In These Times: Schoolyard Syndicalists (Chicago Students Union)

[Omaha Steve]

http://inthesetimes.com/article/15745/schoolyard_syndicalists/

Act Locally » October 23, 2013


On August 28 in Chicago, high-school students boycott classes to protest school closings.


BY Rebecca Burns

“Raise your hand if you know what a charter school is,” 16-year-old Ross Floyd said gravely as he stood before 30 high school students gathered in a meeting room in downtown Chicago on September 25 for the first General Assembly of the Chicago Students Union (CSU).

Nearly all of the students shot their hands up. After listening to Floyd rail against the school district’s plans to open scores of new charters just after closing 50 neighborhood schools, the group launched into a brainstorming session of what needed changing at their schools. Ten minutes later, they had a list that included stricter regulation of charters, use of student feedback in place of standardized test scores in teacher evaluations and a process requiring the Chicago Board of Education to consult students on the budget proposals for their schools. Next, the students moved on to the small matter of hashing out how to implement all these ideas this year.

This back-to-school season has been a gloomy one in Chicago, as the 12,000 students displaced by the closings make their way to new schools and the more than 3,000 teachers and staff laid off since May struggle to find work. But the CSU meeting suggests a silver lining in what’s otherwise a dark time for the city: The battle to stave off the largest mass school closings in U.S. history may have been lost, but it has produced some seriously radicalized students.

The CSU, which launched in August, is demanding “a real voice” for students in the school system, including a place on the Board of Education, says Floyd, a junior at Jones College Prep high school and a co-founder of CSU. The union will seek to create chapters at every high school in Chicago, which will then send a representative to a monthly general assembly. The group also plans to push for regular meetings with CPS and Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) officials. Currently, the CSU has representation at about 10 of the city’s more than 100 high schools, according to members, but the group is considering outreach activities that include a free Thanksgiving dinner to draw attention to the high rate of homelessness among public-school students, as well as a snowball fight at Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s house.

FULL story at link.