Claypool's lies exceed expectations in letter claiming charter funding is not rigged against neighborhood schools... Sun-Times 'Letter' tries to obfuscate continued favoring of privatization and charters...
Rookie Chicago Public Schools "Chief Executive Officer" Forrest Claypool showed off his propaganda skills in a letter to the Chicago Sun-Times following a Better Government Association study that showed charter schools getting an edge over the city's real public schools. Reading the actual numbers for the schools in the CPS "Budget", anyone can see the facts -- and the facts show that Claypool's budget is favoring charter schools while screwing the city's real public schools.
What's more, Claypool sat on stage during the August 18, 2015, budget hearing at Schurz High School while parents, teachers, alumnae and community leaders took the facts straight from the CPS "Proposed Budget" and challenged the realities under which the city's real public schools continue being sabotaged by so-called "Student Based Budgeting" while charters continue to receive favorites not only from CPS but also from lucrative bonuses provided by private sector wealthy people.
On August 18, teachers from Kelvyn Park High School demonstrated that once again the school is being reduced massively, while the nearby Intrinsic charter school (on Belmont Ave.) and the Aspira charter school (on Milwaukee Ave.) are both increased dramatically.
Trying to justify the opulent CPS (and privatized) favors to Polaris charter school versus the continuing attacks on the surrounding public schools, Claypool also demonstrates his ignorance of CPS history. Polaris charter school sits in one of the largest elementary school buildings on the West Side, the old Morse Elementary School. At the time of its peak usage, Morse had more than 1,000 students. Polaris, by contrast, has never been required to educate more than 400 students. At the time the school was converted from public use to the current charter, as I reported in Substance a decade ago, the Board of Education not only gave the privatizers the massive building, but both CPS and Chicago officials subsidized the privatization further by spending more than $10 million to upgrade the facility -- both inside and outside.
Not only did CPS pay for massive renovations within the building (I photographed the new gym floor being installed), but the City of Chicago rebuilt the outside sidewalks and parkways, which had been allowed to deteriorate while the school was serving all the children of the West Side. Polaris remained so small that had it been on the listing of the city's public schools in 2012 - 2013, it would easily have been a candidate for closure under the guidelines utilized by Claypool's contemporary, the newly installed Board of Education President Frank Clark (who chaired the committee that recommended the 50 closings in May 2013).
The Sun-Times/BGA analysis was devoted to two schools, Polaris Charter School (in the old Morse school building) and Gregory elementary school (a real public school).
But the comparison of the two schools was used as an example of the citywide trend, which was made clear to Claypool during the August 18 Schurz budget hearing, and is obvious to anyone who bothers to read through the date provided in the massive PDF listing of all CPS "schools" (although the way that list is presented is in itself an obfuscation; for example, schools are listed by first names, so that CPS has dozens of schools named "William" and "Charles," -- Walter Payton High School is under the W's; so is Jones High School, etc.).
Claypool's letter demonstrates, again, what anyone familiar with his career knows. He is in charge of privatizing as Claypool nonsense - Substance News:
Above, Chicago Public Schools "Chief Executive Officer" Forrest Claypool (above right) sits with his special assistant, Denise Little, at the budget hearings at Schurz High School on August 18, 2015. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.