Manierre Elementary School... The Board of Education made the decision to close their school… but they came anyway to testify and promise what they will do next
April 10, 2013. Even though Chicago Public Schools had declared that Manierre School, on Chicago's Near North Side in Old Town, would be closed next September, the school community turned out to another sham hearing. They came to declare that they were not about to give up, and, in the words of Cynthia Tate,"on September of 2013 our kids will go to Manierre. We don't care about what you say. These are our children. We would not put their lives or others in danger. On the first day of school, our children will attend Manierre School." Sharise McDaniel backed her up: "Our children will attend George Manierre School. We're not leaving, and that's what we say." The URL for the You Tube edition is: http://youtu.be/zw1HBGLmE3k.
In her testimony at the hearing, Manierre parent Sharise McDaniel promised the "Board" that she and her fellow parents would be opening their school in September no matter what the Board voted to do on May 22. Labor Beat photo by Larry Duncan.The video is also at the Labor Beat web site: http://www.laborbeat.org
Others can learn here from this meeting that, despite what CPS wants, the battle to defend public education is not winding down, but is evolving into the next stage of resistance.
As the Chicago Teachers Union has researched and demonstrated, the result of CPS's decision is racist, making children from the targeted-for-closure Manierre walk numerous city blocks, across a highway and through neighborhoods controlled by gangs hostile to their students, to attend Jenner School. There is already a history of conflict and injury of Manierre students by students from the school they are being sent to, Jenner Elementary School.
There is also the emotional distress for children of simply having to leave school friends and familiar teachers. In addition, they are being sent to another level 3 school with lower performance data, instead of being allowed to transfer to level 1 and level 2 schools that are closer. And what will happen to the displaced teachers?
Labor Beat put the focus on Manierre because the Manierre story can show in more detail the injustice and damage being done to one school, which is a microcosm of the vast city-wide attack on 53 schools in primarily minority low-income neighborhoods. The determination to fight after and beyond the formal May 2013 CPS announcements is a sign of larger political struggles to come. The Board of Education will vote on the 2013 Hit List at its meeting on May 22, 2013.
Specifically regarding Manierre, members of that school community declared that in September 2013 they will refuse to send their students to Jenner. By a little extrapolation, many of the closed schools throughout the city may do the same thing. Rather than one occupation here (La Casita) and another there (Piccolo), we may be seeing a widespread occupation movement, which would be a qualitatively different situation.
The video's length - 15:30
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Comments:
By: Larry Duncan
Addition to previous post about 'next stage'
Sorry, I meant to add this final paragraph:
Specifically regarding Manierre, members of that school community declared that in September 2013 they will refuse to send their students to Jenner. By a little extrapolation, many of the closed schools throughout the city may do the same thing. Rather than one occupation here (La Casita) and another there (Piccolo), we may be seeing a widespread occupation movement, which would be a qualitatively different situation.
By: Larry Duncan
Rod Estvan's question on Next Stage
Rod Estvan’s is right to have doubts about the Democratic Party. But we are, in my view, entering a new stage of the struggle for the following reasons: Up to now, the fight against the school closings has been generally on the level of demonstrations and protests against targets defined mostly as degenerate individuals (mayors, legislators, and billionaires). This while avoiding the issue of directly challenging politically the governments (City and State) which generate these attacks through political parties in control of them. But now, conditions have arisen in which this basic paradigm can be more openly debated.
In this last year, the elected school board campaign has been a precursor to (hopefully) a sea change, although the likely political strategy now being raised by the CTU will be a default setting of running candidates as Democrats. There does not appear, on the surface at least, any move toward a break from the Democratic Party toward a labor party formation. This also leaves undisturbed the popular view that in City Hall there reigns an aberration from some legendary, Democratic Party of our dreams. (The fantasy denies the actual, concrete Democratic Party in its living, historical development, a reflection of the advanced decay of capitalism to which it is directly linked.)
However, and this to me is what is significant, we are (some of us, such as Rod Estvan) now able to raise the subject of a "labor party" (in his separate post on the CTU April 15 press conference), without this being dismissed as uselessly abstract and irrelevant.
A lot of the labor left in Chicago has avoided this historic question for the unions here. Now that the CTU is consciously declaring a new front (fielding political candidates to challenge those in office), we will all, along with Rod's contributions, be forced to talk about this sticky issue. If the CTU fields candidates as Democrats ('reform' or 'independent') to oppose the privatizations, at some point we all are going to have to discuss the fact that the Democratic Party is both ideologically and financially tied to late-stage capitalism's wholesale absorption of the public sector by private ownership. If the CTU and friends field 'new and improved' Democrats and do not break with the Democratic Party, defender of private ownership, it will fail to eventually stop the corporate onslaught. But now these political issues are going to be more openly and widely debated, which would be healthy. For this reason it’s a new stage.
Specifically regarding Manierre, members of that school community declared that in September 2013 they will refuse to send their students to Jenner. By a little extrapolation, many of the closed schools throughout the city may do the same thing. Rather than one occupation here (La Casita) and another there (Piccolo), we may be seeing a widespread occupation movement, which would be a qualitatively different situation.
In solidarity,
Larry Duncan
(Writing as an co-producer and editor of the Manierre video, and not necessarily representing the views of Labor Beat.)
By: Timothy Meegan
Third party
I vigorously support a clean break with the Democrats and the formation of a viable third party. It's the only way to be heard on issues where there are few substantive differences between the two
By: Rod Estvan
What is the next stage of resistance?
Larry writes "the battle to defend public education is not winding down, but is evolving into the next stage of resistance." I am unclear what this stage of resistance will be and I would like Larry to elaborate on that statement.
I heard one speaker, James in the video discuss the next phase of resistance. That comment was all about voting Mayor Emanuel out of office, but what was to replace the current Mayor was not elaborated on.
Let's stop for a second and think about the electoral history of the black community that largely populated Manierre School. This community helped create the Jesse White Democratic Party machine. Jesse White was promoted by George Dunn one of the key players in the Richard J. Daley machine.
Secretary White without question has been one of the more honest and likable Black Democrat politicians in the city. But he has also been a key player in supporting the Democrat political machine in this city. I haven't seen Sec White in any way speak out against Mayor Emanuel's program of austerity or organize against it. So if the next stage of resistance of resistance is to vote out Mayor Emanuel then who or what is he to be replaced with?
Rod Estvan