A Curious Statement

Well, that's quite a switch.  Mayor Rahm Emanuel yesterday made the remark that "locking kids into a school that, year-in and year-out is failing their potential - is unacceptable.  It's unacceptable to this city."  Okay, a failing school should be dealt with. 

Here's the rub...   We've amazingly gone from statements relative to closing schools that are underused/underutilized to closing them because they are failing kids.  Which is it Mayor Emanuel?  Quit feeding people different stories about why schools are closing.  On the surface such a change in statements concerning school closings is deceitful.  In fact, it might be an outright lie.  In either case the citizens, teachers and the communities affected deserve better.

By the way, Mayor Emanuel's statement flies in the face of the data I presented a couple of days ago.  As I pointed out, 8 out of the 10 schools that are being closed, which we work with, have shown real progress from 2010 to 2012.  I can point to many schools not being closed that have seen their scores drop in recent years.  Curious as to why Mayor Emanuel wouldn't close those.

As retired UIC professor Bill Ayers said, "the assault on public education and abandonment of these communities has to be resisted."    I ask you, put yourself in these communities, would you resist being abandoned?  I'm pretty sure you would.