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Monday, August 24, 2015

Major media continues to block any news of #FightForDyett hunger strike. This is from In These Times. | Fred Klonsky

Major media continues to block any news of #FightForDyett hunger strike. This is from In These Times. | Fred Klonsky:

Major media continues to block any news of #FightForDyett hunger strike. This is from In These Times.



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It a journalistic scandal.
The Chicago print and electronic media continue to block any news of the Dyett high school’s twelve hunger strikers.
Only the progressive, alternative and social media are providing news coverage.
This from In These Times:
As schools across Chicago begin the cleaning and organizing process leading up to the first day of school on September 8, one will stay shuttered. Dyett High School, in on the edge of the Bronzeville neighborhood, won’t be opening its doors this year.
The high school has long been in the process of closing. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) announced in 2012 that Dyett would be “phased out,” meaning after 2012 no new students would be admitted, as a result of low test scores, and the building would be closed when the last class graduated.
Three years later, Dyett’s doors are now closed. But the fight to reopen the school is heating up. On Monday, August 17, 12 parents and neighborhood activists began a hunger strike, under the banner of the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School, to demand that CPS make a decision on the future of the school and reopen it as a district-run, open-enrollment, neighborhood school that would allow all students to attend regardless of grades.  
CPS announced last year that it would consider proposals for a new manager and school vision for Dyett. But after months of delays, most recently an August meeting rescheduled for September, and with a long history of mistrust between community groups and the district, community members say they’ve waited long enough.
“The city has sabotaged our community, which we know is undergoing gentrification. Why would they close the only neighborhood high school left for our children?” Irene Robinson, a grandparent with young children that would have gone to Dyett had it not closed, said in a statement.
They are calling for an emergency hearing at the Board of Education—and to ask CPS to make a decision that isn’t “based on political ideology or cronyism.” The coalition’s proposal is for a district-run, green technology school with partners including the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Botanic Gardens. The other two proposals the board will consider to replace Dyett are from an arts education non-profit, Major media continues to block any news of #FightForDyett hunger strike. This is from In These Times. | Fred Klonsky: