Editorials & Other Articles

PedroXimenez

(642 posts)

5. and regarding the schools closing

Reply to lees1975 (Original post)

Wed Dec 18, 2024, 06:24 PM

Dec 18

It wasn't popular, but with declining enrollments, and in some cases, crumbling buildings requiring huge expenditures of capital to repair, the decision was made to start closing schools and merging student populations. In spite of the criticism, especially from the teacher's union, the closed schools resolved the city's budget problems at the time, and did not result in the academic crash that was predicted.

Note that Emanuel was Chicago's last mayor to be re-elected. After he closed some declining, crumbling schools.

First it's true Rahm won in 2015 after he closed those schools but it failed to mention that in 2019 he declined to run again and polls indicated he would likely have lost.

Second, should we accept this blithe account of the impact of the school closures? Just by chance, earlier this week i happened to hear someone on some program, maybe the Benjamin Dixon channel on YouTube, express a lot of anger about those closures. ( He closed 50 schools by the way.)

If anyone knows more about the impact i'd love to hear it. And in general for the Democrats I'd like to see them concerned about the impacts of decisions like these, rather than saying "oh it probably worked out ok". Which I think they often do, with an implied "who are they going to vote for anyway".