The messy messy messy situation regarding school closings -- 61 of them from this original list of 129 (which was, itself, once a list of 330) at the end of the school year to address a budget shortfall (according to the numbers, over 140 schools are "half-empty"). I can't pretend to have answers, but I do have some questions:
Why do they continue to let the curiously coiffed Karen Lewis in front of the microphone as I don't think anyone takes her seriously since she bullied Arne over his lisp earlier in her tenure whilst representing all that it supposed to be right and true and noble about Chicago teachers? (And that's not a dig against dreadlocks, but about her choice to style said dreadlocks in a medusa-esque way.)
Why doesn't Rahm have staff that do the walk-and-talk made famous by the West Wing who would have discussed that announcing the closure of public schools, mostly in economically blighted 'hoods full of poor folk, over the same weekend that he takes his private school taught children on a spring break skiing trip would not be the best timing for delivering the news? (And that's a not a knock against rich people and private schools and skiing, but about appearing insensitive to those who have no choices in life as they have no cash -- since every news story made a point to reference that the mayor was unavailable for comment as he was on the slopes without any personal stakes in the matter.)
Why doesn't someone focus on the paradox of spending money to save money? Rumor has it that it will cost a billion to save a billion -- which seems short-sighted at the outset. However, perhaps these same numbers analyzed a few years out might lead to a different long-term view that starts to make more sense. (And that's not doubt over the veracity of those numbers -- the source is the Teachers' Union website, representing those with a lot of "skin in this game" -- but a call to take the somewhat un-American view of austerity over instant gratification.)
What's going to happen to all that real estate? Most of these are in blighted neighborhoods (one alderman has already stated that we've now created "school deserts" in the same places that have to deal with "food deserts"), Are we going to tear down the buildings so that we'll start looking like Detroit which is returning to its formerly agrarian state? Or maybe rent them out to entertainment companies to film in? (And that's not an overwhelmingly far-fetched idea, but a possible twist for the Walking Dead to have the Guv'nor drive the survivors all the way to Chicago to swap abandoned prison digs for a network of abandoned elementary schools -- I can just see the existential crisis of annihilating hordes of tiny kiddie zombies mixed in with lunch lady walkers, hairnets and all.)
How are we going to handle the first school-closure related death? Because here's the messiest mess of them all. For parents who live in these locales, it might be a life and death situation because school closings and consolidations may not have factored in established gangland territories, so Shanequa and Jorge Doe might actually be collateral caught in the crossfire because they aren't wearing the right colors or responding to the right flashing of hand signals while on their way to show and tell. (And that's not a racist reinterpretation of John and Jane Doe, but a nod to the fact that those most affected by these closing are predominantly African-American and Latino populations.)
Messy ... messy ... messy. I just hope that calmer heads prevail, that community leadership bands together to fix the other issues at play, and that we somehow find a way out of this morass with the education of the upcoming generation being priority number one.
A LINK TO THE FINAL LIST OF CLOSINGS:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-21/news/chi-chicago-public-school-closings-20130321_1_school-buildings-closure-district-officials
A LINK TO THE SOURCE OF SPEND A BILLION TO SAVE A BILLION:
http://www.ctunet.com/blog
A LINK TO THE CPS PERSPECTIVE ON "QUALITY" (CUE PIRSIG DISCUSSION):
http://www.cps.edu/qualityschools/Pages/qualityschools.aspx
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