At Ford Foundation, a harsh critique of urban school closures
by Benjamin Herold on Mar 31 2011 Posted in Latest news
"This process is illegal and immoral," said Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis during an event Monday at the Ford Foundation in New York City, discussing closed-door plans to shut down or consolidate public schools .
For many, the growing push to close underutilized and chronically low-performing urban schools sounds like a common sense plan.
But not Chicago's Jitu Brown.
“School closings actually harm us in our communities,” said Brown, speaking Monday at the Ford Foundation in New York City.
As a longtime organizer for the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, Brown was speaking from experience. Between 2001 and 2009, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) closed 44 schools, decisions Brown argued were driven more by real estate prices in the surrounding communities than the educational needs of students. The results, he said, were a spike in school violence, the destabilization of schools receiving displaced
