Why hunger strikers are risking their health to save a Chicago public high school
A dozen people are nearing the end of their second week of a hunger strike aimed not only at keeping alive Walter H. Dyett High School High School in Bronzeville on the South Side of Chicago, but also at underscoring the damaging effects of modern school reform. As one of the hunger strikers, 32-year-old Monique Smith, told my Post colleague Lyndsey Layton in this story:
“This is really about the privatization of education, it’s about having sustainable community schools in every neighborhood. This is a much larger struggle.”
The Dyett hunger strike — begun Aug. 17 by education activists, public school parents and community and faith leaders — has been years in the making. In 2012, authorities with Chicago Public Schools, who have closed scores of public schools in recent years, announced they were going to shutter Dyett in June 2015, blaming academic achievement and enrollment (but not giving the school adequate resources to improve). New students were not accepted, and so the last 13 seniors graduated this past June.
The Chicago Board of Education has yet to make a decision about what to do with the building. Community members have been telling the board for years what they want: for Dyett to stay open as a publicly operated school, the last open-enrollment school in Bronzeville. Eve L. Ewing, on sevenscribes.com, explained why that is important in a post titled, “Why the Fight for Dyett is Bigger Than One Chicago School Closing”:
If you read any of the articles or blog posts about the hunger strike to save Dyett, or check the #saveDyett hashtag on Twitter, you’ll hear that Dyett is “the last open-enrollment school in Bronzeville.” If, like the majority of Americans, you grew up in a place where there is no such thing as “deciding” where you attendWhy hunger strikers are risking their health to save a Chicago public high school - The Washington Post: