On Friday, Mayor Lightfoot held a press conference to pat herself on the back for Chicago’s graduation rate.
So in honor of Labor Day, allow me to give credit to the people who actually had something to do with whatever successes CPS can claim—the teachers, principals, teachers’ aides, coaches, clerks, lunchroom supervisors, janitors, and anyone else who actually, you know, does the labor.
When it comes to school myths in Chicago, the narrative is positively biblical, taken straight from the Book of Genesis.
In reality, not all that much has changed about CPS since I moved here back in the early 1980s.
In reality, there were great schools in Chicago, educating great kids, long before Daley took office. I’m thinking of Karen Lewis, Andrew Patner, Chaka Khan, Nazr Mohammed, Mandy Patinkin, and Judge Mary Mikva—all graduates or attendees of mighty Kenwood High. Not sure why I’ve got the Broncos on my mind—every school in Chicago has similar stories, which have nothing, nothing, nothing to do with the mayor.
To confront that challenge requires an expenditure of money that the Bennetts of the world would rather keep for themselves.
