At the Saturday morning meeting of Operation Push, the Reverend Jesse Jackson said that in response to the decision of the Chicago school board this week to close or turn around more than a dozen schools, “It is time to march again.”
The participants in a panel discussion, which included Jackson, his son Jonathan Jackson, who is Rainbow/PUSH spokesman, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, PUSH Education Director Janette Wilson, and Jitu Brown of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, argued that the failing schools had been set up for failure by the city and the school board and that CPS needs an elected, not appointed, school board, which would be more accountable to parents, teachers and the community.
Jackson, who after the decision by the CPS board said PUSH is contemplating filing federal complaints over resource disparities in the schools, as well as examining legal and legislative ways to bring Chicago an elected school board, told the crowd, some of whom were wearing CTU T-shirts, that “it’s time to march again!” He also said it was time for “litigation (and) demonstration.”
Lewis said the “vast inequities” in resources given to schools in the city amount to “sabotage” of the poor-performing schools.
She also said “there is a bias (in City Hall and the CPS board) against black and veteran teachers,” in part, at least, because of their higher salaries.
Those on the panel claimed that closures and turnarounds of poorly performing schools have not been proven to work better than the alternative of keeping the schools open and directing more resources to them. Brown, who is also a local school board member at Dyett High School, now due for phase-out, said the CPS board isn’t interested in research that shows “closing schools produces negative results.”
“They are intentionally destabilizing schools in our communities. Dyett has been the poster child for academic sabotage,” Brown said.
“They need to stop labeling our children as failures,” he said, noting that the children he knows who atttend Dyett are intelligent and “have a light in their eyes” when it comes to their education.
“Chicago Public Schools are actively working to diminish that light and we will not stand for it,” Brown said.
Fred Klonsky 
Not to mention the fact that the charter schools are not all they’re cracked up to be (have you spoken to any charter school teachers lately? I recommend it–many want to talk, & the best way for them to do it is through a liaison.). Also, I consistently wonder–WHERE do we come up with the term “non-profit” or “not-for-profit” when so many of those agencies employ CEOs who make big bucks (anything over $100K I consider to be big bucks), yet the employees make so little & do WAY too much work (often, several jobs at once). Having worked for several of these agencies, & knowing I am NOT making this up.