 |
| Chicago Public School system: Nothing more than a low-level detention facility |
You knew the good folks over at The Onion would comment on the teachers strike from the Chicago Public School system
CHICAGO—Jubilant Chicago Public Schools officials announced Wednesday that, for three straight days now, there has not been a single act of student violence in any of the city’s 675 public schools. “Our classrooms and hallways are safer now than they’ve ever been,” said CPS chief executive Jean-Claude Brizard, happily noting that there have been no reported instances of beatings, stabbings, sexual assaults, or shootings in any of the city’s public schools this week.[ More]
Because there are no students!
Recall that of the 400,000+ students attending CPS schools, lessthan 9 percent of them are white (44 percent are Hispanic and 40 percent are Black). Like most of the articles in The Onion, this satirical piece on Chicago Public Schools isn’t far off the mark.
Consider this article from The Huffington Post
In Chicago public schools, black students receive harsher punishments for in-school infractions than white students, a fact that mirrors a nationwide trend, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Education Tuesday. The report paints a startling picture of racial disparities in how students are disciplined in schools across the country.In Chicago, white students comprised three percent of suspensions — and 10 percent of the total student population — but black students, who had a larger overall representation at 42 percent, comprised 76 percent of the city's school suspensions. The data show that in 2009 to 2010, Chicago suspended the third largest percentage of black students among the country's 20 biggest school districts. [More]
Of course, the black students misbehaving is never, ever their fault—we just have to find new, advanced methods of convincing the dwindling percentage of white kids in the CPS system to disrupt the flow of learning at rates that are comparable to the black kids.
Violence at schools in Chicago is nothing new, and with the teachers strike comes a reprieve in the state-sponsored (and tax-payer funded) day-care system that is provided to the primarily fatherless households of the Second City.
That’s basically what the K-12 Education system in Chicago: glorified babysitters (and hey, with an average salary of $76,000 for a teacher, it beats the starting salary for a correctional officer at the Cook County Jail, which starts at only $45,000/k a year) in a low-level detention facility.
Read the rest there. If you have Twitter, consider sending this article to both the Chicago Public School account (@ChiPubSchools) and the Chicago Teachers Union account (@CTULocal1 ).Basically, the Chicago Public School system (remember, of 400,000+ students, roughly nine percent are white) operates as a low-level detention facility. The teachers average compensation dwarfs the starting salary for a Cook County correctional officer, meaning that the environment inside the classroom is far more treacherous than the one inside the jails of Chicago.
Why else would Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy give a press conference on Monday where he said "We're emptying out our offices"; with the teachers on strike, the
All of this reminds me of a scene from the John Hughes movie The Breakfast Club. Set in an all-white suburb of Chicago in the 1980s, the film is about five students of varying backgrounds (but all-white) sent to Saturday detention. The overbearing Assistant Principal Richard Vernon (a character who has been lampooned in countless forms of media since) acts as a domineering administrator over the detainees. In a pivotal scene, Vernon has a conversation with the white janitor:
VERNONDoes anyone ever stop and think how the 92 percent non-white students, who are enrolled in the Chicago Public Schools system, will run Chicago in the near-future?
What did you want to be when you
were young?
CARL
When I was a kid, I wanted to be
John Lennon...
VERNON
Carl don't be a goof! I'm trying
to make a serious point here...I've
been teaching, for twenty two years,
and each year...these kids get more
and more arrogant.
CARL
Aw bull shit, man. Come on Vern,
the kids haven't changed, you have!
You took a teaching position, 'cause
you thought it'd be fun, right?
Thought you could have summer
vacations off...and then you found
out it was actually work...and that
really bummed you out.
VERNON
These kids turned on me...they think
I'm a big fuckin' joke...
CARL
Come on...listen Vern, if you were
sixteen, what would you think of
you, huh?
VERNON
Hey...Carl, you think I give one
rat's ass what these kids think of
me?
CARL
Yes I do...
VERNON
You think about this...when you get
old, these kids; when I get old,
they're gonna be runnin' the country.
CARL
Yeah?
VERNON
Now this is the thought that wakes
me up in the middle of the night...
That when I get older, these kids
are gonna take care of me...
CARL
I wouldn't count on it!
No, of course not.
These are questions we aren't supposed to ask in Black-Run America (BRA).
0 comments:
Post a Comment