What we’re reading this week: May 18th
This week, we’re reading about the mechanisms that drive Chicago’s continued inequities in a few different sectors. First up, some new information about how CPD uses computers and profiling to track folks without arrest records. Then, a look at how private... What We’re Reading: April 27th
This week, we’re reading about CPS’s lack of plans to back their new mandates, how communities are fighting back against racist immigration policy, and how institutional racism impacts the ways students of color learn math. 1. What Will Happen if Schools...
Contract Selling is “Racially targeted disinvestment”
For people who thought the housing crisis was behind us, a drive through Englewood, North Lawndale or Austin will quickly dispel that rosy notion, as a recent investigative report in the Chicago Reader explains. These communities are among many in Chicago that have...
School Segregation Continues
Recent investigations by education reporters detail actions taken by Rahm Emanuel’s handpicked Board of Education that clearly further racial segregation in Chicago Public Schools.
Cancer-Causing Environmental Hazards in CPS Schools
The Asbestos Nation campaign of national watchdog the Environmental Working Group recently issued a report and interactive map on the continued prevalence of asbestos in CPS schools. In total, 184 CPS schools had asbestos-laden materials that needed to be repaired or...
Community Resources, Not More Incarceration
Chicago Police Department superintendent Garry McCarthy was fired by Mayor Emanuel last Tuesday, after protesters have been demanding it for months. Back in October, members of the Black Caucus of the city council demanded his replacement because crime is still...
How Should We Fund Schools in Illinois?
Contrary to the claims of some econometric reformer types, money matters in schools. To understand why Illinois and Chicago don’t have to be like they are, we must survey the national picture of school funding. Illinois has a revenue problem, and Minnesota points the way toward a solution.
Phantoms Playing Double-Dutch: Why the Fight for Dyett is Bigger than One Chicago School Closing
They were gathered in the name of Dyett, the high school that the leaders of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) announced in 2012 would be shuttered at the end of 2015. This group of parents, community members, and students sat in the 95-degree heat to demand a meeting with the alderman, Will Burns. They wanted…
Why I Go Hungry for Dyett
These are the reasons why I go hungry for Dyett. Because I refuse to accept that the current state of education is the best we can do. Because every child deserves a world class education in their neighborhood.
