Kaleem, Casey, and segregated schools for black children

[Csubstance@aol.com]

In a message dated 7/22/03 10:41:26 AM, gbracey@erols.com writes:

<< I am sure you will find that most of their resources and that of their 
chapters come from government sources, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (to 
start 15 small high schools), etc.  Is there a problem with that? >>

July 23, 2003

Yes, there is. It's called Separate but Equal. We used to call it 
"segregation" or Jim Crow, but now it's called "school reform" by the voucher touts and 
small schools gurus. Within the next year, I'll publish a lot about the 
hypocrisy underlying all that, just as I was easily able to debunk the "No Excuses" 
nonsense about Chicago's Earhart Elementary School.

But, for now, let's take a closer look at "Small Schools" as it is being 
touted (and funded with millions of Gates dollars) here in Chicago. It's reserved 
for black kids. That's something to note, especially in the context of 
America's largest black ghetto (Chicago's, which stretches more than 22 miles from 
its western edge to its southern tip)...

In Chicago, all of the small schools are being foisted on on impoverished 
(usually, 100 percent free or reduced lunch, or at least 90 percent) all black 
(and here we are talking 100 percent or close to it) inner city schools. These 
schools have traditionally been beset by the problems of poverty in their 
communities and the added problem in Chicago of the skimming off of all top 
students by magnet and selective enrollment schools. Instead of eliminating the 
poverty or the segregation, we now don't even talk about them. The problem has been 
redefined as bigness. The Board of Education then pushes "Small Schools" as 
the latest alternative.

But no one is discussing the fact that in the Chicago area, the largest 
schools are also the "best" (as measured by test scores and every other criterion). 
This is true both in the city and in relation to the suburbs. In the city, 
for example, Whitney Young Magnet High School will have more than 2,200 students 
this school year. More than 600 of those will be 9th graders. The school has 
a long tradition of academic, sports, and extra curricular excellence and 
boosts one of the most diverse student populations in the United States. At the 
parent orientation conference on Monday (July 21), the principal and others 
briefed parents and incoming 9th graders on the Whitney Young traditions and on 
what is to come.

I could list six other large high schools in Chicago which also boast 
"excellence."

Meanwhile, the schools which are required to serve the city's poorest 
communities (almost all of which are all-black) are being told that "small schools" 
will save them.

It's simply separate but equal, not different from the schools that were used 
to maintain segregation at the end of Jim Crow in Mississippi in the early 
1950s. A friend of mine here in Chicago was the first graduate of the "Colored 
HIgh School" of Slege, Mississippi. The "Colored High School" was the last 
attempt to establish "separate but equal" facilities (there had been no high 
school for "the colored" in Sledge before that).

Gates, like the voucher touts, is promoting racial segregation and ignoring 
the root causes. 

By the Brown anniversary next May, I promise these words will echo every time 
"Small Schools" is mentioned as a solution to the problems of segregated 
urban schools serving children of color.

"SSSS... Small Schools = Segregated Schools."

Live with it,

George Schmidt
Editor, Substance
5132 W. Berteau
Chicago, IL 60641

www.substancenews.com