Irene Robinson wraps her arm around her grandchild, who attended Anthony Overton Elementary School in Chicago [2013]. The school is one of 48 now shuttered because of a budget deficit. Many parents have voiced concerns about the closures. Photograph by Michael
By Joseph Erbentraut | Originally Published at Huffington Post.
The U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation into alleged discrimination taking place at two public schools located on Chicago’s South Side where course offerings have been slashed to the point where physical education is only available as an online class.
Students and parents at the two majority African-American public schools — Dyett High and Mollison Elementary — allege Title VI civil rights violations have taken place and that their families have been forced to “endure an education that is separate and unequal,” according to a press release from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a participant in the community’s call for a federal probe of conditions at the schools.
Speaking at a Tuesday press conference, Jeanette Wilson, a senior advisor to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, described the education department’s pending probe as “a major first step” toward community activists’ goal to stop the closure of the two schools, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
“The fact that they are going to look into it at all says that some of the practices that have been accepted as normal and appropriate are now being questioned,” Wilson said, according to the paper.