Chicago pushes poor out through destruction of public education

 
Editor’s note: The following is a speech given by Dr. Elisabeth Heard-Greer, a member of the Cook County College Teachers Union in her job as a college professor. She is the Local School President of National Academy where her children attend school.
CHICAGO, IL — Mayor Rahm Emanuel is destroying the city of Chicago. He is making it impossible for black, brown, low-income, and working-class people to live in this city, and he’s pushing us out through the destruction of public education.
Right now, there are two communities under attack.
Rahm wants to close all of the public high schools in Englewood, pushing those families out and paving the way for gentrification.
Rahm also wants to close National Teachers Academy—a Level 1+, majority African American, majority low-income school, so that he can turn our building into a high school. This plan was a personal request by Alderman Pat Dowell and the South Loop’s rich, white voters because they don’t want to send their kids to Phillips, their zoned neighborhood high school. These rich, white voters claim that Phillips is not “a viable option” because it is too black and too poor. Meanwhile, CPS plans to shuffle the displaced Englewood students to Philips. Why is Phillips “a quality choice” for Englewood, but not “a viable option” for wealthy South Loop residents?
Today, instead of focusing on these inequities and the pain that comes along with them, I choose to focus on the positives.
Rahm’s latest assault against public education has ignited the entire country. So many people—black, brown, white, rich and poor, connected and unconnected—have reached out and asked, “How can we help?” They have said, “This must be stopped.”
They have written letters to the Board of Education. They have signed petitions. They have reached out to National Media. They have made videos. They have created websites like RahmHatesUs.com and JaniceJacksonCPS.com. They have heckled Rahm around the country. They have whispered to Jeff Bezos and Amazon that Chicago doesn’t deserve HQ2 because of Rahm. And they are ready to do the same to Apple. Most of all, they will vote and ensure that Rahm’s tyranny comes to an end.
So today, I want to say thank you to our allies. To those who stand next to us in this fight. To those who do so publicly and in private. In the long list of atrocities Rahm has inflicted upon this great city—from the mass school closings in 2013 to Laquan McDonald—one year from now, when he is vacating City Hall, he can look back and say, “The day I decided to try to close the Englewood high schools and NTA was the day that my tenure as mayor was over.”