Upcoming Substance series on Mayoral Control

[Csubstance@aol.com]

11/4/07

Colleagues and friends:

Beginning in the November 2007 Substance and continuing for several months, 
we will be presenting a series of articles and analyses which I'm generally 
calling: "Twelve Years of Mayor Control: Report from Chicago."

The first installment of this piece will be an analysis of school closings 
and transformations and their impact especially on the black community here. On 
balance, despite claims to the contrary, Chicago, like New Orleans, has 
created a net loss of public schools for black people since the onset of the "school 
closings" phase of mayoral control six years ago (with the appointment of 
Arne Duncan as CEO of Chicago's public schools in July 2001). This is masked by 
the fact that all of the reports on "New Schools" coming out of Chicago (most 
as part of the "Renaissance 2010" propaganda) only itemize the number of 
schools opened and "seats" available. These analyses never include the data on the 
schools that were closed to make "green space" for the "new schools."

Since school closings and charterization are part of the next four years of 
"No Child Left Behind" for thousands of public schools across the USA (unless 
NCLB is repealed), Chicago is indeed a vision of the future for urban public 
schools.

In our October issue we also continued our reporting on how Chicago was the 
model for the destruction of the New Orleans public schools and how the Chicago 
boys (lower case) not only are now running the New Orleans public schools, 
but how many of Chicago's charter school leaders went south to New Orleans 
during the past 18 months to help the ruling class in New Orleans replace its 
public schools with charter schools and "leftover" public schools for the kids who 
were forced out in the process. Again, the conditions in Chicago were a 
harbinger.

One other sad example of how thoroughly these things are being manipulated by 
the ruling class against public education, especially in urban areas and 
against minority students and teachers.

A few months ago, Chicago appointed its fifth "executive officer" of "New 
Schools" in the past five years. 

He is Josh Edelman, the former charter school "education entrepreneur" and 
son of Marion Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund.

For those who do not already subscribe to the print edition of Substance, 
here's the hope that you will begin now. A year of Substance is only $16:

Substance
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George N. Schmidt
Editor, Substance

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