Mass School Closures Are "Shock Doctrine" for Education
Posted on: Wednesday October 9th, 2013
When 9-year-old Asean Johnson gave his now-famous, fiery speech last spring at a rally to protest the mass closure of 49 Chicago public schools, he drew enough national attention that his school, at least, was spared.
Parents, students and teachers are fighting back. Groups like Journey for Justice, the Philadelphia Student Union, and the Urban Youth Collaborative are organizing in their communities and
When 9-year-old Asean Johnson gave his now-famous, fiery speech last spring at a rally to protest the mass closure of 49 Chicago public schools, he drew enough national attention that his school, at least, was spared.In the months since, Johnson has become one of the most recognizable faces in a growing grassroots movement to end school closures. A recent article in Rethinking Schools perfectly lays out the devastating impact these closures have on students and communities, and highlights the local and national groups (many of them OTL allies) that are organizing to protect and support their public schools.
School closures are the "shock doctrine" of the education world, with real or manufactured crises used as justification to undermine and dismantle public institutions. In a recent OTL Campaign's infographic, we debunked some of those justifications to show that closures don't result in students enrolling in better schools and never generate the savings officials say they will. Instead, closures are they result of years of underfunding and a concerted push to turn public schools over to private charter school operators.
"Every year this brutal cycle becomes more familiar: Close public schools, replace with privatized charters, fire unionized teachers, replace with Teach for America or other low-wage temporary options, transfer funds and resources from public to private control, manufacture crisis then use it to impose policies that would otherwise meet stiff democratic opposition. As Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said last spring: 'Closing schools is not an education plan. It is a scorched earth policy.'”
Parents, students and teachers are fighting back. Groups like Journey for Justice, the Philadelphia Student Union, and the Urban Youth Collaborative are organizing in their communities and