
One students tells the Chicago Tribune that the plan is in no way about putting students first:
“Over the last two years we’ve lost an art teacher, four other teachers and a counselor. Does that sound like putting children first?” asked Diamond McCullough, a student at Dyett High School on the South Side, one of two CPS high schools scheduled to begin a phase-out next fall.
A WBEZ report echoes that sentiment, saying Chicago Public schools avoids putting money into any schools in plans on closing in 10 years. It "lets them go to pot," the report states, even not fixing lead paint issues, asbestos, heat problems, among others, until before a private company is about to come in and take over in a "turnaround."
WLS Chicago has video of protesters marching through Mayor Emanuel's Lake View neighborhood in Chicago on Monday night protesting the plan for closures:
Several weeks ago, Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis raised a flag on the conflict of interest behind the Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL) being both behind the school turnarounds and benefiting from them:
“The fact that AUSL is the beneficiary of these turnarounds and that the board president and the chief administrative officer have ties to AUSL — it doesn’t sit that well with us. It feels like a conflict of interest. That should be dealt with on some level,” she said.
45 Comments so far
Show AllThis is why people should not vote for republicans, libertarians, or democrats.
The "apartheid" is based on how much money you have. The more you have, the more they think you deserve and vice versa.
Abandon the corporate parties or stop complaining and enjoy your abuse.
Amereicha - the land of the sick, the home of the greedy. PLEASE fall soon...
"lanista"
There is no correction wanted by the corporate state. The current policy, which has always been at least a part of the educational system, is the belief that you PUNISH those who need the most help and you reward those who are privileged.
Most public school teachers are NOT given the means to make a significant difference and then they are blamed when they can't match the teachers who work for wealthier private schools where their students come from privileged homes. Public schools are blamed when they are in locations with scarce resources and few employment possibilities while wealthier districts are celebrated.
This is a factory system and the factories are being shut down because, like the killing of "suspected terrorists", this corporate owned country has little or no time for equal justice. Brainwashing is the priority of the controllers.
Clearly, the kids from poor, stressed communities will not be so readily inclined to celebrate within the church of (so-called) Free Market Capitalism and so, they are deemed suspected pagans and, as such, must be punished.
The religions' "leaders" will put the money into the war machine/police state instead.
The problem isn't the schools, it is the priorities of the controllers. If they provide good education, they will have to share some of the money and they will have fewer servants.
That schools do as well as they do is remarkable.
"lanista"
The corporate system demands that any money used for education be used to reinforce failure because that is profitable to the minority.
I find your assertion that "each child is getting the same amount of money" to be very suspicious. I very much doubt that each child benefits equally and the goal needs to be maximizing the possibilities for each child. That some children need more attention is a fact of life.
You are correct when you say that it is much more than money, but you need to realize that it is the focus on money which is being used to punish those who most need help.
This nation has long treated teachers as an economic strain and I really believe it is one more form of misogyny. Grade school teaching has largely been classified as a female job and has largely been portrayed as a burden on taxpayers while corporate greed is celebrated as manly. Now we have corporate greed taking over the schools, so look who we are told to blame.
"if its not corrected it plays right into the privatizer's hands"
Explain how this is the case. Are there studies that show that privatized educational systems perform better, worse, or the same on the whole? Do these companies do the service cheaper, more expensively or for the same price? What impact does privatization have on communities and societies at large? Is there a largely privatized system like the one they are creating here that works anywhere else in the damn world? I gave an example with Chile, we seem to be following that model. Take a look at what is going on in that country as a result of that system. Again, simply pointing to the flaws in the educational system, and pretending that education exists in a vacuum, with nothing outside the educational system having an impact on student performance, and how we structure our public educational system having no impact on our society, doesn't justify putting in place something that has a chance at being even worse. The privatizers still have to articulate that what they want to replace it with is better than the current system and that the privatization won't impact our society and communities negatively. If you privatize the educational system, bus kids far from their homes, lay off teachers, destroy unions, employ lower qualified teachers in their place, is there no cost to society at large? Does this not negatively impact communities? Does this not simply ignore the biggest issue, which is the large and growing inequality in this country?
""The problem is, if the product of our public education system is consistently sub-par. If it is not corrected you can depend on education being privatized." ."
Wasn't my quote. Once again, the privatizers have failed the world over. If you look at Finland, for example, 100% of the teachers there are unionized. All schools are supported by local governments or the national government. The teachers must have Masters degrees to teach (so paying for more teacher training might make sense here). You could go all the way through college and have it covered by tax dollars, allowing teachers (and all other students) to leave school debt free. So they have socialzied the costs of education and it has been to their benefit. Finland is regularly credited with having the best educational system in the world. We shouldn't look at examples like this, we should just hand the schools over to private corporations. That has worked so well, the world over, with water, health care, pensions as well, hasn't it?
The whole size and demographic argument doesn't hold water either. Europe as a whole has a much better, more equitable, educational system. It is, as a whole, comparable in size. China has a robust public educational system, I lived and taught there. Kind of a big country. Besides, we are talking about Chicago. Chicago is a single city. It isn't outrageous to compare that city to Finaland. If an entire country can structure their educational system that way, so can Chicago. You could extend that to Illinois if you wanted to and it would still apply. Talking about covering college too, that has an impact far beyond public education. The University of California used to be covered by tax dollars, for the most part. It was world class. Students could get an education and leave relatively debt free. If we were to do that, and California (a huge economy and state) used to, it would help our public educational system. They have since privatized the system and students come out of it buried under debt. Has that privatization been to the benefit of the graduates of the University of California system? There has been massive unrest there as well thanks to the impact of privatization. California is comparable to Finaland too.
"There are plenty of studies around and if you don't like those, the folks who want to privatize our schools will gin up a few hundred more"
Not really. Taken on the whole, there is no solid evidence that charter schools perform better than public schools. Using your logic, if we discuss minimum wage laws, the business community can point to some Cato Institute study and use it to back their claim. See, so we just can't decide whether or not raising the minimum wage will help the economy and working people, right? The business community can point to studies showing that the minimum wage would hurt the economy and working people, but on the whole we know that to not be true.
Charter schools cost more, they employ less qualified teachers, they extend a corporate model to education that has failed everywhere else it has been implemented and the wider impact on society and the communities they operate in is extremely negative. In decades past, governments handled pensions equitably, and relatively efficiently. Then some governments privatized pensions and the result was disaster. Governments used to handle water, then water was privatized. As a result, revolutions broke out (Bolivia a decade ago for example) and ecological systems have started to collapse. Plastic bottles, which won't biodegrade for thousands of years, abound. Governments used to handle military functions, now they don't. All of these services, and more, have been handed over to corporations and not only have they failed on an economic level, these "reforms" have caused society and the ties that bind people together to crumble.
You seemed for a second like you were playing devils advocate, but now it is clear that you WANT the schools to be privatized. You are searching for a reason and there isn't a good one. Saying that public education isn't perfect here, well then we should just privatize it, is silly. We can look to the whole impact that privatization will have on communities and the country. We can look to out of classroom factors. We can look to other countries. Or, we can just pretend that if it is proven that how WE have structured our public education system is flawed, that we should just hand it over to profiteers. The sheer ignorance and irrationality of that argument is mind boggling, especially considering that the failure of corporations to deliver these services isn't news to anyone who pays attention. I'm done though. Bye bye.
Your union comments reveal you damn mentality. Car manufacturers in the South pay higher wages, they say so themselves, to entice people to not join unions. The possibility of unions alone raises wages. Their absence would be a huge cost to workers, even those not in unions. Have been in a union myself and saw benefits I wouldn't have without it. My mother an law works in social service and has had her job saved numerous times thanks to the union. You are anti-union (and are in one) and are arguing for privatizing public education. Perfect person to defend this corporate takeover. It DOES matter whether private, for profit institutions handles services vs. the government. It is insane to claim otherwise. It matters who handles the water (or else there wouldn't be damn revolutions over the matter), it matters who controls pensions, it matters who controls education, amongst other things.
By the way, he doesn't give a damn about the protestors and the type of people who visit this site. We are the "retards" he was referring to and he knows better than you do how to run a city and country. He also doesn't care if what he is in favor of has utterly failed because, again, you're just too stupid to see the truth.
• Privatize • Corporatize • Charterize
Axis of Weasels: Barack Obama, Arne Duncan, and Rahm Emanuel
Glen Ford sheds light on Rahm Emanuel’s current assault on Chicago’s public schools in the broader context that incorporates Arne Duncan’s disastrous eight-year tenure as head of Chicago’s public schools:
Black Teachers Fired En Masse
http://blackagendareport.com/content/black-teachers-fired-en-masse
“Educational policy in the Obama era isn't about education at all. It's about replacing skilled, experienced teachers with rootless temps better suited to serve in the privatized holding tanks they wish to turn public schools in poor neighborhoods into, for a population on its way to low wage jobs and prisons.”
“If you have any doubt that President Obama and his cronies are at the forefront of public school privatization and the decimation of Black teachers, just take a look at Chicago. That’s where Obama’s basketball buddy, Arne Duncan, wreaked havoc as schools chief until the new president appointed him secretary of education, and where Obama’s former White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, now reins as mayor with overall control of the public schools. Arne Duncan fired 1,300 Chicago teachers during his eight years at the helm, the large majority of them Black women, replaced by mostly white, younger teachers at about half the cost.”
Following the path established by Arne Duncan’s firing of 1,300 Chicago teachers during his tenure, Rahm Emanuel has fired another 1,000 teachers and plans to close 17 supposedly “underperforming” public schools, many of them on the city’s South Side in predominantly impoverished African-American neighborhoods.
Why have Black teachers been targeted for mass firing in Chicago and all across the country? Glen Ford asserts that it's because Black teachers tend to have tenure; they are staunch supporters of their teachers’ unions; and they actually live in the communities where they work, as neighbors, parents and community leaders. No wonder they seek to retain local control of their neighborhood schools as an essential part of the commons.
Glen Ford's conclusion:
“When Barack Obama and Arnie Duncan and Rahm Emanuel target Black teachers for mass elimination, they deliver a savage blow to African American community cohesion. Privatization of public schools is a central part of the disempowerment of Black America.”
But wait! There's more! -- Background on Obama/Duncan from 2010
As millions of children around the country began a new school year in September 2010, the Obama administration aggressively moved forward on a number of education initiatives, from expanding charter schools to implementing new national academic standards:
Juan Gonzales interviewed Karen Lewis, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, and Lois Weiner, a professor of education at New Jersey City University, on Democracy Now!
Educators Push Back Against Obama’s "Business Model" for School Reforms http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/3/educators_push_back_against_obamas_...
Karen Lewis nails Arnue Duncan and his "reform" agenda and pulls no punches!
Professor Weiner points out that the contours of the Obama/Duncan program were carried out first under Pinochet in Chile. The program was implemented by force of military dictatorships and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Latin America. The results have been verified by researchers there, and the model, which de-professionalized teachers, produced increased stratification and political, social, and economic inequality.
Race to the Top ™ is deeply destructive, cynical, and rooted in the neoliberal corporatist agenda.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I agree with you!! I have friends in Chicago who, several years ago, forwarded articles to me about Arne Duncan closing schools and firing not only teachers, but the janitors, etc.
In February 2010, I posted this comment on CD in response to an article about education posted on this site:
BTW, When Arne Duncan was CEO of the Chicago Public School system, he implemented military academies into the system. He and Obama, from what I read, intend to increase the number of high school military academies across the country. Chicago has 6, more than any other city: 3 Army, 1 Navy, 1 Air Force and 1 Marines. What better way is there to indoctrinate young people into obedience and to not question anyone or anything? When Duncan was asked, whether his Quaker roots were in conflict with his implementation of military academies, CEO Arne Duncan replied, "I come from a Quaker family, and I've always been against war. But I'm going to put the Naval Academy in there, because it will give people in the community more choices." Parents, teachers and members of the community gathered and protested, in fairly large numbers, but they lost out to the "powers that be."
Mother Jones Magazine also did a story on the military academies in Chicago. http://motherjones.com/politics/2002/01/recruiting-class-2005
For the sake of clarity, in public schools the term "tenure" is really a misnomer. It is not at all like the tenure that university professors enjoy. "Tenure" for public school teachers simply means that they have the have the right to due process if they are going to be disciplined or terminated. They cannot be fired willy-nilly. There has to be a good reason. Hence the whole narrative about unions protecting "bad teachers" is bogus. If it can be demonstrated that a teacher is not performing to professional standards, they can be fired. This is the principal's job.
The real issue is that experienced teachers (who have proved themselves and now benefit from due process) get paid more. The neo-liberal school "reform movement" wants as little of the public money that goes to education to go to those that actually do the educating - the teachers. "School reformers,"Bill Gates, the hedge-fund managers, etc. they see a massive opportunity to make bucket-loads of money in the privatization of public education.
Also, Rahm Emanuel is apparently a retard because evidently he thinks that the US can in the long term afford the mass unemployment and mass imprisonment his policies create.
All this "competitiveness" and "knowledge economy" bullshit should go - because the ultimate "competitive" company in the ultimate "knowledge economy" *does not employ people* (even Foxconn would rather replace workers with robots - and that's, you know, China, where workers don't exactly cost too much). *All* people should have a *right* to a share of wealth, not just the lucky ones, the ones born in the right places and with the right amount of psychopathy. Normal people can only provide work in exchange of course, but we need to rely more on human work and less on natural resources anyway.
And frankly, life may be about "learning from mistakes", but, you know, these "mistakes" don't only affect the people who made them. In fact, they mostly affect young people who couldn't make them, or were suckered into making them. In addition to this, what is the morality behind having to live with a mistaken decision in a democracy for four years? Is this some sort of video game or sports? Isn't this about, you know, not fucking up shit? Is this a game that RE & co have won? Is that your idea of democracy - a game in which you can lie and if you "won" an election than lies and robbery don't matter? I admit it's completely consistent with the American "us vs them" sports team mentality, but really, how isn't it completely stupid when none of the teams is actually for "us"?
It didn't take much effort to learn about who this person is. What policies he has stood for, what he has said in public. Given all of that, and given that Chicago is a solidly Democratic city, this should have been beyond predictable. What you are saying is true, but people need to take responsibility for the decisions they make. What will you say if he destroys the city's public educational system, as he is doing, then gets re-elected? The same is said for working class people on the right who vote for candidates who openly oppose their interests. I realize the complexities involved but at some point your brain has to turn on and you have to start taking responsibility for the political decisions you make.
"Is that your idea of democracy - a game in which you can lie and if you "won" an election than lies and robbery don't matter? I admit it's completely consistent with the American "us vs them" sports team mentality, but really, how isn't it completely stupid when none of the teams is actually for "us"?" Actually, in this same thread I said exactly what my idea of democracy is. I mentioned participatory budgeting, that we need to create more horizontal decision making structures, we need to give power to people directly and take it away from people like this bastard. So no, that isn't my damn idea of democracy. I am, however, surrounded by people who support policies that harm them then turn around and complain about how unfair the economic system is for people like them. They support right wing reactionaries who have contempt for working people or neoliberal Democrats who do as well but give a wonderful sounding speech or two and pretend otherwise. They pretend that the damn Democrats are so much better as Obama signs things like the three horrible "free trade" deals (one with a country that is the deadliest place on Earth for union organizers). The people who support the two parties come election time is what, 95, 96%? If they get off their ass and do something they tend to focus their anger on those trying to help people like them and support those harming them. They also are easily manipulated, and it has nothing to do with intelligence. I see this in both major parties and I want nothing to do with either of them.
Objectively, I have failed as a leftist and an activist, along with others like myself. I haven't done enough to this point to create alternative institutions and movements to replace this broken system. So if people don't see any other way, I have to take partial responsibility. Having said that, the first step in making a break, in radically changing how you see the world, is to realize the world you are in and to think about the choices you are making. To learn from your mistakes. If you support Rahm's party as they destroy your life then you deserve what happens to you. To those who don't support Rahm or the reactionaries in the other party, the choice is to create new institutions and ways of organizing communities. There is no other way. We shouldn't mope, we should organize, educate and get active. If the wider public continues to commit suicide then what is there to say?
And the shit they're getting is *exactly* that. There's probably no need for us to keep telling them how stupid they are :-/ BTW I'm actually very much in agreement with your post, I just think that "blame" and "responsibility" are categories that are applicable only to individuals, not groups. Probably just nitpicking, sorry about that. I actually often feel the same way.
Where education works, health and financial problems in children and families are addressed by routine programs, and thus mental illness, chronic physical illness, depression and just plain having no money for things like detergent and tampons do not become obstacles to good attendance. Here, where such things are neglected, school failure is the first stop on the way to jail, which suits the prison industry just fine.
It is most likely that closing schools and re-opening them will give opportunities to the new "poverty pimps", the yuppies and buppies who believe in free enterprise, particularly when it enriches themselves at taxpayer expense. Behind these moves is the wish to eliminate unions and to privatize social services. It is a hatred of anything that interferes with unregulated speculation. Such moves are couched in terms of innovation, and sold to parents as hope.
These moves contribute to one of the main problems in US education - Instablility. It is impossible to sustain and perfect programs on the shifting sands of budgetary unpredictability and the consequent cuts in various kinds of staffing. In addition, much time is wasted on the requirement that teachers and principals adapt to one gimmick after another, imposed from above without empirical evidence that these changes work. Testing is one of the most lucrative gimmicks. But testing tests a program. It is not a program. Tests without effective means to improve learning are just plain punitive and worse than a waste of time and money.
Very true and on point comments.
Also, with private education there is inevitably going to be some amount of indoctrination in favor of fascism and / or religion involved.