Posted on 03/21/2013 3:47:33 PM PDT by mdittmar
CHICAGO (AP) - Chicago Public Schools officials said Thursday they plan to close 54 schools in an effort to address a $1 billion budget shortfall and improve a struggling educational system - a plan that drew the ire of parents and teachers.
District CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel say the closures are necessary because too many CPS buildings are half-empty. The nation's third-largest district, CPS has about 403,000 students but has seats for more than 500,000, officials say. But opponents say the closures will disproportionately affect minority children and endanger students who may have to cross gang boundaries to attend school.
The plan will affect about 30,000 students, CPS officials said. They say money being spent to keep underutilized schools open could be better used to educate students elsewhere.
"Every child in every neighborhood in Chicago deserves access to a high quality education that prepares them to succeed in life, but for too long children in certain parts of Chicago have been cheated out of the resources they need to succeed because they are in underutilized, under-resourced schools," Byrd-Bennett said. "As a former teacher and a principal, I've lived through school closings and I know that this will not be easy, but I also know that in the end this will benefit our children."
Critics say the closings are unnecessary and will devastate communities, particularly poor, minority neighborhoods.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc6.com ...
Dunno. I was told strict gun laws cured this stuff.
you know... I;m starting to think they really don’t. But that’s just crazy. Liberals would never say things that weren’t true. MSNBC said so.
But schools a re a gun free zone
When one has to figure out gang boundaries to figure out how to manage the schools......it’s over. Shut it down and start from scratch.
Money for The Moslem Brotherhood and al Qaeda
and terrorists worldwide, but not one dime for
American children.
This is so wonderful. You can’t teach Shakespeare to these gang bangers. The key to responding to gun deaths is to declare gangs “terrorists” and then Drone their asses.zap!! I love it. we will do that when we get in power.
so long as those teachers don;t move south looking for a job
And how many republicans ever mention that one very pertinent FACT?
Gee. Can’t understand why no one cares. Perhaps if they actually heard and thought about it?
Nah....that’s never work.
Is it safe to say closing the schools but keeping the UNION teachers for the children
Wait till amnesty and hispanics move into the city and kick their butts. Popcorn season is about to begin.
***
It’s sad, but when you continuously vote stupidly, act stupidly, don’t give a hoot about your dignity, your education, your morals, your own people and the continual pitiful condition you and they are in year and year, decade after decade ..if you TRULY are not intelligent enough to give a hoot or figure out what to do DIFFERENTLY to solve the problem then, I dunno ...maybe it’s just survival of the fittest kind of thing. I hate to say that, but it just seems to be true with this particular group.
I wish it wasn’t so. So many have been trying to tell them HOW and WHAT to do differently for a long time ..but they stubbornly refuse to take that advice. What may happen in the coming years to them is REALLY going to be sad and awful to watch. I mean ..it’s already been awful to see and to watch for YEARS ...yet it continues.
What’s sad are the crack babies ..the poor sick kids ...the kids born into it, innocent, yet in time, they too fall to the same fate. I think it weighs on everyone in our country ...we laugh, we joke about it . .. but in the end, it’s just horrific to see, to witness ...and equally as horrific to be TAXED into supporting it.
Good grief...they have to worry about crossing GANG BOUNDARIES!!! What are the union cops doing as the city is split into gang-controlled areas?
403,000/500,000*100 = 80.6%. That's quite a leap to round to one half. A whole is closer.
District CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel say... too many CPS buildings are half-empty... 403,000 students but has seats for more than 500,000... opponents say the closures will disproportionately affect minority children and endanger students who may have to cross gang boundaries to attend school. The plan will affect about 30,000 students...Must be that 97,000 gap is due to the total lack of gun control in Chicago. /s
No. First of all, where is that written? Second, not every child is educable or can function inside a school. But most importantly education costs money. Money has to come from people that work. Work is an expenditure of a persons time and energy. Its literally a person's life. Nobody has any rightful claim on anyone else's life or what they produce. Forcing someone to work for the benefit of others with compensation is slavery. Its the worst form of tyranny.
Saying it's "for the children" is a lame excuse and it doesn't even apply in this case since the last thing that goes on inside a Chicago Public School is anything that resembles the molding of future productive, contributing members of society.
Chicago the new Detroit
Sadly, I'm afraid that solution presumes the existence of parents who care and have enough resources, be it time, energy, money, ability, or dedication, to actually do something.
That's not the case for most of these kids.
Why keep these chicago schools open, they quite obviously are not teaching the yut, little more than a very high priced babysitting service
The only thing most of these parents can teach their kids is how to get food stamps.
So who won the teacher’s strike?
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