Byrd-Bennett promised not to close any more schools. But that doesn't mean she can't militarize them.
 |
| Study war no more...? |
The Sun-Times reports:
No teachers teach in this school. No students are enrolled. It has nearly no budget. The principal sits miles away in another school’s office. Yet, Chicago Public Schools insists that the Marine Math and Science Academy High School isn’t closed, so it hasn’t violated any state laws or reversed a promise not to close more schools by merging Marine’s students and staff into the former Ames Middle School building.Chicago already leads the nation in its militarization of public schools. Ames was turned into a Marine academy despite months of protests and public outcry.
Today, Chicago has the most militarized public school system in the nation, with Cadet Corps for students in middle-school, over 10,000 students participating in JROTC programs, over 1,000 students enrolled in one of the five, soon-to-be six autonomous military high schools, and hundreds more attending one of the nine military high schools that are called “schools within a school.” Chicago now has a Marine Military Academy, a Naval Academy, and three army high schools. When an air force high school opens next year, Chicago will be the only city in the nation to have academies representing all of these branches of the military. But Chicago is not the only city moving in this direction: The public school systems of other Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Byrd-Bennett promised not to close any more schools. But that doesn't mean she can't militarize them.:
