Karen Lewis Takes on Rahm in Chicago Sun-Times Editorial: Mayor of a Declining City

Chicago Teachers Union boss Karen Lewis has an op-ed in The Chicago Sun-Times:

What the public does not understand, however, even though both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times have been writing about it for months, is that CPS is also simultaneously planning for 60 new charter schools in the next few years. That plan was laid out in materials submitted to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation last spring.

The district has seen declining enrollment over the last decade, as have many other urban districts, because urban sprawl is sending our families to far-flung suburbs like Oswego where the housing is much larger and much cheaper than in the city. This is not because Chicago schools are “failing” — this is an urban planning phenomenon that we have seen many times in the last century.

Thus the decline in enrollment in Chicago is a natural phenomenon. But, what is not natural is the city’s push for unprecedented charter expansion. The mayor loves to tout unsubstantiated statistics about how popular charter schools are among Chicago parents. On Wednesday, he used a new number: now apparently the waiting list is whopping 19,000 students. Wow — that’s a lot of children who were “so unfortunate” to not get a seat at a coveted charter school.

Rahmfather has met his match.