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Saturday, June 9, 2012

School Tech Connect: Chipping Away At Mayoral Control In Chicago

School Tech Connect: Chipping Away At Mayoral Control In Chicago:


Chipping Away At Mayoral Control In Chicago

Here's Jitu Brown starting off today's CODE event at Luther Memorial Church. As I mentioned earlier. CODE volunteers later walked the neighborhoods with petitions for an advisory amendment for an elected school board on the November ballot.

As I've said before, I work in one of the suburban districts. The elected school board members are longtime community stalwarts who know how to run a district; I can't imagine the legislature allowing the mayor to take the schools away from them. The people quite simply would never put up with it.

And yet, this myth about the wonders of mayoral control persists across the land--- it persists because it's part of the narrative being fed to a certain segment of the Democratic party --- a narrative that has been whispered into the President's own ear, which he has unfortunately begun to tell himself is true.

Anyway, here's Jitu Brown:

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And here's Michelle Bever, of the 19th Ward Parents. Her organization has morphed into one of the most organized, effective, and relentless critics of our mayor's handling of the schools. The coalition that all of these