Katie Lacroix - Chicago's Education Landscape: Co-Liberating Chicago's Youth

part 1

Katie Lacroix and Evie Lacroix

“And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them: Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities; Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness, Bareheaded, Shoveling, Wrecking, Planning, Building, breaking, rebuilding,�

Portion of Chicago, poem by Carl Sandburg

Copyright © 2020 by Katie Lacroix and Evie Lacroix All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Chicago’s Education Landscape: Co-Liberating Chicago’s Youth 39p.

Includes bibliographical references.

Art and other key words: Katie Lacroix Printed in the United States of America Design: Katie Lacroix Editor: Katie Lacroix Printed and bound by Katie Lacroix Typefaces: Bebas Neue Pro Paper: Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Paper (13x 19, white matte)

Introduction

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Education Reform: Chicagoans Must Unite to Create Change

Exodus

12

The Great Migration: Catalyst To American Segregation Policy

Redlining

20

Housing Discrimination: Run Rampant and Not Over Yet

Modern Segregation in CPS

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Education Landscape: A Reflection of the City’s Segregation

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Loving Chicago is as much the bliss of feeling the sun on your shoulders as it filters through a beach umbrella on a warm July day as it is the grit and resilience it takes to critically look at the hardships that come with living in the city and insisting on better. Love is recognizing injustice and still showing irrepressible strength.

I imagine this love is why you are reading this, dear Chicagoan.

As a member of one of our 77 neighborhoods I am sure you have seen injustice. This book is a guide to help educate on the historical importance of injustices in Chicago and how to use that knowledge to do better by our city. You are a voter, hopefully, and even if you don’t have the power to actually cast a ballot in this city, you still have the power to advocate for the vulnerable people in our city. People, such as the students across the city who’s future and quality of education relies on voters and advocates to ensure that they have a just chance at a quality future.

Education Reform: Chicagoans Must Unite to Create Change I grew up as a Chicago Public School student. If you are like me, you are white and from the North Side or Northwest Side of the city. You probably grew up going to a predominantly white school that seemed to have a lot of resources available to you.

Maybe your children go to such a school. Sure, there are a lot of different cultures here on the North Side, so you feel like the schools here are fairly integrated; what work is there to be done? The problem is that the whiteness we see on this side of the city is manufactured, and not all CPS students have equal access to the same education you did or your kids have.

The inequities in CPS are deeply rooted in the city’s segregation, housing discrimination, and corruption within CPS. 8

The blatant lack of government officials’ interest in these problems is detrimental to People of Color in Chicago, and the city fails to create equity for historically marginalized black and brown students. That, coupled with a mayor’s office that historically directs funds away from these schools in need, closing schools rather than investing in them, and not taking the needs of students and teachers seriously, makes for a public school system that continuously belittles and ignores students of color.

This may be hard to digest—didn’t we end racial segregation in the 1960’s? While the racist policies in the city may be less obvious today compared to the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights movement, and a time when water fountains had “whites only” signs above them, the racist structures of that time “established the framework for the way our society currently functions”1. In order to right the wrongs done by institutional racism, we must acknowledge this history and that injustice still exists today because of it.

The bottom line is: the education policy in the city is racist.

The racism in our city is a system, a pattern, that creates “different outcomes for different people in ways linked to race�1.

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This is not to say your whiteness is wrong; this is to say that the machine of racism in this city is functioning with or without you. Chicago relies on “the systematic disenfranchisement of black people and harm to black children—regardless of intent—and because they are bound up in the perpetuation of historical policies rooted in more explicit racism. And this, in part, is why people fight so hard for their schools”1.

By reading this book, I invite you to learn about the issues of CPS and the history of housing discrimination and segregation that has led to the state of CPS today. This is the moment where you can learn to consider yourself a co-liberator.

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Learning about these histories is the first step to learning how to reform and repair the damage done to CPS students. The issues in Chicago are historic and systemic. Chicago’s housing and education systems are built upon racism, classism, and corruption. I know that if the city is to ever change its ways and work for the students and taxpayers, rather than the political powers-at-will, then it will be because of the change the community has made. You are the community, you have a voice, and you have a responsibility to use it.

You, other Chicagoans, and the city as a whole will not thrive without everyone’s help.

So, learn from this book, share it with others, and refer to the last chapter that shows you how easy it can be to advocate, actively get involved with community organizing (you are not alone!), and how this helps you become a co-liberator within this city.

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“What started as a march of the impatient, became a rite of passage, and would become the biggest underreported story of the 20th Century�

Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns

The Great Migration: Catalyst To American Segregation Policy

1915–1970 population growth sparks institutional housing discrimination The inequality in the Chicago Public School system cannot be addressed until we all understand the historical precedents that set us up for today’s segregation of students and resources. The best place to start may be back at the beginning of the Great Migration. Before the Great Migration, less than 5 percent of the Northern population was Black. In the south, formerly enslaved peoples and their families struggled, economically and socially, through the post Civil War reconstruction era and into the 20th century.

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500,000 ppl Number of black migrants between 1915–1970

$11.10 One-way train fair from Mississippi to Chicago

278,000 ppl 1940 Black population double that of 1915 15

BLACK AND NON-BLACK POPULATION IN CHICAGO DURING THE GREAT MIGRATION

1910 BIRTHPLACE OF BLACK ADULTS IN CHICAGO 1970

1940

Illinois Contiguous States Distant States and Abroad

1970 non-black

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black

This post-Civil War struggle stemmed from the reversal of reparations for formerly enslaved people (when their “40 acres and a mule” were legally rescinded by President Andrew Johnson) who were then trapped in a cycle of poverty through share-cropping, in which they could not own land and still had to work for (and pay rent to) white landowners to survive.

When the U.S.’ involvement in World War I started, Northern factory employers became desperate to replace the white workers who left to go to war, thus prompting Black families in the south to uproot their lives and move to find work in the North. The Great Migration started in 1915, and continued into the 1970s as more and more black folks saw the migration as a chance at prosperity and an escape from the poverty of the American South.

While over 7 million black people left the South and went all over the North, Chicago became a popular destination in this Migration. “To Southern blacks, Chicago was the “Promised Land” — jobs with good wages, homes with running water, and basic freedoms denied to blacks in the South — made the Northern city a prime destination.”2 Between 1915 and 1940 Chicago’s black population more than doubled, with about 278 thousand Black Southerners moving to the city.

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“The Exodus.” The Chicago Defender (Big Wee (1905-1966); Chicago, Ill. Septe

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Originally, Black southerners were welcomed into the city by businesses that were losing workers that went off to fight in WWI. Chicago was growing into a city that had people from a multitude of backgrounds all trying to make life work out as the industrialization of the North grew. However, Chicago was not physically ready for this flood of people. “Significant numbers of blacks who moved to the city did improve their lives and social condition, but Chicago was not prepared to embrace Southern blacks with fully open arms. Crowded tenement housing, limited educational opportunities, violence, discrimination, segregation, indifference from city government — these were all part of the city experience for “new” blacks.”2 While families were able to move into Chicago, they were still met with “limited opportunities for financial and geographic mobility”3 because the white population in Chicago started to worry that there would not be enough prosperity to go around.

Ultimately, this fear in white communities, policy makers, and bankers grew and Black population was hit by banking policies and housing discrimination that ensured Black Chicagoans could not stand in the way of white prosperity across the city.

Modern segregation in Chicago stems from these practices and the failure of the city to properly address them.

kend Edition) ember 2, 1916.

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“For perhaps the first time, the federal government embraced the discriminatory attitudes of the marketplace.�

Kenneth R. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier

DEFINED MORTGAGE SECURITY High-Risk or “Hazardous”

“Definitely Declining”

“Still Desirable”

Low-Risk or “Best or Desirable”

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Housing Discrimination: Run Rampant and Not Over Yet

The most prominent form of housing discrimination faced by black people in Chicago throughout the 20th century was redlining. In the 1930s, while many of your parents and grandparents were trying to begin their life in the midst of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted the New Deal, which came with a hefty home loan program. This home loan program allowed white families to take out protected mortgages on homes, which let them own property and accrue wealth. While lifesaving to white folks, this New Deal incorporated racism into the institution of housing across the country.

From 1934 to 1968, 98% of the New Deal home loans were given to white families.

Leaving behind black families like this creates a cycle of poverty in the black community where black families cannot grow their wealth in the same way and cannot move out of poverty-ridden areas, thus creating a similar future for their children.

Even if a black family was lucky enough to get a home loan, they would be charged exuberant interest rates compared to white families with the same credit. Redlining exasperated this issue.

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Not only were black families kept out of the housing market financially, they were also legally segregated from the white population as well. Many Chicago neighborhoods had restrictive covenants where white property owners would not rent or sell to black folks in order to keep the demographics of the area strictly white. Redlining maps were drawn up by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and the Home Owners Loan Corporation, “using data and evaluations organized by local real estate professionals [and] assigned grades to residential neighborhoods that reflected their “mortgage security” that would then be visualized on color-coded maps.”4 Unfortunately, not just the quality of the homes were used in these maps, but “the racial and ethnic identity and class of residents that served as the basis of the neighborhood’s grade”4 as well, creating a map that outlined where certain races should live.

From this grew a city that was broken by its divisions. As Steve Bogira of the Chicago Reader wrote, “one of the insidious traits of segregation is how easy it makes it for the haves to ignore the plight of the have-nots. For most whites, concentrated poverty and its many ills are an abstraction—something they read about but rarely see, since it exists in parts of town they don’t live in or work in or visit. On the north lakefront, where the neighborhoods are more diverse than most in Chicago, residents may also be fooled into thinking it’s the norm throughout the city.”

The segregation simply becomes a trend that most people are able to shrug their shoulders at and say that’s how it’s always been. It becomes an issue so daunting and so wrapped up in decades of turning a blind eye to the choices of the city, that it seems impossible to back-track now. While it continues to go unattended and ignored by most, it hurts the most vulnerable of our neighbors the most. Students of color across the city become the martyr of the racist policies the city and its white residents 25

Segregation today effects more than just demographics Today, this discrimination is fueled by a “two-tier subprime lending market, in which ‘minority borrowers in predominantly minority communities [are subjected] to unconventional loans’ that come with predatory fees, interest rates, and penalties,” as reported by Christian Belanger of the South Side Weekly. This makes homeownership much more difficult and costly for Black and Latinx Chicagoans “who spend thirty percent or more of their household income on owner costs” than their white neighbors. Belanger points out tha this has created a “twenty-point gap in homeownership between Black and white Chicagoans and [a] rapid depreciation of homes in majority-Black communities. [...] Most of the foreclosures [after the housing market crisis] occurred in several minority communities in the South and West Sides such as Austin, Belmont Cragin, and West Lawn, [leading] to “community deterioration,” or the decline in values of surrounding homes, and the increase of “zombie properties,” which are foreclosure claims that have not been resolved in three years.”

go’s Black neighborhoods have been stagnant since the 1970s.

“The neighborhoods of concentrated poverty are also high in cynicism and distrust. [...] In a longitudinal study, [Harvard sociologist Robert] Sampson focused on the verbal ability of children growing up in Chicago’s poor Black neighborhoods and found ‘detrimental and long-lasting consequences for Black children’s cognitive ability rivaling in magnitude the effects of missing one year of schooling.’”5 This verbal ability becomes a predictor of a person’s outcome in life, which becomes part of a cyclical rabbit hole where black communities continue to struggle under the city’s institutional poverty while the city does little to address the root causes. Continually, Chicago’s communities of color are blamed for their issues of poverty, violence, and failing schools when it is the city’s responsibility to overhaul the system if it damages communities in this way.

DEMOGRAPHICS OF CHICAGO 33.3% 28.7%

Black

The segregation in the city is accompanied by concentrated poverty. When people of color are denied the opportunities for growing wealth because of their race, in the housing and job market, then how are they able to sustain prosperity in their segregated community? The growth of wealth in Chica26

White Latinx Other

9%

29%

$81,702

$58,715

1960 2015

$37,121

$36,720

White Families

Black Families

MEDIUM FAMILY INCOME

White Household Black/Latinx Household

NET WORTH

In 2009 “the typical white household had just about $20 of net worth for every $1 held by the typical Black or Latinx household”6

100-80% Black

100-80% White

Majority Black

Majority White

Majority Latinx

No Majority

Majority Asian

Non-City Land 27

“Step one: Take away our schools Step Two: Put them out their home Lastly: Destroy it all and Deny Deny Deny But remember, to always keep a straight face when you lie!

Try to pour the cheap paint over our eyes while stealing dollars from under our mattresses There’s not enough? Close their schools But he’s building a new DePaul stadium Using our TIF funds to Transform the South Loop into the Promised Land of redevelopment and some river walk of course downtown The paint is starting to streak.

Building a new Chicago or extending a new lie!

How can a city so in debt blueprint something so expensive?

Banneker Elementary - Closed Woods Elementary - Closed Yale Elementary - Closed The paint is cracking: From every west side basketball brotherhood To south side sisterhood bonds through pom-poms And every poetry team that had dreamed of being on this very stage has been ripped apart, Goodbye Bad foundation for our future generations struggling with 40 students in one class so they learn from the streets There’s not money for our schools, but, there’s enough to build a New Chicago

But that New Chicago is NOT for us.

The paint is wearing thin and so was our patience Irreparable damage has already been done Time to stop the destruction of OUR city Prevent the further corruption of our already twisted politics of Chicago 25% of Chicago school children won’t amount to anything 25 50 75 100% sure that we will be something See Rahm we are mathematicians your lies are adding up and this new Chicago is just another one of them”

Portion of Hide Your Schools, Hide Your Homes, Hide Your Children, Cause He’s Wrecking it All poem by TEAM Englewood, Spoken Word, 2014 Group Piece

MODERN SEGREGATION

Education Landscape:

A Reflection of the City’s Segregation 8 schools

With the precedent of segregation set in Chicago, you may be wondering how the history of segregation in the city and the issues in the education system overlap. The main issue is that Chicago Public Schools are mostly funded by property taxes.

According to Chicago Public Schools, Property Taxes make up 50.2 percent of the newest FY20 budget. Because the city is segregated like it is today, with Black populations limited in how they can grow their wealth through decades of housing discrimination, they are automatically set back in their ability to live near well-resourced schools. The schools that educate black and brown students end up with less funding for enough teachers, support staff such as nurses, social workers, and librarians, as well as less access to technology and other classroom resources.

Their schools become a reflection of how much the city cares about their future.

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35 schools Majority Black or Latinx Majority White

2013 SCHOOL CLOSURES

According to the Voorhees Center For Neighborhood & Community Improvement, based on annual Chicago Public Schools budget data and the CPS 2013 Needs Assessment, “there appears to be geographic disparities in how 20132018 budget appropriations have been made to meet investment needs by ward.” Their map shows us where these disparities are across the city, which, when compared to the demographics of the city, the disparity in funding is aligned to the race of the students across the city. Most students are getting short-changed by the city, but black and brown students are more commonly affected than white students by these gaps in funding.

0%–15% 16%–40% 41%–75% 75% and above (some over 100%)

FACILITIES NEEDS MET BY WARD

Black

Latinx

White

Other

TEACHER DEMOGRAPHICS

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39% Black

DISTRICT COMPOSITION AP COURSE COMPOSITION “GIFTED & TALENTED” OUT-OF-SCHOOL SUSPENSIONS EXPULSIONS

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28%

30%

22%

66%

75%

4% Asian, Pacific Islander or Native Hawaiian 46% Latinx

1% Two or More Races

10% White

46%

16%

8%

2% Other

29%

13%

5% 1%

28%

1%

4% 1% 24%

1%

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ONLY 1 SOCIAL WORKER FOR EVERY 865 STUDENTS

National Association of Social Workers recommends one social worker for every 250 students, and one social worker for every 50 students in schools with high levels of trauma.

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ONLY 25 OF 167 CPS HIGH SCHOOLS HAVE AT LEAST ONE FULL-TIME LIBRARIAN ON STAFF

Chicago Teachers Union reported that in 2015, 75% of majority Black schools didn’t have a librarian, compared to 16% of schools with a less than 50% percent Balck population.

Overlaying a map of Tier 1 areas—those that are ranked lowest by CPS in terms of income, average education level, and other factors— and a map of which districts lack librarians, shows that schools in Tier 1 areas are far more likely to lack librarians.

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CPS STUDENTS WITH A COLLEGE DEGREE 10 YEARS AFTER ENTERING HIGH SCHOOL

Black Men

36

Black Women

Latinx

White Men

White Women

37

This lack of funding not only suppresses the ability of these students to excel in comparison to their white peers, it also sends a message that they are not worth the extra effort.

Unfortunately, this issue largely goes unnoticed by residents that live in areas with better housing options (if not unnoticed, it seems to be unfixable or they have many of their own issues to worry about); even if they don’t have the best house on the block, they are still able to send their kids to schools that benefit from other house’s taxes. And I hear you—it seems like the city has basically just left the meter running on raising property taxes. You already pay so much, how are schools not fully funded by now? There needs to be a redistribution of funds from the city so that students from all corners have an education that supports their future.

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PART 2 Chicago’s Education Landscape: Co-Liberating Chicago’s Youth Part 2 discusses the further effects of inequitable education has on the black and brown communities in Chicago, such as the school-to-prison pipeline. It also details how the district and mayor’s office has stood in the way of improving these conditions, and what the Chicago Teachers Union has marked as ways to amend this wrongdoing. Most important of all, Part 2 will show you, the Chicagoan and voter who loves this city, how you can help shape it into what it ought to be. Reading Part 2, you will know what to look for when you go to the voting booth and you will find out how to connect to and help the community organizations that are already doing their part to make a change.

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Noted References 1

Ewing, Eve L. Ghosts in the Schoolyard : Racism and School Closings on

Chicago’s South Side. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018.

2

WTTW Chicago. “Early Chicago: The Great Migration,” July 6, 2018. https://

interactive.wttw.com/dusable-to-obama/the-great-migration.

3

Todd-Breland, Elizabeth. A Political Education: Black Politics and Education

Reform in Chicago since the 1960s. The University of North Carolina Press, 2018. http://muse.jhu.edu/book/61600.

4

Nelson, Robert K., Justin Madron, and Nathaniel Ayers. “Mapping Inequality.”

Accessed April 13, 2020. https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/.

5

Bogira, Steve. “Separate, Unequal, and Ignored.” Chicago Reader.

Accessed April 13, 2020. https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/ chicago-politics-segregation-african-american-black-white-hispaniclatino-population-census-community/Content?oid=3221712.

6

Belanger, Christian. “All Things Unequal: Highlights From UIC’s Racial

Justice Report.” South Side Weekly, May 16, 2017. https://southsideweekly. com/all-things-unequal-highlights-uic-racial-justice-report/.

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Additional References Ballew, Jonathan. “Overworked Social Workers, Underserved Kids: As CPS Works To Fill 100+ Vacancies, ‘Kids Are Getting Shortchanged,’ Teachers Say.” Block Club Chicago, June 3, 2019. https://blockclubchicago.org/2019/06/03/overworked-social-workers-underserved-kids-ascps-works-to-fill-100-vacancies-kids-are-getting-shortchanged-teachers-say/.

Caref, Carol. “The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve 2.0 | CTU Report.” Chicago Teachers Union (blog), October 26, 2018. https://www.ctulocal1.org/reports/schools-chicagos-studentsdeserve-2.

Communications, Ctu. “Just Two Certified Librarians Left at Virtually All African-American CPS High Schools.” Chicago Teachers Union (blog), December 16, 2015. https://www.ctulocal1.org/ posts/just-two-certified-librarians-left-at-virtually-all-african-american-cps-high-schools/.

CTBA. “For Every Chicago Public School, the Gap between Funding Needs and Reality.” Medium, April 25, 2018. https://budgetblog.ctbaonline.org/for-every-chicago-public-school-the-gapbetween-funding-needs-and-reality-44680cfa0c8d.

Eanes, Jessica. “History Is Now.” South Side Weekly, November 5, 2019. https://southsideweekly. com/history-is-now-book-black-politics-education-reform/.

Groeger, Lena V., Annie Waldman, and David Eads. “Miseducation.” ProPublica. Accessed April 15, 2020. https://projects.propublica.org/miseducation/district/1709930.

Joravsky, Ben. “Funding Schools with Property Taxes Hurts Chicago Students.” Chicago Reader,

July 6, 2016. https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/rauner-winnetka-property-taxes-schoolfunding-cps/Content?oid=22750373.

Karp, Sarah, and Paula Friedrich. “Explore Where CTU And CPS Landed On Key Contract Issues.”

WBEZ Chicago, August 16, 2019. https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-teachers-are-ready-tostrike-explore-the-issues/0d540643-d714-4186-bc8e-566c6fbea158.

LI, Anne. “School Librarians, Shelved.” South Side Weekly, November 16, 2016. https:// southsideweekly.com/school-librarians-shelved/.

Moreno, Nereida. “Information Literacy Lost: Most CPS Schools No Longer Have Librarians.” chicagotribune.com, September 4, 2017. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-cpslibrarian-cuts-met-20170902-story.html.

Wozencraft, Jeffrey, Jessica Kursman, and Nick Zettel. “Proposed CPS Budget Reveals Geographic Disparities in Investment.” The Voorhees Center for Neighborhood & Community Improvement (blog), July 25, 2018. https://voorheescenter.wordpress.com/2018/07/25/proposed-cpsbudget-reveals-geographic-disparities-in-investment/.

Yorio, Kara. “Chicago Teachers Strike Spotlights School Librarians.” School Library Journal, October 23, 2019. https://www.slj.com?detailStory=chicago-teachers-strike-spotlights-schoollibrarians.

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