A group of students, parents and teachers from Lane Technical High School are planning a protest this afternoon at the corners of Western and Addison streets. They will be protesting the action of CPS bureaucrats who have attempted to pull the acclaimed graphic novel, Persepolis, off of school book shelves.
The action is scheduled for 3:30.
Teacher networks across the city have been buzzing about the action by CPS.
Frankly, nobody can figure this one out. Teachers have said that the book is on the CPS Core Curriculum reading list for multiple grades.
“Oh, stick around. CPS bureaucrats do this all the time. They never learn to research first – just one knee-jerk reaction after another,” one CPS teacher wrote me.
According to organizers all are invited to the protest who support the First Amendment, education and intellectual freedom.
Fred Klonsky 
Ok…. just for the record, I’ve spent the better part of the year studying the Common Core Standards, and I’ve looked at all of the “Exemplars” that are appended to them. Persepolis isn’t in the Exemplars, nor would I expect it to be. I could be wrong— maybe I’ve just missed it. But I’ve been looking at them for a long time. The Exemplars are all pretty much more from what you would call “the canon.”
However, it may very well be in a “curriculum” given to the teachers with the label “Common Core” on it. Given that CPS was all hot and bothered about rushing into the Common Core before anyone else, it isn’t surprising to me that this text has a Common Core label. You can pretty much label anything as meeting one standard or another. In the end, it means nothing.
I have very little doubt that this book is listed in the curriculum the teachers’ are supposed to work on, and that this curriculum is promoted as being totally Common Core. I also have no doubt that the people who believe in the Common Core (not me) and value it would look at the process by which this curriculum was re-labeled and repackaged and regard it as having very little integrity.
Having said all that, Persepolis is an extraordinary book; it belongs in schools.
Below are listings of Persepolis in the CPS.edu website
1-4 of 4 persepolis.
Toolset_Seventh_Grade_v1.0.pdf
Literacy Content Framework SEVENTH GRADE TOOLSET VERSION 1.0 – SY12-13 CITY OF CHICAGO Rahm Emanuel Mayor CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION David J. Vitale President Jesse H. Ruiz Vice President Members: Henry …
Click to access Toolset_Seventh_Grade_v1.0.pdf
Toolset_Eleventh_Grade_v1.0.pdf
Literacy Content Framework ELEVENTH GRADE TOOLSET VERSION 1.0 – SY12-13 CITY OF CHICAGO Rahm Emanuel Mayor CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION David J. Vitale President Jesse H. Ruiz Vice President Members: Henry …
Click to access Toolset_Eighth_Grade_v1.0.pdf
LiteracyContentFramework.pdf
Literacy Content Framework VERSION 1.0 – SY12-13 CITY OF CHICAGO Rahm Emanuel Mayor CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION David J. Vitale President Jesse H. Ruiz Vice President Members: Henry S. Bienen Dr. …
Click to access LiteracyContentFramework.pdf
Chicago STTP Curriculum
Speak truth to power Human rigHts defenders wHo are cHanging our world Based on the book by Kerry Kennedy Photography by eddie adams and arcHitects of Peace containing the play Speak Truth To …
Click to access ChicagoSTTPCurriculum.pdf
In the CPS Seventh Grade Literacy Content Framework for this year Persepolis is recommended on page nine as a Text/Resource. It’s page 49 in the Speak Truth to Power curriculum (created for the Rahm’s Nobel World Summit prior to NATO gathering).