CPS schools’ chief calls neighborhood school students “unfortunate.”

What’s up when a top CPS bureaucrat says that students who go to CPS neighborhood schools are unfortunate?

New Schools for Chicago Chief Executive Officer Phyllis Lockett told the Chicago Sun-Times, a student who cannot get into magnet or charter school is “unfortunate” and “relegated to a neighborhood school.” Lockett was speaking at the New Schools Expo that CPS puts on to promote its charter schools.

Sarah Hainds of the Chicago Teachers Union responded in a letter to the paper.

She knows more than anyone how many resources have been drained from the schools on the West Side and South Side of Chicago because of the proliferation and promotion of charter and contract schools.

The amount of time and energy spent on promoting the one-day school expo alone is just a glimpse into the tremendous disparity in funding and resources that these “new” schools get compared to neighborhood schools. Imagine where our schools could be today if only the New Schools Fund had spent its resources on our neighborhood schools.

And, why do we even need an expo if each of these new schools supposedly has a long waiting list?

We’re waiting for an answer to that good question.