The Vote Is In, We Are Out

BOARD OF EDUCATION 300 protest decision to 'turn around' 8 failing facilities, close others; magnet overhaul plan OKd
February 28, 2008
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter/rrossi@suntimes.com
Over protests, tears and jeers, Chicago School Board members Wednesday approved plans to shake up 18 schools -- the beginning of what could be 50 school closings over the next five years.
With 300 protesters scattered inside, upstairs and outside of Board of Education headquarters, board members doled out stiff medicine for two of the system’s nagging problems — chronically low-scoring schools and dwindling enrollment.
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Carman Soto speaks out Wednesday before the Chicago Board of Education voted on its plan to shake up 18 schools. (Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)
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By a unanimous vote, they approved plans to “turnaround’’ four flagging high schools and four of their feeder elementary schools; to close, consolidate or phase out eight half-empty elementary schools, and to relocate two others.
In doing so, they primed CPS to attract more middle class and high-scoring kids by creating three new magnet schools, opening a neighborhood school in Edison Park, and doubling the size of Edison Gifted, one of the top-scoring schools in the state.
“We heard some very impassioned comments today,’’ said School Board President Rufus Williams. “Change is hard. I understand that....But we’ve got to get better and get better right now.’’
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CPS officials insisted they had finetuned some plans in response to public hearings and emerged with a better set of recommendations.
But some parents walked away feeling they had been steamrolled. They accused CPS officials of using stilted statistics, of courting kids in “gentrified’’ areas and marginalizing poor ones, and of experimenting on children. CPS changes didn’t go far enough, they said.
Rev. Charlie Walker derided plans for the third major attempt to fix Orr High School since Mayor Daley’s 1995 city school takeover.
“You keep dropping the ball,’’ an angry Walker told school board members. “We need to get a grand jury to investigate the school board.’’
Edison Gifted parents also were miffed. They had fought relocating Edison’s 300 kids into Albany Park Middle, saying Edison’s youngest students would be intimidated by all the teens in the building and needed their own school. CPS officials said Edison kids would have a separate, sectioned-off area of the building instead.
“We never asked for a Berlin wall,’’ said Edison parent Matthew Farmer. “We just don’t want to be guinea pigs for a politically expedient social experiment.’’
A handful of parents supported CPS plans. Catonya Withers said she that last year she fought a summer “turnaround’’ at Harvard Elementary, but now was thrilled with the results. “Welcome change. Don’t be afraid of it,’’ she advised.
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Parents and little kids walked up to protest plans for Andersen Elementary wearing large yellow stickers that said “excluded’’ on their foreheads.
Andersen parents said plans to eventually replace their school with a second campus of popular LaSalle Magnet meant Andersen kids would be “excluded’’ from boutique programs and extra resources offered new LaSalle kids.
In the end, Board members voted to “turnaround’’ Harper High, the three small schools on the Orr High campus, and feeder schools Fulton, Copernicus, Morton and Howe; to close Gladstone, Johns Middle, Miles Davis and Midway for lack of enrollment; to fold Carver Middle and Irving Park Middle into other schools; to phase-out Andersen and De La Cruz; and to relocate Edison Gifted and DeDuprey Elementary.
Also approved was a magnet overhaul plan that gives college prep high school principals the power to handpick five percent of freshmen, despite lower overall admission scores, if they meet certain criteria.