"Failing schools. Underprivileged schools. Just plain bad schools."
That's how Eve L. Ewing opens Ghosts in the Schoolyard: describing
Chicago Public Schools from the outside. The way politicians and
pundits and parents of kids who attend other schools talk about
them, with a mix of pity and contempt. But Ewing knows Chicago
Public Schools from the inside: as a student, then a teacher, and
now a scholar who studies them. And that perspective has shown her
that public schools are not buildings full of failures-they're an
integral part of their neighborhoods, at the heart of their
communities, storehouses of history and memory that bring people
together. Never was that role more apparent than in 2013 when Mayor
Rahm Emanuel announced an unprecedented wave of school closings.
Pitched simultaneously as a solution to a budget problem, a
response to declining enrollments, and a chance to purge bad
schools that were dragging down the whole system, the plan was met
with a roar of protest from parents, students, and teachers. But if
these schools were so bad, why did people care so much about
keeping them open, to the point that some would even go on a hunger
strike? Ewing's answer begins with a story of systemic racism,
inequality, bad faith, and distrust that stretches deep into
Chicago history. Rooting her exploration in the historic African
American neighborhood of Bronzeville, Ewing reveals that this issue
is about much more than just schools. Black communities see the
closing of their schools-schools that are certainly less than
perfect but that are theirs-as one more in a long line of racist
policies. The fight to keep them open is yet another front in the
ongoing struggle of black people in America to build successful
lives and achieve true self-determination.
General
Imprint: |
University of Chicago Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
October 2018 |
Authors: |
Eve L Ewing
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 18mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover - Cloth over boards
|
Pages: |
240 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-226-52602-7 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-226-52602-X |
Barcode: |
9780226526027 |
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