School closings — district, charter or otherwise — are bad for children
Proposed closing of two allegedly “poor” performing charter schools is an admission of failure by the district after decades of charter proliferation.
The Chicago Teachers Union released the following statement regarding Chicago Public Schools’ plan to close two allegedly “poor” performing charter schools, Chicago Virtual Charter School and Frazier Preparatory Academy Charter School:
It is not surprising that the hyper-proliferation of privatized education options results in school closings. When privatization efforts began in earnest in Chicago two decades ago, charter school champions said charter schools would provide increased support and success for students from the city’s most impoverished and neglected communities. These schools, however, often over-punished students and under-delivered the innovative instruction and student outcomes that were promised.
The Chicago Teachers Union believes that school closings are racist and irresponsible, especially when schools targeted for closure were once promoted as the future of Chicago Public Schools. This is what happens when “choice” is forced upon our communities as an alternative to traditional, neighborhood public schools. CPS starves these schools in the same manner as neighborhood schools, and leverages its racist SQRP school sorting, labeling and punishing model to do so.
The proposed closure of Chicago Virtual and Frazier Preparatory Academy charter schools is an admission of failure by the district, and a continued attack on the lives of the city’s Black and Brown children. Our students need fully resourced and staffed schools that provide stability and are great places to work and learn. Closing a school is yet another blow for the children living in these low-income neighborhoods.
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