By: Appalled

Yeah Right!

I've been in this ward for a long, long time and I totally disagree with your findings. The only thing Principal Roche has done is spend money on a useless mosaic. My child needs books.

By: suzanne liggins

re:appalled

The mosaic was funded by the community. And I'm sure if you ask anyone where Prescott is and you mention the mosaic, they know immediately which street corner you're talking about.

Alliant Credit Union sponsored a service day during the summer in which books were hand delivered to children's homes.

What books do you need? Have you mentioned that you are lacking educational materials to the administration?

Finally, the arts is one of the most important and yet overlooked areas in education.

By: George N. Schmidt

Prescott's Present Pickel. Over and out.

Just about everything that's interesting about running a news site that respects commentary (within reasonable limits) according to the conventions of blogs (in other words, some people can be anonymous here in "comments" -- but not in our news or analysis reports) has been around in the Prescott discussions that began almost a year ago.

The fact is, from the point of view of veteran teachers and most activists in the Chicago Teachers Union, until recently the Prescott project was to purge the school of veteran teachers and encourage age discrimination against veteran teachers. Added to that was the removal of the special education lift and other things that the leadership of Prescott did -- not said, did -- that led to all the debate, and, in many cases, rancor. Instead of trying to create a decent public school for their community, a group at Prescott catered to the illusion (delusion) that their school should be a so-called "elite" school. A lot of the problems we're confronting now grew out of that initial delusion.

Parents who engage in systematic teacher bashing -- and in what amounts to union busting -- by supporting a principal who is doing both, are not likely to find allies here, or among the most active teachers in Chicago.

You reap what you sow, etc., etc.

At the same time, democracy needs public schools (not "elite" ones) and democracy has been under attack in Chicago's public schools for this entire century. If a war metaphor is in order, Prescott is collateral damage in the campaign against public education in Chicago.

In the middle of the current debate, I had lunch with some of the teachers purged -- for no darned good reason -- by Erin Roche over the past 18 months. Yes, it's been that short a time. Despite their general union activism and their opposition to the school closings, they found it nearly impossible to support Prescott's plea to remain open. The reasons are obvious. The majority of the people who held temporary power at Prescott engaged in a nasty purge, and for a time they seemed to enjoy it.

As a general principle, the staff of Substance supports Prescott's opposition to the closing.

There are any number of ironies here. A group of people who seemed to believe in the fantasy life promoted by Chicago magazine and the rest of that ilk are now on the receiving end. We were the only news medium to report on both Prescott hearings, and to note that Prescott had an enormous turnout in support of keeping the school open.

For all those who fantasized about their moment in the sun on WGN or CBS, well...

Why should Oprah care when the other 13 schools being hammered on this year's Hit List are all-black (or almost all-black) and serving the poorest children at the socio-economic "bottom" of this land or ours this year. They have the right to their democratic dreams, too, although you'd never have thought they were on the same planet as Prescott to listen to many of the Prescott people. We're all in this one together, like it or not. (A bit of advice: the people of Bradwell or Deneen would be glad to sponsor you for an "Inward Bound" week. "Inward Bound" is a program that matches privileged — usually white — people with an inner city -- usually not white -- community. It's "Outward Bound" with an urban twist in the post "The Wire" era...).

But anyone who wants to maintain that this opposition to CPS school closing policies constitutes support for the atrocities committed against veteran Prescott teachers by the Roche administration — and the majority on the Prescott LSC, not everyone, just the majority in 2009 — is adding a union and teacher blindspot to the white blindspot that's already a danger there. This school system works because the average teacher is doing a heroic job. Any fantasy about super teachers and all the rest of that elitist nonsense should get a reality check from current events, but we'll see.

It's obvious that a lot of people worked hard to create their vision at Prescott. Those are facts. It's equally obvious that a lot of those same people engaged in some vicious teacher bashing, union busting, purging of special education, and (probably) age discrimination during the Prescott purges of 2008 and 2009.

Those are also facts. There is nothing to be proud of in that history.

As the fate of Prescott is played out over the next few months, perhaps this will serve as a cautionary tale. Perhaps not. Substance supports a moratorium on all of this nonsense (closings; phase outs; turnarounds; consolidations; and whatever new name the Ministry of Truth will come up with to do this to school in Chicago), so Substance will be supporting Prescott.

As a CPS parent (one child is now studying engineering at UC Berkeley, and had a good time as both an athlete -- baseball -- and scholar at Whitney Young; a second is in third grade; a third is heading into kindergarten), teacher spouse, veteran teacher (now retired after being purged by Paul Vallas and Richard M. Daley), union activist, union staff (security and safety; anti gang work), editor, writer, and reporter, I can say that there was no reason for Prescott to put itself in this pickle. The decision to try and turn Prescott into an "elite" school was a choice that undermined, for a time, the ability of Prescott to gather children in the democratic way that public schools do. Add to that the nasty public spat that followed the purges, and the results were sadly predictable. This is a nasty town at its worst. All that biblical stuff (from "least of my brethren..." to "as ye reap...") applies here.

The illusions I saw at the Prescott LSC meeting in May (remember how the LSC decided not to meet for a time?) included the fact that some of the parents were so ill informed that they didn't even know that Lakeview High School was their neighborhood high school. Anyone who believes that a child has "failed" if he or she doesn't wind up at Payton, jones, or Northside (even King and Whitney Young were left off the lists I heard) is bathing in a pool of ignorance we'd be glad to help overcome...

If indeed this were a teachable moment and the people who held their ears in May, June, and July last year were now willing to listen because they were now on the guillotine — the same one they had so gleefully watched used against more than a half dozen of the teachers who had served the children of Prescott so nobly for so many years.

When the blood's still on your hands, it would be easier on those of us trying to support you on principle if we were to hear a bit of humility, and a few apologies.

But that's not what's coming out here. I'm glad Substance can serve as a forum with these comments. Somehow, I doubt I'll see "Prescott Parents" or their supporters at places like Wendell Phillips High School, Marshall High School (one of the places I taught during my 28 year teaching career), Bradwell Elementary School, or Paderweski Elementary School -- to name a few on the current list -- even though, like it or not, the people of Prescott have become, in the eyes of those with power in Chicago, the same as the parents and children of Deneen, Curtis, or Bradwell.

Let me know if you want a tour of Chicago. The Chicago where the majority of public school children live and learn, and where the majority of public school teachers teach.

And just to put a very fine point on this (for those who fantasize about “elite” educations in a way that excludes most poor, working class, and not white people):

When I graduated from the University of Chicago (having attended on a scholarship) in 1969, I chose to teach at schools like Amundsen (just like Lakeview), Marshall, Manley, Tilden, DuSable, and Bowen. I had grown up in a working class family that lived six blocks from the ESSO Bayway refinery in Linden, New Jersey and got very lucky after high school (one of my best friends from high school wound up KIA — USMC — outside Danang by 1967; another became a POW — again USMC — and became one of the few people to escape form the “Hanoi Hilton”) by getting college scholarships and having been given the gift of time to think about things which were simply fate for most of us from the Class of 1964 who didn’t have wealthy parents or…

Anyway, I got an elite education and didn’t wind up poisoned by Agent Orange or so traumatized that I was cornered into “buying the farm” like a number of young men from that “cohort” of America’s “Human Capital.” By the time I began teaching in CPS, it was as “alternative service” as a non-military conscientious objector (they didn’t want me inside as a medic, I had articulated such a complete opposition to that war when my Draft Board and I had that conversation).

So I began my “service” as a public school teacher, and made some basic decisions about how that should be.

Over the years, as the Daley administration divided and conquered Chicago with ploys like the creation of the "Academic Magnet High School" (Payton, Jones, etc.), I watched a generation grow up with the pornographic notion in their minds that those of us who worked at the Marshall high schools of Chicago (and the children who attended them) were inferior to others, more privileged.

By the time I graduated college, I had studied poetry (and gotten an "A") under Robert Pinsky (who became Poet Laureate of the USA) and writing under Norman MacLean (who wrote, among other works, "A River Runs Through It", which should have won the Pulitzer prize for fiction the year it came out). As I went on in the city's general high school to teach the children there (including several years teaching Advanced Placement English course -- there are two), it was with sadness, then anger, to hear a generation of teachers and parents grow up (is that really the direction?) believing, for reasons they can only express at an emotional level, that Chicago should be divided into small enclaves of "haves" and huge expanses of "have nots."

Prescott is indeed experiencing growing pains. But when growing pains are taking place for people in their late 20s and early 30s, well...

Next time around: stop teacher bashing; avoid union busting; and don't be so smugly self-centered in your affluent ignorance.

On Wednesday, February 24, the people who publish Substance will be standing against the closing of Prescott. Even though the people at Prescott -- not everyone, just the majority of administrators, current teachers, and parents -- have made that principled stand very very difficult.

By: xian

The Choice

At the end of the day, I'm very interested in Prescott and the community's survival.

But Prescott community members have the same choice every community in the city has. They can empathetic embrace all schools and call for a complete moratorium--understanding that the outcomes of the other community school closings are likely to be MORE disastrous to the children who attend them than it will be to the Prescott community--or they choose to focus on themselves and their own well-being.

Let me remind you that in your hour of need, students from Julian High School and Social Justice High School traveled across the city to canvass door-to-door to help you build your Saturday community hearing.

They knew--as an exclusively black and brown contingent--that they were likely to meet with racism (they did) and they were likely to meet amazing people who cared about their school community (they did). But mostly, they did it because it was the right thing to do and they have received a world-class education that taught them that it's their duty to combat injustice everywhere in their (un)fair city.

Please remember this on February 24 and every time anywhere that this injustice is occurring. Depending on your scale, some of the schools targeted for closure are "worse" than Prescott, and some are far "better", but EVERY community deserves a chance to determine the future of their own school.

It's about you and your kids, but not JUST about you and your kids, so please support all the other communities.

By: Margaret Wilson

Retired teacher/parent

It has always been a policy of dictators to divide and conquer. If you can get one group of people to fight against another, they won't attack the leaders and they can continue to force their policies upon the public. You can go all the way back to the Egyptians, Hitler, etc. and see this happen over and over again.

By: Robyn Treavor

the definition of elite

The students from Julian and Social Justice were briefed on the erroneous charges made against Prescott before they went door-to-door on a cold, snowy Friday night. They were able to convince several residents who had not even heard of Prescott to attend the hearing the next day. In the light of all their encounters, at the end of the day, they still supported Prescott and felt it should remain open because, as xian said, it was the right thing to do. \r\r\"Elite\" does not mean \"white\". It is what all of Chicago\'s students are entitled to, high-quality, elite education. I really feel that it has been taken out of context here and twisted around to suit a certain agenda. \r\rI think you forget, George, that Prescott still has a predominately Latino student body (every student that testified at the hearings was of that background). Even pre-k has students who are Latino, African American, Middle Eastern, and Asian. There are *several* students who make up each demographic. Despite the gentrification of the neighborhood, Prescott has retained its diversity. Pre-k is the greatest example of this. \r\rListen to the students\' testimonies (or did we forget about them?). Every one of them spoke of high-quality teachers who really care about their success. Not one mentioned any veteran teachers (who did not even show up to the hearings) in their testimonies. \r\rI know several students at Prescott. In August, I asked them how school was going. They said really well and that there are better teachers. I encourage you, George, to ask any student at Prescott how they feel about their teachers. I can guarantee you that they will all say that they are good teachers. \r\rTest scores have gone up for the first time in years, once several teachers left. \r\rVeteran does not always mean high quality. \r\rPrescott is elite because of the quality of education, not the demographics. \r\rI think that Prescott does and has supported other schools on the list. The \"close Schneider\" argument seems like it was proposed in the best interest of the students, not in a \"I\'m better than you\" manner. \r\rI support Prescott, but I have been a supporter of Guggenheim as well. I have worked with various social justice organizations in support of democracy. It is not an island. Don\'t write Prescott off due to a few angry teachers.

By: Tom Edwards

Money for Books?

From "appalled": "I've been in this ward for a long, long time and I totally disagree with your findings. The only thing Principal Roche has done is spend money on a useless mosaic. My child needs books."

No doubt your child needs books, but before you make comments like that, perhaps a little bit of homework would be in order. That mosaic was paid for by the community, and did not come out of the school budget. If the community wants to give money for the school to buy books for its students, that's up to the community, not the principal.

It is this kind of misinformation that pervades the discussion.