Outside closed Lafayette School this morning
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| Lafayette Save Our School Protest in 2013 |
School closings have done nothing to improve the education of CPS students, nor have they saved money, but the same policies that led to massive closures continue to be implemented. -- CTU ReportThis morning I'm standing outside of the former Lafayette Elementary School talking to NBC Chicago's Phil Rogers on the anniversary of D-Day (Devastation Day). That was the day when Chicago's mayor, Rahm Emanuel, ignoring massive community opposition, closed 50 public schools, including Lafayette, leaving many black and Latino neighborhoods in shamblesand disrupting the lives of thousands of children and their families.
Of the 49 closed elementary schools, 90% had mostly African-American students, while 71% had a majority African-American faculty. All in all, the closings amounted to shuttering 25% of all CPS schools that had majority African-American students. Here in East Humboldt Park, the closing of Lafayette left this largely-Latino community without a single neighborhood school. It's no different over in Bronzeville where they are closing Dyett, the last remaining open-enrollment school in the area.
I suppose some of the credit for all this goes to Paul Vallas, now running for IL Lt. Governor on the Dem. ticket with Gov. Quinn. It was Vallas whose final solution for the end of public schools finally came to fruition last month when the New Orleans Recovery School District permanently shuttered its last five traditional public schools. The is apparently Rahm Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Outside closed Lafayette School this morning: