NOTES FROM DIANE – MARCH 29, 2013
Diane Ravitch PresidentThe major issue of the day is the rapid increase in school closings in cities across the nation. The latest and most outrageous example is the decision of the Chicago Public Schools to close 54 public schools and displace some 30,000 students. This is unprecedented in American history. This is the bitter fruit of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. As alarming as the Chicago action is, what is even more shocking is that the American public is being persuaded by a constant barrage of corporate reform chatter to believe that public schools should close if they have low scores. But public schools are not shoe stores. They are community assets. We must build their capacity, support them, strengthen them. No school was ever improved by closing it.
The article in the New York Times describing this startling decision to shutter 50+ schools described it as the largest single closing of public schools “in recent memory.” The more accurate description would have been “ever.” In nearly two centuries of American public education, no district ever engaged in school closings as a
A Report from Chicago
Yesterday the Coalition of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and the Chicago Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) held a rally and march in downtown Chicago in protest of the 71 planned school actions including 54 school closures, the largest slate of closures ever attempted in the US. Nearly 7,000 students, parents, teachers, and community members took over the streets, and more than 150 individuals were ticketed for civil disobedience by sitting in the street across from City Hall, a testament to the dedication of the individuals ready and willing to do whatever is necessary to fight back against a failed policy of corporate education reform.
The school actions are almost exclusively in African-American and Latino neighborhoods, drawing the attention and ire of civil rights leaders like Jesse Jackson, and legislators such as Bobby Rush and a cohort of progressive aldermen. At the legislative level, a committee for transparency, the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force has demanded that Chicago Public Schools provide a 10 year master-plan, and yet they continue to ignore the law, asking for “just one more round of closures, before a 5 yr. moratorium” last December. Feigning
The school actions are almost exclusively in African-American and Latino neighborhoods, drawing the attention and ire of civil rights leaders like Jesse Jackson, and legislators such as Bobby Rush and a cohort of progressive aldermen. At the legislative level, a committee for transparency, the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force has demanded that Chicago Public Schools provide a 10 year master-plan, and yet they continue to ignore the law, asking for “just one more round of closures, before a 5 yr. moratorium” last December. Feigning
