chicago

[mopinko]

has a school bureaucracy that is a hindrance to education, and a honey pot for the well connected. that is why chicago school funding is tightly controlled, coming directly from a line item on the property taxes, with taxing authority of it's own.

there always have been schools outside that structure, catholic schools and others. they served to buoy up some of the very schools that are being closed today. they gave parents choices to take their children out of failing schools. charter schools are not draining the public system, they are putting the catholic schools out of business. that should make a lot of du'ers happy.

i strongly support a strong public education system. i do not think that that means all schools are the same, or that all schools have to be controlled by the mothership.
i also support teachers unions. some of the charters are held by the union. many of the charters are voting to join unions. i think it is in the best interest of the teachers to join a union.
as long as charter schools get the same per pupil spending as the bureaucratic controlled schools, have an open enrollment policy, or a selective enrollment equivalent to that for similar public schools, i support diversity in outlook and teaching styles so that children can get the school that fits them. one size never has fit all.


chicago is a complicated place, the population can shift like the desert dunes. swathes of buildings are torn down, and a neighborhood disappears. someone builds there, and a neighborhood reappears. the school system is the same.

for the most part, it is not the city that has failed the schools. the state of illinois, tho constitutionally required to provide "the majority of funding for the common schools" does no such thing and never has. in the meantime, we do our best to manage a system in constant flux.

what we do not do is rob other areas of city governance and economic development to prop up empty schools in abandoned neighborhoods. that is not one of the available choices.

[H2O Man]

1. Well said.

Thank you for this.

Recommended.

[mopinko]

2. thx

[frazzled]

3. Good summary of a complex system

and very complex set of issues.

[mopinko]

5. apparently no one wants to talk about that.

rather have a good fight, i guess.

[msanthrope]

4. I made a point on another thread that was un-addressed by the OP--

The physical plant of schools costs money to run. If you have a number of under-enrolled schools, you don't get a smaller class size necessarily, but you still have to maintain, heat, light, repair, and clean school buildings.

That fact alone is going to cause closings as demographics switch and neighborhoods change. The massive stone edifices built decades ago are not cost-efficient to run now. Here in Philadelphia, we are consolidating schools because some of them are just to expensive to actually run/heat.

Like Chicago, we also have a school district that has been a honey pot for a privileged few at the top of the Party machine. I used to teach for the district--so I have a really good idea of what went on. Parents looking at their 'local' district school have little choice, other than charters, if the school does not measure up. We have Catholic schools closing, but Friends schools on the rise.

There are no easy answers--and I agree with you--decrying a public works project funded by hotel taxes isn't the way to change things. It's just pure propaganda.