“The
direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life”
(Plato). Within the last several years there have been huge changes in the city
of Chicago, Illinois. One major change would be the closing of many
neighborhood public schools. The closing of these neighborhood public schools
has had a huge psychological impact on the city. I will start with some
information on a few of the schools and their neighborhoods. I will then go
into some of the school boards reasons for closing the schools. I will then go
into how far some of the children have to travel and what they encounter on the
way to school. I will then go into how the parents and community feel about
this. Lastly I will go into how the children feel about this and what the
school board is doing to compensate for the school closings.
According
to the Chicago Tribune Newspaper, in May of 2013 Mayor Rahm Emmanuel released a
list of 53 schools that were to be closing. The schools that were closed were
mainly in low income neighborhoods. Alexander Von Humboldt Elementary School,
Anthony Overton Elementary School, Benjamin Banneker Elementary School, Louis
Armstrong Math and Science Elementary School and several others that are
closing are located in poverty stricken neighborhoods. A few schools on the
list weren’t closed. However, many of the schools that weren’t closed were
relocated and merged together with other schools, often rival neighborhood
schools.
The
Chicago Board of Education gave several reasons for their decision to close so
may schools. They stated that the schools were performing lower than average
and that they had been performing this way for many, many years. What exactly
was they school board using to compare the schools to? They fail to take into
consideration that some students have special needs, so they may not be able to
perform test wise like “average” children can. Also some students are just bad
test takers. Other students are hungry and have issues at home so they do not
always do well on exams either. Why not see if the school has been improving
within itself? Why continue to compare schools in poverty stricken
neighborhoods to schools in upper-class neighborhoods that have many resources
that the other schools do not. Their
main reason was that there was a one billion dollar deficit and they needed to
cut costs. Smart choice they made there, cutting education knowing that the
children that attend these elementary schools can’t really fight back. So they
will close these schools, which has already happened, and now they will save
money on the buildings utilities and upkeep. Yet, they will not be investing in
the children that they’ve kicked out of those schools. Question is, is do they
even care?
These
children now have no neighborhood schools. They have to travel miles to attend
the nearest “neighborhood” school. Some children do not even get a choice. They
get a letter letting them know which school they will be attending the
following school year. How is this fair? These children are risking getting
sick due to traveling further distances to school in bad weather. Many people
know that Chicago has some very brutal winters and the wind chills are often
unbearable. Children risk their lives just going to school. They have to pass
different neighborhoods and risk either getting hurt directly by gang member or
getting hurt because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, many
of the buildings are now abandoned. What happens to abandoned buildings? Well,
may homeless people take over them and so do gang members. Drugs are made,
dealt, and kept hidden in abandoned buildings. Also, people are killed and
raped in abandoned buildings as well as other crimes that are committed in
them. This does not seem to concern the Board of Education. Again, I ask the
question do they really care?
The
closing of these schools has affected the parents greatly. Many parents now
have to sign up their children for new schools. They also do not have a choice
in finding a better school for their child and have to go with their new
neighborhood school due to the deadlines have passed for schools open
enrollment. Some parents are very involved in their children’s schools and now
feel like they have been pushed out. Many have protested and had rallies to not
have the schools closed. Yet, their voices seem to have gone either unheard or
uncared for. The schools still closed. Many parents attended and spoke up at an
open Chicago Board of Education meeting against the schools closings. One
parent named Erica Clark, who is also a part of Parents 4 Teachers, told board
members “As a parent, as a mother, every Chicago public school is my school”.
After she said that people cheered and she was escorted out by security.
Another parent named Shannon Bennet who was there with the Kenwood Oakland
community organization spoke his concerns as well and as he did this, they shut
off they microphone so he spoke loudly and of course received cheers from the
crowd. He was also escorted out of the meeting by security. Do you see a
pattern here? It seems like when the Board of Education feels threatened by
something that someone has to say they will have their microphones shut off and
have security escort them out. Did they think that that would really shut up
all of these upset parent? They are sadly mistaken if they thought so.
Many
community members were very upset about all of the school closings as well.
Several aldermen have spoken out against the school closings as well as
organized rallies and protests. Alderman Bob Fioretti of the second district
even had a suggestion for the school board. He told them to redirect tax
increment financing, give money back to the district instead of closing schools
in order to solve their deficit. Did I mention that the students didn’t acquire
this debt? The Chicago Teachers Board Union President, Karen Lewis made a
statement as well to the Chicago Board of Education saying “I personally feel
you are on the wrong side of history, and history will judge you”. What she is
saying is that they are not making a positive change for the community. They
are making negative changes that will not help the children and after all
aren’t the children our future? Karen Lewis also stated “Let’s not carry over
any of the ugliness. Let’s move forward”. She said this regarding when the
board said that several schools had performed poorly for several years. She was
asking for a fresh start for these students, some of which were new students.
The school stated that one school has been on probation for over seventeen
years. I do not know anyone that is in elementary school for seventeen years,
so why continue to talk about that? Why not focus and how to make to school
better and see how the school has improved? I’ll tell you why, because it is a
whole lot easier to point out the negative than it is to actually take the time
to see what good has come out.
The
closing of the schools has had a bigger effect on adolescents than on anyone
else. There are many children that have special needs and require special
classes that not all schools provide. Lyman Trumbull middle school, located at
5200 N. Addison in Chicago, has about 400 students and 35% of them have special
needs. They now expect these children who require extra attention to start all
over at another school. These students will be losing their friends, the
teachers that they have come to trust and the school that they have become so
familiar with. Closing schools with high amounts of special needs children is
also a problem for other schools. Due to there will now be a bigger number of
them in one school and the teachers will not be able to give them the attention
that they need. This would also bring down the academic scores for the entire
school which can then place it on the closing list.
The closings has also
effected many of the other students. They will now have to travel miles when
they once traveled blocks to get an education. They will lose their friends,
teachers, and schools. They will also be losing the neighborhood they hung
around in before and after school. Many of these children will have to pass
through different gang terfs and have to deal with the daily violence as they
travel. Many kids are beat up and robbed for what little they do have. Some are
even shot and killed on their way to and from school. These children no longer
see school as a safe zone due to they have to travel through unsafe places just
to get there. Many students miss days and drop out altogether. Other students
join the street life and become the people that they once feared preying off
other children trying to make their way to and from school. Why do children
have to go through this every day? Many parents work so they cannot drop off
their children and pick them up. The children cannot take the school bus due to
there aren’t many and the once that are available don’t travel near them to
pick them up. Who pays for the public transportation that these children have
to take at least twice a day? Some parents do and other cannot afford it so
they have to leave extra early to travel. This means losing valuable sleep time
which will cause stress and also cause the child’s grade to decline.
Now, let us talk about
what the school board feels that they are doing to help and to “compensate” for
all of the school closures. The school board feels that by sending the children
to other schools not far that they are not really causing any harm at all. They
have also started safe passage zones where police stand guard near the schools
to make sure nothing bad happens. Now, I will admit that the safe passage idea
was a good one. However, it only lasted about a week before you would no longer
see police out in the streets. So much for that idea! The board also started
promoting charter schools, which have been popping up like weeds everywhere.
Many
people do not know that the charter schools are “innovative public schools”.
Think about that for a few minutes. They said that they do not fund charter
schools. I call bullshit! They do in fact give charter schools funding, not as
much as they gave public schools though. Considering they had no money and
needed to close the schools, how do they have money to give to all of these new
charter schools? Just like district schools charter schools or innovative
public schools are funded by the district and state. Wait a minute there’s no
money for that! Many children that have attended public schools that have also
attended charter schools say that there are in fact differences. Many do not
like that charter schools are so strict and the parents have to pay if the
child acts out. Also, many charter schools are quick to kick out their students
instead of trying to help them. One thing that really surprised me was hearing
from a student who graduated from a public elementary school and graduated from
a charter high school tell me that charter schools “dumb it down” for certain
students. This interested me, so of course I asked him to explain. He said that
when a student doesn’t understand the material they are not graded as hard as
the other children are and aren’t held at the same level that other children
are in the school. This was strange to me because one of the reasons that they
gave for closing so many of the schools was that they were underperforming. So
charter schools, maybe not all, aren’t following the same rules as the public
schools that were closed but are getting their funding. This is just crazy!
So
my conclusion has been that this is obviously a political move and the people
that run the Board of Education are hypocrites. They want to solve the schools
problem of low test scores so they close them. That makes sense. Then, they say
that they are closing them due to the deficit yet, they are giving money to
these new charter schools. That makes sense as well. The Board of Education has
completely lost sight of what is important and that is the children. They have
taken away many of these children’s safety blankets that are their schools.
Many have done so with ought even a second thought. These are the people that
we are supposed to trust to make the right choices for our children yet they do
not even care. It is sad that the people who do care are escorted away by
security. What will happen to our children? What will happen to our future?
Whitney Houston says it well “I believe the children are our future. Teach them
well and let them lead the way”.
A few sources I used are listed below:
Ahmed-Ullah, N. (2013, Apr 26). At chicago school closing
hearings, crowds fade. McClatchy - Tribune Business News Retrieved from
https://ccc.idm.oclc.org/docview/1346051877?accountid=37965
Allweiss, A., & Grant, C. A. (2013). PROGRESSIVES,
CONSERVATIVES AND "EDUCATIONAL DISADVANTAGE": THE LIMITS OF THE
BIFURCATION. Race, Gender & Class, 20(1), 8-24. Retrieved from https://ccc.idm.oclc.org/docview/1464752237?accountid=37965
Guarino, M. (2013, May 29). Chicago simmers over school
closings. is that bad for mayor emanuel? The Christian Science Monitor
Retrieved from https://ccc.idm.oclc.org/docview/1356147029?accountid=37965
"Just the FAQs-Charter Schools." The Center
for Education Reform. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
https://www.edreform.com/2012/03/just-the-faqs-charter-schools/
No comments:
Post a Comment