divided no more...

A recent example from home that speaks to the kind of movement that starts from the ground up is how parents & extended local community demonstrate how CPS (chgo. public school, =the institution) should be working in relationship with, instead of imposing top-down visions for neighborhood schools. This community of congruence, The Whittier Parents’ Committee began a sit-in (lasted 43 days until CEO of CPS finally sat down to dialogue last week) to fight against the demolition of the Whittier Dual Language School’s field house (la Casita), in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. Refusing to allow its' demolition so that a soccer field be built for a nearby private school, brings to light contentious issues around the management and accountability over funds (Tax Increment Funding) and the top-down reshaping of public education.
Parents demanding to be part of the decision-making process have been asking for the remodeling of the building, including a school library. The presence of organizations supporting the demands of the parents definitely aided the cause, along with accessing media attention helped pressure the bureaucracy to face the parents.

This kind of community organizing for change, is not just asking folks to get on the bus, but be involved in the planning of the action/change in attitudes/behavior over how to assert rights and connect to a larger analysis for what is happening, in this case with the broken system of public education in the country. CPS has been conducting an extreme makeover that includes privatization, demolitions, school closures and turnarounds, massive firings of seasoned teachers that have been part of the large-scale redesign of public education. Public funds are being used to renovate schools that are privatized, while low income neighborhood schools are being starved of the most basic resources.
The fight over the survival of this little field house is an important one in the larger struggles around educational rights, community self-determination and control over institutions. Particularly, the skewed interpretation/narrative of charter schools being the "solution", a campaign on school-reform funded by corporate america. What is the real desire behind the privatization of public education?

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/21/chicago_parents_occupy_elementary_school_building

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=player_embedded#!

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/1/waiting_for_superman_critics_say_much