Parents, students, and teachers want to go back to school in person and want to do so safely. Will that be possible in September? Is there a number of educator or student deaths that we are willing to accept in order to have in-person school? Are CPS, the city, and the state willing to spend the money to make school reopening safe?
Cities across the United States, including Minneapolis, Portland, Denver, Seattle and Oakland have decided they will no longer employ police within the schools.
Chicago should join them.
Corporate education reformers love to harp on the “education gap” between different racial groups as a cause for alarm, focusing on test scores and college graduation rates while blaming teachers for these outcomes. The Chicago Teachers Union, on the other hand, has been arguing that the issues our students and their families face at home and in the community greatly affects their academic outcomes.
On the 59th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) released a report on the history of disruptive actions against communities of color by Chicago Public Schools (CPS), exemplified by school closings that intensify the harmful effects of segregated schools and neighborhoods.
The turnaround model is not about educational improvement. No study has ever shown that firing and replacing an entire school staff, from the teachers to the clerks and lunchroom attendants, has any positive impact on student learning, Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) reports.
