Why Dyett Still Matters

First, just in case you missed it in the PR flurry-- no, the Dyett hunger strikers did not "win," and yes, the hunger strike is still going on.

The twelve parents and community members who began going without solid foods over three weeks ago are still standing up for the same issues they were standing up for when this began. The Chicago school system, run by the mayor and not by any sort of elected school board, would like to close the school and replace it with one more privatized education. Or maybe they would really just like to replace it with a nice parking lot for the Coming Someday Obama Presidential Library.

What they don't want to do is listen to the community. So last week they announced that Dyett would stay open as a "compromise" school in a process that would continue to lock out community voices (which was aptly symbolized at the big press conference when the strikers were literally locked outside). This is a loose definition of "compromise," like a mugger who says, "Well, if you don't want to give me all your money, let's compromise and you can just give me most of your money."

The hope was that the public would listen as far as "Dyett will remain open..." and then just stop paying attention, which is the kind of cynical bullshit that gives Chicago politics a bad name. But it was at least marginally successful for five or ten minutes. Supporters were posting links to the news and tagging them "Victory." Eric Zorn, who unleashed a Trib column's worth of asshattery on the strikers, followed up with a non-retraction retraction that declared the strikers victorious and advising them to enjoy their big win and go home, which pretty well exemplified the reaction that Chicago Big Cheeses were angling for.

In retrospect, it seems likely that school chief's hint earlier that Dyett wasn't even necessary was a bargaining tactic, a set-up so that taking the school away from the community instead of flat-out closing it would seem like a generous concession by CPS, and not simply what they had intended to do (and what the organizers had been striking about) in the first place.

So why should those of us around the rest of the country be paying attention? Because this is a bald-faced, shameless display of everything wrong with the reformster privatization movement. It's not simply that non-educators will hand over a public school to other non-educators to commit amateur-hour educational malpractice. The handling of Dyett also displays plainly how the privatization movement is not just an attack on education, but an attack on the democratic rights of people who are not white, not wealthy, and not well-connected.

This is about shutting the community out of the process, about making sure that the people of Bronzeville have no say in any of this, about a political process so devoted to locking community members outside that it considers giving them half-assed lip service as a major concession.

Peter Cunningham, former Arne Duncan mouthpiece and an old Chicago hand, took to his $12 million website to tut-tut at the strikers, suggesting that they "honor the public process," a variation on the old "why don't these protesters just work within the system." But that's what's particularly notable about the Dyett community members-- they have done absolutely everything that the system asked of them. They have played by the rules for years and years, from developing a solid plan backed by community members, respectable institutions, and capable professionals. They submitted a formal proposal (and they did it on time) and they waited patiently while Chicago Public Schools hemmed and hawed and stalled (in a process that wasn't very public at all). Even when the Dyett strikers finally took action, it was not disruptive or destructive to anything but their own bodies.

If anybody can offer advice about what the Dyett folks could have done better, differently, I'd be thrilled to hear it. But the only other option that folks seem to want them to exercise is "Shut up, go home, and let your Betters decide the fate of your neighborhood school without all your yammering in the background."

Dyett cuts straight to the central question of turnovers, takeovers, achievement school districts, charterization, and privatization-- why, exactly, should rich and powerful people with no real ties to the community have more say in how the community's schools are run than the people who actually live there?

Jitu Brown put it pretty plainly--

You are not better than us. You are not smarter than us. And you do not love these children more than we do.

And so we have to ask reformsters: Do you want to argue one of those three point? Because that should be an interesting conversation. And if you don't contest any of those assertions, then on what basis are you taking over the community's school? Even if we let the assertion that the school is failing slide, the question remains-- why are you stripping the community of a voice in its own school? Because you're better, you're smarter, or you love the students more? And if it's not one of those three, then what is it?

What gives you the right to suspend democracy for a community?

Dyett still matters because the issue is not resolved and the strikers have not yet won. Dyett still matters because the fate of Dyett will have a huge impact on that community. And Dyett still matters because the issues being battled there are the same issues faced by every community in this country where the rich and powerful have decided to suspend democracy for certain communities.

Follow #FightForDyett on twitter. Check in with websites like this one. You can donate to the organization here. You can get a national perspective from articles like this one. And if you're in the area, there's a Labor Day rally at 5:00 PM. Spread the word. Speak out. Dyett matters, and the folks who are standing up for that school are standing up for all of us.

Cuomo & Emanuel: What Really Matters

When the budget gets tight or the lifeboat is crowded or the villagers are outside the gate, pitchforks in hand, you have to make some choices about what is really important, what you really want to save.

Two pieces of breaking news today underline how that works in politics, and why we have to pay close attention to actions marketed as victories.

In Chicago, Rahm Emanuel's office announced a "compromise" with Dyett High hunger strikers. Well, not with them with them, because they were in no way part of the deal that the mayor's office hammered out.

The mayor was up against the wall. Demonstrators made a shambles out of last night's meeting, and fifteen protesters were arrested for blocking doors, and all of that makes for terrible optics. And so today a mid-level agent of the Chicago Public Schools announced that Dyett High would re-open as an open-enrollment arts school, a move billed as a "compromise" because it includes elements of all three proposals for Dyett-- i.e. 1) from the actual members of the community, 2) from an arts group with no school-running expertise and 3) from a group that put their hand in after the deadline for proposals. The new school will be open enrollment, but operated by some of the private contractors preferred by CPS-- hired guns who have been neither invested nor involved in the development of the school.

This is not what the hunger strikers wanted. Not that anybody in the pretty press conference could find that out directly

MT @OCPress:#FightForDyett hunger strikers not allowed into #CPS to hear decision on school. (photo: @sarahdashji) pic.twitter.com/t0MTi34hCX

— WBEZeducation (@WBEZeducation) September 3, 2015

Emanuel faced an ever-growing mess, and he had to decide what to save, what absolutely could not be sacrificed in salvaging some sort of end to the public hunger strike. And he decided the one thing that he absolutely could not give up was the policy of keeping community voices silent. Okay, let them have open enrollment. But don't let them speak. Don't let them have a say in making any decisions about the school. And just to make it clear, don't use their years of research and planning for the school design-- because that'll make it clear who's still in complete control of what happens in their school.

The press will announce "Dyett will stay open" and many folks will say, "Well, hey-- they won!" which turns out to be a small sacrifice in the name of keeping the Lessers silenced and in their place, which turns out to be the Most Important Goal. They'll get-- probably-- a neighborhood school-- kind of. But they'll still have no say in how it's run. Not exactly a sweeping victory (nor are the strikers fooled). But the news about an open Dyett will strip traction from any continued strike.

Meanwhile, in New York, Andy Cuomo was badmouthing the Common Core. Like Emanuel, Cuomo has been noticing too many barbarians at the gates, with MaryEllen Elia's announcement that she was going to Get Tough with opt-outers being rapidly walked back because, well, the barbarians weren't scared by her threats-- just pissed off. So Elia walked back quick-style, and today Cuomo allowed as how many experts were still saying that the Core and the Big Standardized Test (and EngageNY and a whole raft of other reformster wonderment) have Serious Problems and now he's just going to get on that right away by turning one of his handpicked Education Commissions, previously installed to help rescue his nutburger teacher eval system. The commission will kick up some folks who can defuse criticism of the Core make recommendations about standards, though certainly not by including input from members of the public. Whatever old wine in new skins standards Cuomo gets, he will get them his way, with his people.

And so we find that what matters most to Cuomo is not the Core (by name) or his educational reformster baloney. Nope-- the most important thing is to get the Lessers to Shut Up and Behave.

In Chicago and New York, today's actions are intended to convince a whole lot of folks that the fight is over, the powerful caved, nothing to see here, everybody go home and turn on some Netflix. And in the months (or years) ahead, the battle over the fate of Dyett High and NY Standards will be a long, battle-by-battle slog. Emanuel and Cuomo will have sacrificed some of their stated goals, but not the most treasured goal of all-- keeping the Lessers quiet and voiceless. Maybe they think they'll relax now and quit and go home, leaving the Leaders with what the most want-- power without interference.

That's the immediate lesson today. Nobody stood up for closing Dyett high or New York's Core as a matter of deeply held principle. Both were sacrificed easily and publicly. The immediate lesson is in what Cuomo and Emanuel were not willing to sacrifice. They were and are not willing to make the sacrifice of letting citizens come sit at the table or to have a voice when policy is set. Sacrifice anything, as long as you score a PR outflanking of the commoners without having to let them speak.

Were today's announcements no victory at all? No, the Big Guys sacrificed some peanuts. Dyett will be open, and that's not nothing. And for all their big talk about education and reforms and bringing communities what they need, Cuomo and Emanuel showed their true goals-- keep the people in those communities voiceless and in their place. That's what really matters to these guys. When the house is on fire, what people grab tells you what really matters to them, and these guys grabbed scepters of power and boots for stomping on citizens.

Trib Writer Tries To Spank Dyett Hunger Strike

Eric Zorn decided to just wade on into the Dyett High Hunger Strike yesterday with a piece that is as stunning as it is ill-informed. But it underlines the problem of effectively organizing for a cause.

Zorn apparently didn't do any more reading on the hunger strike except to learn that there is one, and that it has something to do with a high school. Apparently some folks have tried to convince Zorn that the strike "requires coverage of their cause, which is the establishment of a particular type of new school in the Dyett High School building in Washington Park."

But Zorn says he's turned off by the tactics, and goes on to equate a hunger strike with holding hostages and/or slow-motion suicide. But we don't negotiate with hostage takers, and suicide is, I guess, rude. And what Zorn is really saying is that he doesn't believe that it's that big a deal, not even to the hunger strikers:

Would today's protesters rather die than live in a world without the Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology Community High School, the academy they want CPS to establish?

The piece is spectacular in its lack of nuance or understanding. He talks about the proposed high school as if they want it established from scratch, and not as if they are proposing a way for the community to hold onto its last open-enrollment, community-based school. A school that they already had. A school that CPS is threatening to either hand over to outside interests or to simply close entirely, which sets the stage for the kind of gentrification that is already an issue for Chicago.

But beyond Zorn's unwillingness to do even cursory homework because, I guess, he doesn't care for protestors' tone, is the same old question I always have for these types of folks-- what does he think the protestors should do instead?

Should they peacefully and professionally develop a positive alternative for the CPS to show how the community school could be maintained and improved? They've done that. Should they partner with respectable community organizations to show just how serious and solid the plan is? They've done that. Should they repeatedly approach the authorities through the appropriate channels with the appropriate paperwork? They've done that.

What else would he like them to do?

If this were a violent protest, we know that everyone would be tsk-tsking the Dyett supporters for not doing things The Right Way. Don't be so violent. Don't take such a tone. When you are so confrontational, you just hurt your own cause.

I can't say this hard enough: Dyett supporters have done everything right, everything that could be asked of people who have been trying to get their voices heard for years and years-- unless what critics like Zorn are really suggesting that Dyett supporters should voice their opinions in such a way that they can be more easily ignored, and that anything they do that makes any kind of noise at all, attracts any sort of attention is just not okay. They should be not seen, not heard, and happy with whatever CPS decides to do to them, their school, their community.

What the hell kind of choice is that??

Zorn has established himself as a fan of staying in place and not bucking the system in the past. Back in July, he wrote a piece in response to Sandra Bland's arrest and death, and while the piece is bluntly critical of the police officer and minces no words about how wrong he was every step of the way, he still somehow lands on this conclusion:

The lesson here is that you must always defer meekly to the police. Even when they're acting like bullies, goading you or issuing you preposterous orders like to put out your cigarette as you sit in your own car, don't challenge their authority. As I reminded my kids in the wake of this story, things will never go better for you if you argue with police officers. Comply. And if you feel your rights are being violated, take it up later with a judge.

So perhaps the message of Zorn and others is that the Dyett Twelve should defer meekly to bullies. That's lousy advice, particularly given how relatively meek and non-confrontational the Dyett protesters have actually been. And people in not-wealthy neighborhoods with not-white skins have been called upon to defer meekly far too many times.


Zorn and those who agree with him are just plain wrong, and out of line, and lazy. Mr. Zorn, I'm an English teacher in Pennsylvania-- how is it that I know more about the situation at Dyett than a journalist in Chicago? Shame on you, sir. Here's a quick link to sources with which you can begin to educate yourself and then do a proper job writing about the issues involved.

Tribune Discovers Dyett Hunger Strike

It only took eight days for Chicago's leading "news" outlet to discover that Dyett High twelve community members were staging a hunger strike. But yesterday afternoon, the Chicago Tribune finally covered the story.

Mind you, they didn't cover it all that well. They reported the 13-student enrollment class without any context, as if it were the result of "plunging enrollment" and not a phased closure (with CPS encouraging students to get out of Dodge).

They reported the two other proposals uncritically. They didn't explain Little Black Pearl's non-past operating schools, and I am becoming really curious about who is behind the athletic school proposal which is always only linked to Charles Campbell, the Dyett interim principal. They did not mention that CPS entertains his proposal even though it was late.

The Trib reported the community proposal, but put "leadership and green technology school" in quotation marks as if this were some sort of crazy idea that community members just pulled out of thin air, as if it were like a school for chinchilla ranchers or underwater basket weavers. And Trib-- you left off "global."

And the Tribune made sure to note that the group on hunger strike has always been tied to the Chicago teachers' union (you know-- Those People).

Still, they did report on many of the group's major concerns-- and they acknowledged that the hunger strike is going on.

Now-- here's what you need to do.

1) Click on over to the article. Remember, every click on an article is a vote saying "I want to read more coverage of this."

2) Comment. I'm not sure if any comments are actually getting through, but make sure the comment section includes the rest of the story.

An action like a hunger strike is only as effective as the public reaction to it, and that depends on the public hearing about it, so the Tribune's end of their news blackout of the event means that progress is being made. Keep the pressure on. Spread the word. And remind the Tribune that the worlds needs to know about what's going on.