What Does Status Quo Mean?

At the Board Meeting Today, Barbara Byrd Bennett said, “”I’ve never felt more certain about the need to take action,” she added. “When the status quo is not working, change is inevitable.”

I have to admit, I agree with that.  Wasn’t it Einstein who said insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?  Status quo is a Latin term meaning the existing state of affairs.

 

In 1995, control of our school system was given to the Mayor of Chicago.  That same year we got an appointed school board.

 

In 2004, Renaissance 2010 was announced and the city began to close school after school. At this point in time, we have seen CPS close dozens of schools already.  How long does a policy have to fail before it counts as the status quo? Students who were born when Mayor Daley took control of the students in 1995 are now high school seniors.   How long until we get to try new things like an elected school board and giving all neighborhood schools the resources they need?

 

Amisha Patel: Banks Soak CPS as Schools Close

 

“But rather than demanding that these banks renegotiate the swap deals, as other cities successfully have done, Emanuel is choosing to close 54 schools. CPS claims the closures will save an average of $60 million a year for 10 years — numbers that many studies have shown are based on unrealistic assumptions, such as the district being able to sell 50 percent of shuttered schools. At the same time, CPS fails to account for the cost to the children who must cross new gang lines to get to school, the disruption of their stability and the creation of even more vacant buildings.”

 

Just Who Are the Chicago Public Fools

 

“I am a Republican. I am an old-fashioned fiscal conservative who believes in small government, local control, and the power of families and communities to call their own shots. I am a Sunday-school teaching member of the world’s oldest Christian church, Orthodoxy, which has remained essentially unchanged since the 8th century.

So how in the world is it that I now find myself in complete agreement with and support of—no, let’s just call it what it is—solidarity with—a union?”

Editorial: What a Half-Empty School Really Looks Like

“Garvey has air-conditioned classrooms, a well-stocked library, a garden, an art room, a computer lab, several small science labs and the kind of discipline and order in the classroom and hallway that tell a visitor this school has its act together.”

Losing Track

“In 2012, CPS closed only four small elementary schools that altogether enrolled about 500 students. In June, 467 kindergarten through 7th-grade students were at the closed schools. Of those, it’s unclear what happened with 51 children.”

Neighborhood Walk-Through Reveals Dangers for CPS Students

“”It’s the gang rivalry that they have to walk across what parent would want their student….their child to have to come across kids that’s gambling in the middle of the street drinking or selling drugs? We don’t want that,” Henson teacher Latonya Owens says.”

’63 Boycott

“Kartemquin Films’ ’63 Boycott chronicles the Chicago Public School Boycott of 1963 when more than 200,000 Chicagoans, mostly students, marched to protest the segregationist policies of CPS Superintendent Benjamin Willis, who placed mobile school units on playgrounds and parking lots as a “permanent solution” to overcrowding in black schools.”