Month: October 2016

Don’t Blame Public School Choice For Society’s Failures, says John Legend

Grammy and Academy Award winner John Legend has been using his voice for more than singing these days. The “All of Me” singer recently penned a essay in response to the NAACP’s moratorium on charter public schools. Check out what he had to say. Black kids across the country are being given a raw deal. Slavery ended 150 years ago, but…

Bandwagon Cub Fans… Can We Keep the Trend Going with Chicago Education?

I couldn’t tell you a single player’s name on the Cubs team if my life depended on it. Well, yesterday I learned about Dexter Fowler who’s making Black history by being the first African American Cub to lead-off in Game 1 of the World Series. Dope. But before that, no clue. To my defense I grew up on the Southside…

Mo’ Money…No Progress

No one wanted another strike–but many people wondered how and were doubtful that the district could meet the CTU’s financial demands.  So when Rahm, Forrest, and Co. were able to make it happen at the eleventh hour, many parents, community members, and even some students were able to breathe a sigh of relief.   But how long will it be before…

Stop Punishing Us for Being Poor

Last weekend my husband and I had a chance to check out Ava Duvernay’s documentary 13th on Netflix. There’s only one word to describe how I felt after watching: PISSED. Maybe it was because I’d just watched the video below that exposes the fact that thousands of people in Chicago are stuck in jail, because they simply can’t afford bond.…

The NAACP Is Old, Large and Wrong. That’s What the NAACP Is Today. And I’m Feeling Sick, Angry and Fed Up.

It just so happened that I was standing in the High School Fair in Philadelphia when it came over my Twitter feed that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had ratified a proposed resolution calling for a moratorium on charter schools. There I was, with 17,000 families (a majority of them Black) looking for great school options,…

Can Arne Duncan Save Chicago?

They called him the Cobra in Australia, where he played pro basketball for four years. Maybe it was the way he would languidly uncoil his 6-foot-5 frame before striking with his jumper. Not even Arne Duncan himself knows why a “crazy announcer” gave him the nickname—and likely never will: “That guy’s dead.” The moniker seems wildly ill fitted to the…

Not “everybody” happy with new teachers’ deal

I didn’t see any reporters hanging around my child’s school in Englewood (or another community) Tuesday morning. If they had been there, they may have discovered something that I know first-hand. Contrary to what a North Side parent wrote in a Sun-Times story Tuesday, not “everybody” is happy with the deal that the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Board of Education…