Action Now and KOCO will hold protest rally at Chicago Urban League Headquarters, say CUL President Andrea Zopp supports CPS school closings

The organizations  claim Zopp betrays civil rights mission of Chicago Urban League by closing schools

 

Members of the community organizations Action Now and KOCO will protest outside of the Chicago Urban League (CUL) today because Andrea Zopp, CUL’s President, supports CPS school closings “that will destroy the very communities that the Chicago Urban League was created to help and protect.”

The protest will be held today, April 11^th, 2013 at 4 p.m. outside of the Chicago Urban League, 4510 S. Michigan Ave.

The organizations claim that the Chicago Board of Education is responsible for decades of failed education policies focused around corporate education reform. “This year the Chicago Board of Education is planning to close the largest number of schools at any one time in America’s history, the majority of which are in African-American communities. School closings and charter expansion have been the status quo in Chicago’s low-income African-American neighborhoods for years, but families have yet to see positive outcomes,” they stated in a press release.

“The Chicago Urban League, a historic civil rights organization, says its  mission is to “work for economic, educational and social progress for African Americans and promote strong, sustainable communities through advocacy, collaboration and innovation.” If this is their mission, then their President Andrea Zopp is betraying it on all counts. The failed policy of closing schools has been shown to destabilize communities, increase violence, create job loss and leave behind vacant buildings.

“A 2009 study by the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) found that 82% of students from 18 elementary schools closed in Chicago moved from one underperforming school to another underperforming school, including schools already on probation. In a follow up 2012 report, the CCSR determined that 94% of students from closed Chicago schools did not go to “academically strong” new schools.

“School closings are also not an effective way to address budget concerns. A 2011 Pew Charitable Trust report, “Lessons from six urban districts” showed that school closures did not save the school districts as much money as was hoped. A recent audit of the 2008 Washington D.C. school closures conducted by the Office of the D.C. Auditor determined that instead of saving the district $30 million, as claimed by former schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, the closures actually cost the city $40 million.

“Action Now and KOCO see that the real motivation behind closing neighborhood schools is not to help students or save money, but to privatize education by opening new charters. This is despite the fact that charter schools do not perform better than public schools. According to CPS’s own data, an average charter school performs 10 percentile points below traditional neighborhood schools on reading test scores when the racial composition and number of students qualifying for Free or Reduced Lunches are similar.

“The Chicago Urban League should stand with African-American communities in Chicago and oppose school closings instead of having a President that is furthering the destruction of neighborhoods by supporting failed CPS policies” they concluded.