Here's a contribution to a listserv that I am on. It's a letter from the editor of Substance News, George Schmidt, who has been on the frontline of the battle against the privatization of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) begun under Arne Duncan when he was the CEO of CPS.

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At the present time, I am outraged that national attention and support are going to Central Falls while the nation continues to ignore the fact that this monstrous program began in Chicago eight years ago and has destroyed more than 40 African American schools in Chicago and the careers of more than 2,000 teachers and principals (the majority of them African American).

The American Federation of Teachers supported the Chicago Plan, directly and indirectly, until now -- when it is being exported to the rest of the USA.

The American Federation of Teachers supported Arne Duncan as U.S. Secretary of Education (until now?) in order to get a "seat at the table."

We have documented and continue to document this racist attack on public schools. In a nation where extreme poverty is color coded and where poverty (not "high expectations") will ultimately determine the fate of public schools that are measured on the basis of so-called "standardized" tests, these things are now inevitable. But the AFT and other national organizations should have been challenging the odious underlying assumptions of these programs (especially to commodification of teachers' labor and children's learning through so-called "standardized" testings) for decades now.

Instead, the attention of the world is focused on Central Falls, Rhode Island, while the place that spawned Barack Obama, Arne Duncan, Race To The Top and the present and last generation of the "Chicago Boys" and fundamentalist capitalist "economic theory" (it's not; read Adam Smith rather than Ayn Rand) both after 1973 in Chile and today in the USA...

It's ugly wherever it does its nasty work, and those leading it have to be called out for who and what they are.

If you want to know more about how Chicago spawned this monstrous "reform", you can browse our Web site at www.substancenews.net.

The latest Hit list, approved by the Chicago Board of Education Wednesday, February 24, 2010, includes five schools where all the staff are to be fired under "turnaround."

John Marshall High School (100 percent African American students; 80 percent African American staff).

Wendell Phillips High School (ditto)

Myra Bradwell Elementary School (ditto)

Curtis Elementary School (ditto)

Deneen Elementary School (ditto)

The only media in Chicago that has told all of their stories as those people told those stories is SubstanceNews at www.substancenews.net.

Just to make the hypocrisy of "turnaround" the the delusional nature of American politics a little more clear, note this: Curtis is out there where "Dreams from my Father" was being scripted. It was in that part of Chicago that Barack Obama allegedly did his famous "community organizing." Take an hour to walk through the streets surrounding Curtis Elementary School, ask anyone on those streets how much those "community organizings" did to help them before the current economic tsunami, and...

Think about all the years people wasted trying to compromise with these monsters and their monstrous programs. From September 11, 1973 in the Southern Hemisphere to today in Rhode Island, and Chicago...

"First they came for the failing teachers of Chicago,
but I knew it was because they didn't have high expectations, so..."

Etc.

And then they came for me, and I cried "But I had high expectations!..."

Happy Black History Month,

George N. Schmidt
Editor, Substance

www.substancenews.net