Page 6 - ARUBA TODAY

A6 U.S. NEWS
Tuesday 6 February 2018
After record school closures, new Chicago plan draws fury

By SOPHIA TAREEN kids. They don’t have
DON BABWIN enough support in these
Associated Press buildings,” schools chief
CHICAGO (AP) — Five Janice Jackson said. “We
years after the largest mass can’t sit by and continue
closure of public schools to watch people leave.”
in an American city, Chi- The new school, which
cago is forging ahead with would open in 2019, will
a plan to shutter four more enroll only freshmen at
in one of the city’s highest- the beginning, and upper-
crime and most impover- classmen will be left to at-
ished areas. tend nearby schools.
School officials are pitching The district expects to
the new closures around spend millions on the tran-
Englewood, a neighbor- sition, including on indi-
hood on Chicago’s South vidualized plans to help
Side, to make way for a students at risk of dropping
new $85 million school they out, paid summer job pro-
insist will better serve stu- grams and possible shuttle
dents and reverse low en- buses to transport students.
rollment. But some parents, Research on the benefits
students and activists are of school closures is mixed.
skeptical, saying they’re still In 2017, the National Edu-
reeling from the 2013 clo- In this Jan. 18, 2018, photo, a safe school zone sign still hangs at the closed Arna Wendell Bontemps cation Policy Center at
sures and the latest plan Elementary School in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago. Five years after the nation’s the University of Colorado
will make things worse, in- largest mass closure of public schools, Chicago is forging ahead with plans to shutter four more Boulder compiled research
cluding the displacement in one of the city’s highest-crime and impoverished areas while school officials are pitching the finding that even when stu-
new closures in Englewood to make way for a new $85 million school they insist will better serve
of hundreds of mostly black students and reverse low enrollment. dents transferred to higher-
and poor teenagers. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast) performing schools, those
“The last thing they should forming and underutilized hood schools and safety. enrollment and resources students saw an achieve-
do is close our schools,” schools. Significant closures Some have alleged that to the four schools, but it ment drop in the first year
said 16-year-old Miracle have taken place in Phila- racial politics are at play. hasn’t helped. and marginal gains later
Boyd, a student at John delphia, Detroit and St. Lou- And they worry by pulling The changes coincide on.
Hope College Prep, which is, but Chicago made his- students out of schools near with a major drop in black “There’s no ground to
could close. tory when it closed roughly their homes and placing residents. Roughly 180,000 stand on for saying this will
“They aren’t the ones sitting 50 schools, affecting more them in ones farther away, people moved from Chica- improve the educational
in those chairs five days a than 12,000 students in they are putting them in go from 2000 to 2010, ac- opportunities,” said Pau-
week struggling to learn mostly African-American danger of gang members cording to census data. In line Lipman, a University of
because we don’t have and Latino neighborhoods. who will view them as the Englewood, about 10 miles Illinois at Chicago professor
the necessities we need The debate over Chicago’s enemy just by virtue of their from downtown, fewer who has studied closures.
as students. ... Why not use latest proposed closures address. than 500 students are en- Chicago Public Schools of-
the $85 million to improve has exploded, with shout- Chicago Public Schools rolled in the four schools. As ficials disagree.
our education and get our ing matches and emotion- says nothing is final un- a result, one freshmen class With past closures, they’ve
schools on the road to suc- al pleas during community til an expected Feb. 28 has only 17 students and emphasized cost savings.
cess?” meetings. Residents have board vote. The nation’s another school doesn’t of- This time, they’ve pitched
Like other cities, Chicago pleaded with the district third-largest school district fer science. the proposal as a more de-
has long relied on clo- to invest more in neighbor- argues it’s tried to boost “We have to move these sirable option for students.
sures to address underper- Renderings of the new
school tout outdoor sports
facilities and a community
health center.
City officials say it comple-
ments other recent invest-
ment in Englewood, in-
cluding a new lower-cost
Whole Foods.
But critics, including neigh-
borhood activists and
unions, say the district
didn’t do enough to ad-
dress problems it helped
create and there’s a lack
of trust, especially after
two consecutive CPS lead-
ers left office under scan-
dal. The Chicago Teach-
ers Union blames the city’s
push for charter schools.
Roughly 90 percent of En-
glewood’s students travel
beyond neighborhood
boundaries for school.q