Month: February 2016

Chicago Public Schools considers 21 additional charter schools

The Chicago Tribune reports that the Chicago Board of Education is set to consider as many as 21 proposals for new charter schools. As you’ll see in the article, the rhetoric is already heating up. But, the state has no budget and no vision for correcting its decades-long failure to adequately fund schools. Pension debt is expanding at the rate…

Teachers Unions Need to Stop Playing the ‘Class Card’

I’ve heard it too many times. As I’ve worked to create greater access to high quality schools for the children in the most underserved communities in Chicago, it’s one of key arguments they use: “The big corporations are trying to make a profit off of our children…” “The big dollar school reformers don’t really understand what’s going on in poor…

Is Your Child Being Taught Black History?

I asked them who was the first Black president. They eagerly and confidently responded, “Dr. King!”. I was extremely shocked and caught off guard by their answer, for multiple reasons. At the moment I was leading a discussion at a primarily African American, after-school program, on the South side of Chicago. But it wasn’t just the South side of Chicago.…

Sorry, Chicago, but we have to break up

Julie Bosker is a parent who lives in Lakeview. Bosker shares her CPS experience and why it’s causing her to lose admiration for the city she loves. Bosker is the director of the First Year Writing Program at DePaul University, and a 2016 Public Voices Fellow of The Oped Project. Dear Chicago, Now that Valentine’s Day is past, I’m going…

This Far By Faith

“We’ve come this far by faith…” These are the first words of one of the great Negro spirituals that has been passed down through the African-American tradition. It is one of the songs that guided my predecessors through the tumultuous Civil Rights era. It harkens back to the deep darkness of American slavery and reminds us of the motivating force by which we overcame…

I Told You So: CPS Knew This Was Coming

I hate to say, “I told you so”. But, as Chicago aldermen begin to come forward to sacrifice on the altar of woefully underfunded Chicago Public Schools, neighborhood projects that would have been funded by monies from the Tax Increment Financing (or TIF) program, it is hard for me not to think about the work that I was doing ten…