THE CHANCE TO GET A PUBLIC EDUCATION IN CHICAGO
By Robert Klein Engler (09/19/06)
CHICAGO--(20 September '06) In the early days of Chicago, many of the roads were so bad that when it rained, wagons got stuck in mud up to their axles. One wit called such a road "The Slough of Despond," echoing a reference to John Bunyan's, The Pilgrim's Progress. Today, the city's roads have improved. The Slough of Despond is not found on Chicago's streets any longer, but has moved as some suggest to the city's public schools instead.
Fifty years is a long time. Over the course of fifty years bad habits and self-serving ways of thinking may creep into personalities and institutions. In that time, also, two generations could be raised up. You would expect that over the span of fifty years problems that plagued grandfathers would be corrected in their grand children.
Sometimes, after fifty years, actions also produce their opposite. The political party that once preached civil rights and integration ends up enforcing urban segregation for the sake of votes. Public education then becomes an arm of politics that entraps instead of liberates. How could this happen?
There is a three part answer to this question about the decline of public education in Chicago. An outline of that answer includes a revolving relationship between Chicago politicians, the rise of an educational bureaucracy and teacher's unions. Working together, these three actors have managed to use tax dollars to turn what was once a viable system of public education, into a bog where many students are trapped and unable to learn.
Reverend James Meeks, a Democratic member of the Illinois General Assembly representing the 15th district, wants more money for public education in Chicago. He is a graduate of Harper High School. Fifty years ago, Harper was one of the best high schools in the city. It was one of the worst high schools when Rev. Meeks graduated from Harper. Unless he can offer an explanation for how Harper went from one of the best high schools to one of the worst, does it make any sense to throw more money for education his way?
On July 26th, Rev. Meeks lead a march of about 2,000 protesters into downtown Chicago where they demanded more money for public education. With an Illinois graduation rate of 57 percent for Latino and African-American youths, it seems that these youths don't want to stay in high school long enough to take advantage of that money even if it were budgeted. In Illinois, one out of every two Latinos and one out of every five African Americans between the age of 16 to 24 is a high school dropout.
Earlier in the year, Meeks threatened to run for governor of Illinois if he did not get more money for public education in Chicago. His run would have split the Democratic vote for governor and almost guarantee the election of the Republican, Judy Baar Topinka. In a deal with the governor who is seeking reelection, and to keep Rev. Meeks out of the race, he was promised his money for education.
All of this maneuvering takes place against a backdrop of emerging Latino political power in Chicago. That rise in the influence of Latinos perhaps has Rev. Meeks worried. Could it be that soon the plantation will be turned into a hacienda? Could it be that Rev. Meeks will find no water the next time he goes to the well?
That well may be dry sooner than Rev. Meeks thinks. The tax dollars he wants for African-Americans may be going to Mexicans and others who are in this country illegally, instead. According to Charles Guengerich, a City Colleges administrator and president of Wright College in Chicago, "For the U. S. to deny education to undocumented individuals seems short sighted and discriminatory." A vice chancellor at the central office says that "The City Colleges has opened at least one scholarship fund per college to undocumented student applicants," and they want to do more.
If someone were to steal Rev. Meeks car, would he then be in favor of contributing to a program that gives the thief free gas to drive the car? Should people who break into our country be given advantages that some U. S. citizens had to struggle over a century to get?
The Center for Urban Economic Development claims there are an estimated 20,104 undocumented students in Chicago. With all of those thieves asking for tax dollars, what is left for Rev. Meeks? It seems they do not teach a history of the civil rights movement at Harper High School anymore, either.
No one attempted to educate Rev. Meeks before he marched that more money will not improve public education in Chicago. No matter where the money goes, there are data to show that more money spent on education does not translate into higher test scores or better schools. A recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development study found that "Spending alone is not sufficient to achieve high levels of (educational) outcomes."
John Stossel, discussing teachers' union myths claims that "The United States spends $83,910 per student from ages 6 to 15. The Slovak Republic, which outperforms the United States...spends $17,612 per student." Like foreign aid that helps the rich and not the poor, what usually happens is that money is spent on administrative salaries and teacher raises, while very little goes to actually educating students.
With a total enrollment of more than 427,000 students, the Chicago Public Schools already spends about $8,800 a year per student and pays an average teacher's salary of about $63,000 per year. An average administrator's salary in the CPS is near $104,600. With that kind of money you can trade in one administrator for two quality teachers. What happens more often than not is that two teachers are laid off to buy another administrator.
Rev. Meeks should know that the money he wants to improve education will be used to not only increase a bloated administration, but to further segregation in the city as well. Integrated schools and assimilated minorities and not money are the answer he seeks to his question about how to improve public schools in Chicago. This is an answer he may not accept.
Racial and ethnic integration in Chicago would most likely cost Rev. Meeks his job in the state legislature. The reason for Harper High School's failure, and the continued failure of public education in Chicago, are the very policies of segregation that Rev. Meeks endorses. Ironically he is the cause of the educational problems he wants to solve. The same irony holds true for Chicago's mayor.
Recently, Mayor Daley lamented how much the cost of higher education is rising, often excluding families from the middle class. The mayor now proposes a fifth year of high school to help defray the cost of a college education. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the mayor warned, "If we're a land of opportunity and we want to be a knowledge-based society and we want to compete against India and China, we had better educate our children."
The mayor did not mention in his press conference, nor did any reporter remind him, that there was at one time in Chicago an excellent system of public, community colleges that offered the first two years of a college education to all students at a reasonable cost. Such a system was in place until the city colleges were turned into remedial institutions where most of the classes are taught by low paid, part-time adjuncts. The mayor complains about the high cost of education, but it is his policies that make low cost alternatives impossible.
Just because the public schools under the direction of Chicago's mayor do not educate, does not mean they do nothing right. As a matter of fact, there is one thing they do very well. That one thing is keeping the Clan of Bridgeport and its allies in power.
If we see the public schools as a large net that holds patronage jobs, union leaders, teachers and administrators loyal to Chicago politicians, then we have to admit that this net holds together. Education in Chicago does not educate, but it does work well as a source of votes.
Nevertheless, fifty years of public education in Chicago under the direction of the urban Democrats has done little to assimilate minorities nor has it advanced integration in the city. Even with the anniversary of the celebrated U. S. Supreme Court decision, Brown v. The Board of Education, Chicago's schools are as segregated as ever. The schools have gone from being separate but equal to being separate and unequal.
Nor is it in the interest of teacher's unions to educate students. Consider the NEA (National Education Association) that represents teachers and adjunct faculty at some schools and colleges in the Chicago area. When the average adjunct professor makes less than $2,500 teaching one course, and the president of the NEA, Reg Weaver, with an office in Washington, D. C. makes more than $365,000 a year in salary and combined benefits, it is obvious that teacher's unions are not set up to further education, but simply to further the life-style of the bureaucrats who run the unions.
In an era of copy machines, computers and the Internet, is there any reason why a union executive has to make such a salary? These union leaders should make no more than the average teacher makes if they are to truly understand how teachers live, and then represent those teachers. The NEA could be run out of a Washington, D. C. office with a few computers, a couple of secretaries and a bank of phones. There is no good reason why a union president has to rent a yacht to entertain politicians.
To add insult to injury, many teachers have to work in an "agency shop" and support a union that cares little about education. Some of these teachers cannot even vote on who will lead their union. One union member complained that, "The NEA promotes itself as a democratic organization, yet the dues-paying rank-and-file have never been permitted to choose the association's president or any other national or state officer."
Similar accusations hold true for other teacher's unions in Chicago. The Cook County College Teachers Union and the Chicago Teachers Union are not paragons of virtue. The primary focus of these unions is not students or quality education, but instead it is a focus on retirement packages, salary increases and health care plans, along with increasing union membership and dues.
When have you ever read an article about teachers going on strike to lower class size, increase the ranks of new, full-time faculty, lower the salary and number of administrators, force their own union administrators to teach classes, encourage integrated communities or to have an American flag in each classroom? All of these would improve education, but are ignored by most teacher's unions. Public education is a failed system in Chicago because teacher's unions help to perpetuate that failure.
Educational bureaucrats are not interested in teaching students, either. They make plans, not scholars, plans that exist on paper until the next migrating administrator comes to take their place. Have you ever heard of a school administrator who had a failed plan? They are not held responsible for their failures, and many of them manufacture the problems they then must solve. Many teachers can tell you about the meeting they attended, called by the school's administration, where the only item on the agenda was when to meet again.
Even when the worst administrators are forced out, they are given a sendoff where they are praised. Then they are offered a golden parachute, given an award, and entertained at a banquet with an ice sculpture in the center of the table.
More than fifty years ago the French sociologist Emil Durkheim argued that public education is to produce good citizens, the type of person desired by the state. In other words, the main function of public education for Durkheim is the transmission of a society's norms and values. This is the opposite of "diversity" as it is preached by many educators, today. Considered a liberal in his time, Durkheim's ideas seem conservative to many so-called educators. Many teachers feel uncomfortable, even embarrassed, to teach U. S. history and patriotism.
The hope among school administrators and politicians in Chicago is that everyone will remain silent about segregation in the city and its schools. Then, no one will notice that public education in Chicago has become, in the words of the sociologist Anthony Giddens, a "shell institution." Although the schools may look the same from the outside, from the inside they have gone from being institutions that educate to ones that administrate and guarantee that political power will remain in the hands of a few.
When tourists come to Chicago they visit the Loop and the lakefront. They seldom visit 63rd and Halsted or Harper High School. Just like the people who live in these neighborhoods today, these tourists are ignorant of the social and political forces that destroyed a neighborhood and a school.
Those who look back fifty years know better. They know that all the money spent over the years on public education has only bought us ignorance. To improve the public schools, we need social and ethnic integration and assimilation. If we do not have that, then more money will just be sucked up by the bureaucracy and the teacher's unions, but it will not change the underlying ethos or structure of the school system.
Before education in Chicago can change for the better, politics in the city must change, too. Political change, however, means the end of a system that maintains the public schools for the express purpose of keeping political power through segregation. It means an end to a politics that creates victims for the sake of getting votes. Such political change seems unlikely, so taxpayers in Chicago can expect more of the same--high property taxes and poor public schools. The swamp will not be drained any time soon.
Every year Chicago celebrates the return of students to school in August. This year is no different. Department stores advertise sales on school supplies. TV cameras record personalities riding floats and waving in the Bud Billiken Parade. Arne Duncan, the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools encourages students with the inspiring words, "And of course, the most important benefit of coming to school is the chance to get an education."
Who could resist Mr. Duncan's enticement? Perhaps only those who look at this media celebration more closely. What they see when they look, is the same fifty year old rhetoric and the same fifty year old politics. What they see is that many students in Chicago do not return to school, but instead return to the Slough of Despond.
ON THE NET:
http://educationwonk.blogspot.com/
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=14342
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/ps/97459ch2.asp
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=9465
http://www.mrcranky.com/movies/slackers/21/1.html
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2006/03/22/more_teachers_union_myths
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=4410809
http://www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=1&RecNum=3250
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