How Chicago S Five Year School Plan Was Dead On Arrival

You can be forgiven if you missed the recent release of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s new five-year plan for transforming the Chicago Public Schools.

Instead, she said, the five-year plan would usher in an era of peace, love, and understanding between CPS and the teachers, parents, and students under its domain.

It was also up to principals to decide what exactly to cut after being given thousands and even millions of dollars less to work with.

Left unmentioned is the fact that the recent cuts mean a reduction in the money many schools were given to help them devote the extra class time to art, gym, computer training, or electives.

In fairness to Vitale, I can’t recall any school board member who’s ever protested the TIF program, even though it deprives the dirt-poor schools of up to $250 million a year.

In fact, the only voices truly heard by Mayor Emanuel in his first two years in office were the infamous rent-a-protesters whom the mayor’s political operatives sent to meetings to outshout the parents who’d showed up to plead for their schools.