Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is a vast network of pre-school, elementary, secondary, military, charter and disability schools. 92% of its students are of color. Beyond education, it feeds, nurses and counsels children. It is the second largest employer in Chicago. It is the third largest school system in the United States. It has a budget exceeding $5.7 billion. It employs over 43,000 people. It is like a small city.
In this city, nobody gets to VOTE. It is a dictatorship.
For well over 100 years local school boards in America have been elected by the people. In the 1980s corporate sponsored reports, for example, Nation at Risk, began blaming public schools for America’s economic problems. Instead of looking at corporate greed, mortgage schemes and derivative gambling, big business deflected the spotlight to “declining” schools and waning test scores, threatening to place America at a competitive disadvantage.
Illinois has 879 school districts wherein nearly all have elected boards. The Illinois Association of School Boards website says:
With few exceptions, Illinois school boards consist of seven members elected to serve terms of four years. Elections are held at the Consolidated Election on the first Tuesday in April of each odd-numbered year.
In 1995 the devilish mayor, Richard M. Daley, collaborating with the state General Assembly passed legislation allowing Chicago to become the only city in Illinois with an appointed school board. Mayor Daley was GIVEN control over the system.
The appointed school board is now a rag tag collection of millionaires, charlatans, grifters and miscreants. Among them are President David Vitale, Executive Chairman of Urban Partnership Bank, and Chair, the Academy of Urban School Leadership; Jesse Ruiz, a Chicago attorney; Henry Bienen, political scientist and author; Mahalia Hines, former teacher, principal and mother of rapper, Common; billionaire Penny Pritzker, of the Hyatt Hotel Pritzkers; Rod Sierra: Chief Marketing Officer of Johnson Publishing Co. and a former deputy press secretary to Mayor Richard Daley; and .Andrea Zopp, CEO of the Chicago Urban League and former general counsel for Exelon and Sears Holdings Corp.
The appointed school board has ruthlessly closed and punished many schools as it excludes the participation and desires of parents, teachers and the community at large.
A recent University of Chicago study concluded that under the appointed board achievement results between black and white students have widened and that the expansion of charter schools has had little impact on achievement. A (2011) WGN television poll found over 70% of Chicagoans want an elected school board.
The appointed school board is unresponsive and an affront to democracy and the will of the people. Local ministers have been paid to provide phony support.
Many community groups are circulating petitions demanding an elected school board. The petition drive has been so successful that 10 aldermen on the city council were prepared to introduce a resolution for a city-wide referendum on the question.
The Mayor and his henchmen are fighting to maintain his dictatorship. This fight will continue as public education is part of our civil rights.
TOWARD AN ELECTED
SCHOOL BOARD
TOWARD A WORLD CLASS SCHOOL IN EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD
