Students do their homework during a public hearing in April on the proposal to close Dumas Technology Academy and consolidate the school with Wadsworth Elementary. The hearing was held at Chicago Public Schools headquarters. (E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune / April 25, 2013)
By Eve Rips | Originally Published at Chicago Tribune. October 16, 2013

The ideal of schools as democratic communities has deteriorated in Chicago, leaving many residents feeling voiceless and disengaged.

“Democracy needs to be reborn in each generation, and education is its midwife.”
~ John Dewey
Students and parents across Chicago have thoughtful concerns about their schools but often feel that they have no way to effect change within the Chicago Public Schools system.
Twentieth-century education reformer John Dewey thought that schools should be institutions “in which the child is, for the time, to be a member of a community life in which he feels that he participates, and to which he contributes.” Today in Chicago we have an unelected school board that meets at a time when students and working parents are typically unable to attend. Students remain uncertain about their ability to critique and protest school policies. Comments made by parents and students at official hearings on recent school closings went almost entirely ignored. The ideal of schools as democratic communities has deteriorated in Chicago, leaving many residents feeling voiceless and disengaged.
Chicago needs to bring back the vision of the public school as a democratic community. With many Chicagoans feeling detached from the city, and voting rates consistently low in local elections, we need to reinvigorate civic involvement, starting with involvement in the schools. In the Daniel Burnham spirit of making no little plans, the Educational Equity Project of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law presents five ways in which democratic engagement could be fostered by CPS.

1. An elected school board

Chicago is the only school district in Illinois where the school board is appointed by the mayor rather than democratically elected. A 2012 poll by WGN and the Chicago Tribune found that 77 percent of Chicagoans are in favor of an elected school board. The effects of this were felt when the board voted swiftly and empathyeducates – Perspective: Re-envision CPS as a Democratic Community: