Stagg school community standing up to lies, slander, and 'turnaround'
Many powerful people must have believed that Chicago's millionaire mayor, Chicago's carpetbagger public schools administration, and their affluent backers could easily run over one or a couple of public schools that for generations have been invisible to those who are now being called the "one percent." After all, the teachers who struggled to educate the nation's poorest children in some of the most challenging ghettos and barrios in what is supposedly the wealthiest nation on earth and one of its "world class" cities are supposed to sit down, shut up, and follow orders — no matter how ridiculous or insulting. But Stagg Elementary School is joining others this winter and standing up to the slanders of the rich, the powerful, and their corporate apologists.
Stagg Elementary School staff members preparing to canvass the community with petitions against the "turnaround" attack on Stagg. Substance photo by Jean Schwab.A visitor walking into Stagg Elementary School may wonder if they walked into the Chicago Lab School or a Teachers college by mistake. The building is very clean and neat. The salad stand is standing by a spotless kitchen. Everything promotes "Best Practices." The colorful walls have words written on them, student essays and pictures adorn the walls. There are graphs showing which cookie is the classes’ favorite. Beautiful bulletin boards with cut out figures are seen throughout the school. Looking out the window, one can see a football stadium with a track area.
Events on the South side are held here. There also is a tennis court. The school has a Montessori program starting at pre-school up to nine years old.
Stagg has an attendance program that stresses positive behavior intervention and has students’ attendance in the "90s." The composite score for the ISAT increased six percent this year. Stagg teachers told Substance (and the Board of Education on December 14) that Stagg has increased scores 4.3% in reading and 6.8% in math. This year Stagg posted 3.2% in the "Exceeds" category, while serving a community that has heartbreaking poverty the likes of which most people in the USA never see, with daily scenes almost out of a bleak 19th Century novel by Charles Dickens.
In the Englewood-Gresham "Network", there are a total of 18 schools with less "growth" in math and 27 schools with less growth in Reading than Stagg, Stagg told Substance. So, in addition to the overriding question of "Why turnaround in the first place?", the question at Staff is why Stagg is being singled out by Jean-Claude Brizard and the outsiders who now have all the top administrative jobs in Chicago's public schools. The rage at Stagg was clearly growing throughout December, as Stagg parents, students and teachers organized not only to fight against the proposed "turnaround" of their school, but to stand up to the attack on their lives, their professions, and all their hard work.
If they only got their information from Mayor Rahm Emanuel, from Jean-Claude Brizard, and from Chicago's corporate media, visitors to Stagg would expect to find an urban wasteland, the kind of place that would justify Brizard's repeated statements that he has to destroy the school — and fire everyone in it — in order to "save the children." As Brizard and Emanuel repeat over and over, "turnaround" is the only solution to what they calling a "failing" schools.
Yet if those same visitors simply came to Stagg on a regular school days, perhaps after touring the surrounding community and seeing the devastation wrought by the policies that made men like Rahm Emanuel rich and men like Jean-Claude Brizard powerful, these same visitors to the school would be surprised to find out that Stagg Elementary is scheduled to close this year.
On December 22, 2011, members of the staff, parents and community walked around the community collecting signatures to give to "CEO" Brizard and the members of the Chicago Board of Education. They also went to the offices of Alderman Latasha Thomas (17th Ward). Thomas supposedly represents them, but for the past seven or eight years, she has served two mayors and four schools "Chief Executive Officers" as a staunch supporter of every twist and turn of corporate "school reform".
Predictably, the people of Stagg were unable to talk to Thomas.
But a spokesperson said that Thomas "supports" the school.
Many stated, as Vivian Wilson told Substance, that Stagg Elementary School is a family to them. Community members and parents noted that the response from people was supportive, but people were angry. "This may be more about real estate issues,” several told Substance, and asked for more investigations. Is CPS planning to give Stagg (and access to the stadium and sports facilities) to one of the mayor's favored charter schools? What is behind the plan that has put an entire community on a bulls eye for this kind of demoralizing attack during the weeks before Christmas?
Where was Alderman Thomas, who has always been a handshake away from every media event orchestrated by the mayor (and his predecessor)? They were unable to talk to Thomas, but a "spokesperson" said that Thomas supports the school.
A week before members of the Stagg "family" canvassed their community and tried to talk with their alderman, a coalition of groups representing a hundred Staggs took over the meeting of the Chicago Board of Education and sent the millionaires and billionaires on the Board (all appointed by Rahm Emanuel) scurrying. During the now famous "Mic Check" that brought forward the "Peoples' Board of Education Meeting" of December 14, 2011, one of the statements made was "Insanity is going the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."
Insanity, in this case, is taking something that is working and improving year by year and destroying it, first with a demoralizing attack that ignores the reality on the ground at Staff and counts on the cynical corporate media of Chicago to ignore Stagg's people and the dire problems facing Stagg's community. Then with a corporate-style "turnaround" built on a foundation of lies and perpetrated with millions of dollars to corporate reformers that should be going to Stagg and a hundred schools like it as everyone prepared for Christmas 2011 in Chicago.
But instead of cringing and whimpering, the men, women and children of Stagg are fighting back.
