The Chicago School closings are part and parcel of a strategy
for remaking the American metropolis as a center for spatial and
economic transformations which will further cement economic inequality.
One key component of this
strategy is demographic inversion-
moving the poor out of the center city into the periphery, where they
will no longer be able to physically or politically threaten the global
elites who will be working and playing in the redeveloped Center. This
process is already well under way in cities like New York, Chicago,
Washington and Milwaukee- with the result being that more poor people
now live in suburbs than in cities- but for poor people who remain in
cities, the elite's preferred strategy is intrusive, "stop and frisk"
policing and the transformation of public schools into sites of
draconian discipline where compliance and obedience are the preferred
behaviors, strategies taken to the highest point of perfection by some
of the nation's most celebrated charter schools.
Where do
school closings fit in this elaborate strategy to scatter and
neutralize the poor? Public schools in poor neighborhoods, even those
whose test scores mark them as "failing," are important centers of
community life, places where different generations of people interact
and mark their connection to historical space. They contain memories of
families raised, community arts forms celebrated, sports victories won,
powerful friendships forged. If you ignore those experiences and reduce
the school to its failures, you erase a communities history and make
that community easier to divide and disperse
Underlying
School Closings is a world view which marks off residents of poor
communities, not just the schools in them as failures, people who have
to be dispersed, incarcerated, disciplined and divided for the Global
Metropolis to prosper
It reveals the profound moral
bankruptcy and cynicism pervading neo-liberal economic policies, whether
they have a Democratic or Republican facade
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