Joy Resmovits. Huffington Post.
WASHINGTON -- The
standards-based education reform movement calls school change "the civil
rights issue of our time." But about 220 mostly African American community
organizers, parents and students from 21 cities from New York to Oakland,
Calif., converged on Washington Tuesday to tell U.S. Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan he's getting it backwards on school closures.
Members of the group, a
patchwork of community organizations called the Journey for Justice Movement,
have filed several Title VI civil rights complaints with the Education
Department Office of Civil Rights, claiming that school districts that shut
schools are hurting minority students. While most school closures are decided
locally, the Education Department's School Improvement Grant gives
underperforming school districts money for shakeups or turnarounds, including
closures.
The meeting became heated
at times. "The voices of the people directly impacted can no longer be
ignored," said Jitu Brown, an organizer from the South Side of Chicago.
"This type of mediocrity is only accepted because of the race of the
students who are being served." He called school closures "a
violation of our human rights," since many communities are left without
neighborhood schools after districts shut them down.
"We are not Astroturf
groups," Brown continued. "We are not people who are paid by private
interests to appear."
Helen Moore, an organizer
from Detroit, said the current reform movement is tantamount to racism.
"We are now reverting back to slavery," she said. "All the
things that are happening are by design, by design, by design. They don't want
our children to have an education, but we'll fight to the death."
Members of the Obama
administration, including Duncan and Obama education advisor Roberto Rodriguez,
were in attendance. The Obama administration has been repeatedly admonished for
ignoring racial issues. Duncan opened the meeting by saying his job was to
listen. "As populations go down, a lot of changes have to be made,"
Duncan said. He called for a recognition of common goals and intentions. But
due to his schedule, he left the meeting after 45 minutes, leading to a quick
"Where is Duncan? Where is Duncan?" chant.
Over the last few years,
cities have used closing schools as a strategy to raise student performance or
to save money. Philadelphia, New York and Chicago are among cities considering
even larger waves of closures. Philadelphia, for example, is slated to close 37
schools by June. But organizer Brown argued that shutting schools hurts communities
and poses major safety threats to kids who have to travel further to go to
school.
The Office of Civil Rights, responsible for
enforcing federal civil rights laws, is investigating school
closings in cities that include Detroit and Philadelphia. From Oct.
21, 2010, to Jan. 1, 2013, the Office of Civil Rights has
investigated 27 school closings, finding insufficient evidence of
civil rights violations in every case. Currently, the office has 33
open cases involving 29 school districts in 22 states, officials
said. Tuesday's meeting had no bearing on the investigation
procedure.
The protest goal is a moratorium on school
closures, phaseouts and turnarounds. Brown has met with Duncan and
other Education officials before, and said he wants to take his
case to Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama.
Duncan's spokesman, Daren Briscoe, said the Education Department
doesn't have the power to impose a moratorium. The department
controls less than 10 percent of the nation's public school
dollars, and most school closures are locally decided, he said.
Schools are closed for reasons ranging from
cost to underuse. Brown argued that if Duncan suspended the School
Improvement Grant program, he could stop some closures and
turnarounds, while "changing the tone" surrounding
closings. (School closures, though, are seldom done through School
Improvement Grants.)
A Pew Foundation report on school closures
found that "academic studies suggest that student achievement
often falls during the final months of a closing school’s
existence." And a recent audit of Washington's closures
found that a recent wave cost $8 million more than originally
projected.
But still, school districts are pressing
forward with closure plans. Chicago is expected to decide on the
number of schools it will close soon. Aquila Griffin, 17, spoke at
the Tuesday event, saying she recently left a Chicago high school
that was being "phased out." As the school lost students
in its last days, it shed teachers, computers and classes that made
it stand out, Griffin said.
"Now students are walking into the back
of the school building like sharecroppers from the 1930s," Griffin
said. She invoked the Martin Luther King Jr. maxim on judging
people not on the color of their skin, but on the merits of their
character. "My judgment of the [Department of Education] is,
how do you plan to correct the wrong you let happen in the first
place?" She received a standing ovation.
