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| The now-closed Alfred David Kohn Elementary, 10414 S. State Street in Roseland. |
As someone who has long been involved with urban school reform, I have tried to make the case that current top-down, corporate-style "school reform" policies have more to do with the gentrification of cities than it does with improving education. Those policies, including mass school closings, mayoral control of the schools, the misuse of testing, privatization (particularly the unchecked expansion of privately managed charter schools) and union busting have done nothing to improve schooling for the great majority of students and parents.
Rather, these so-called reform policies, combined with the recent global financial disaster, de-industrialization, and the destruction of low-income housing, have led to the economic
