Starving Schools

Over one year ago Tim Meegan, a nationally board certified teacher at Roosevelt H. S. in Chicago wrote an interesting piece that warrants our attention. The piece was posted online and was titled 'CPS starving its schools to justify privatization." It is hard to argue that this isn't exactly what is taking place.

Let me give you a couple of examples of how this is taking place as outlined by Meegan. CPS is spending millions of dollars to finance Teach for America and the principal academy used by the school district. While the funds were being spent on these initiatives, and other sorts of programs, many principals were taking big hits relative to the school budgets.

As Meegan said, "The formula for privatizing district is the same all over the country: Open charters operated by private organizations. Simultaneously defund neighborhood schools, declare them "failing," and then close them. Fire certified professional teachers and replace them with temporary unskilled Teach for America recruits."

Tomorrow I will get into where some of the outside financing comes from that supports the charter and non-neighborhood school movement.

Dick