Public Education

Mass protests hit Chicago over school closures

WS – Rahm Emanuel. – Corrupt Corporate Jester, hates poor people.

The Chicago Teachers Union is rallying support against closures that will disproportionately affect black, Latino kids
On Wednesday Chicago will see a mass rally, led by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), to protest the planned shuttering of 54 elementary and middle schools before the next school year. Critics of the closures have pointed out that the vast majority of schools targeted (50 are on the West and South Sides of Chicago) provide for black and Latino children. While only around 40 percent of children in Chicago are black are Latino, 90 percent of children whose schools will be shuttered are black or Latino.

“The only thing that’s like it is Hurricane Katrina,” said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey of the potential devastation, “except this is being done on purpose.” The closures will affect 30,000 students and around 1,000 teachers. Labor Notes’ Samantha Winslow explained that “the union opposes what leaders call a ‘manufactured crisis’: a series of intentional policy decisions to underfund public schools while boosting charter schools. Once public school enrollment drops, the board can close public schools and justify charters.” Winslow reported on the mass rally planned for Wednesday afternoon:

From Powell Memo To Tri-lateral Commission: Chomsky on Education and the Oligarchs. The PTB were greatly upset with and terrified of the eruption of people and student power in the 60s, and decided to kill it off. Enter the “Powell Memo”:

Powell drew the obvious conclusion: “The campuses from which much of
this criticism emanates are supported by tax funds generated largely
from American business, contributions from capital funds controlled or
generated by American business. The boards of trustees at universities
are overwhelmingly composed of men and women who are leaders in the
business system and most of the media, including the national TV systems
are owned and theoretically controlled by corporations which depend on
profits and the enterprise system on which they survive.”

Therefore, the oppressed business people who have lost all
influence should organize and defend themselves instead of idly sitting
by while fundamental freedoms are destroyed by the Marxist onslaught
from the media, universities and the government. Those are the
expression of the concerns elicited by ’60s activism at the right end of
the mainstream spectrum.

The solution? Impose economic hardship, reduce educatiuonal opportunities, make it more expensive, and impose conservative ‘litmus tests.’ It worked.