Chicago tanks its school system

One thing that politicians seem to love to do when budget cuts are needed is to attack the very foundation of progress, technology and knowledge.  By this I mean that they always seem to target the educational system.  The latest attack against the future of humanity is in Chicago, where more than 60 schools are looking to get the axe - a number that roughly amounts to 13 percent of all the schools in the district.

It’s already been signed into being and if it goes through unimpeded it will end up being one of the largest school shutdowns in the history of the United States.  More than 30,000 students will be forced to relocate to other facilities.

The end result will be, naturally, a strain on the schools that managed to dodge this bullet.  This means a drop in the quality of education and an increase in the workload for the already underpaid teachers.  At least those teachers will get to keep their jobs - many of them won’t be so lucky with their places of work being closed.

The irony of the situation, and perhaps what makes it even sadder, is that the mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, ran on a platform of educational reform.  Somehow, I don’t think that shutting down dozens of schools was the “reform” that people were thinking of when they voted for him.  I’m also guessing that the chances of him repeating his tenure in the mayor’s seat are pretty much slim and none.

The government has defended their actions by stating that there were many schools with low enrollments and that merging them was the best option.  What constitutes low enrollment is up for debate, considering that students do better with their education when there are less bodies per classroom.  Now that grade school classes will begin to look more like crowded university classes, it remains to be seen how bad student performance will tank.

One story that I came across points out an important yet oft forgotten problem with closing schools - the effect it has on special needs students.  Special needs kids require the right environment and the right teachers to thrive in their education.  Less schools means less options for the parents of these kids.  When these 60 schools close, they won’t be able to simply send their child to the next closest one.  Many of them may end up having to bus their children across the city to get the services they need.

Currently, teachers and other supporters of Chicago’s educational system plan on setting up protests and doing anything and everything that they can to stop the closures.  It is unlikely that they’ll be able to counteract all the damage that’s being done, but at least they may be able to save some of this rapidly crumbling house of cards.

ChicagoSchoolBuilding photo courtesy of Histentchi via Wikicommons