By Steve Rhodes
From Linda Lutton’s Facebook page:
“Michelle Obama is stopping by Harper High School today!! I can’t get press credentials to go, and neither can Alex Kotlowitz.”
Lutton and Kotlowitz, of course, were reporters on the WBEZ project that brought Harper High to the nation’s attention.
“Just the White House press pool and some preselected local reporters,” Lutton writes.
She’s not mad about it, but I am.
The chosen few should go to bat for their colleagues, whose work inspired the visit.
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On the other hand, I’d be damn proud not be a preselected reporter.
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P.S.: Let’s hope this visit goes better than the last one.
CPS: Creating Phony Statistics
“Just how many students will see their lives changed by the proposed Chicago school shake-ups? Way more than ‘over 30,000,’ the number CPS officials say will be affected by proposed school mergers this summer,” the Sun-Times says in an editorial, citing a UIC analysis.
The number, it turns out, is more like 47,500.
Has CPS made a claim yet supported by the facts?
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“Increasingly, we are convinced that there are schools on the closure list that don’t even belong there,” the Sun-Times says.
“Last week, for example, we profiled Garvey, a beloved Washington Heights school that puts nearly every room to good use in its supposedly under-used building and, on raw test scores, outperforms the school that is to absorb it.”
Garvey isn’t the only school that fits that profile, as has now been amply documented by local reporters as well as organizations/sites/partnerships such as Raise Your Hand, Apples2Apples, Every School Is My School and School Cuts.
“Other mistakes are coming to light as more complete pictures of schools emerge – far more complete pictures than what CPS has put out,” the Sun-Times says.
“In its sales pitch for closing specific schools, CPS often deliberately paints an incomplete picture.”
Welcome to the party.
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Here’s yet another one:
Last night WTTW held an online “chat” about the district’s plan to ensure safety to students traveling to new schools.
Becky Carroll, $165,000-a-year communications chief for CPS, typed this:
“Regarding Aldermen Fioretti’s claim on walks: On average students will walk less than 2 blocks more to their welcoming school then they currently walk to their existing school.”
Simply not true.
“Using Mapquest, Catalyst also analyzed the walking distances between the closing and receiving schools. Twenty-nine of the 54 schools are more than half a mile apart. Nine are more than 0.8 miles apart – the length at which busing will kick in.
“The nine schools are Bethune, Bontemps, King, Overton, Lawrence, Canter, Kohn, Ericson and Trumbull.
“There’s a big caveat about busing, however: Transportation is only guaranteed to the children who are currently at closing schools, not future students who will be assigned to the receiving schools from the old attendance areas of the closing schools.”
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Michelle Obama, by the way, is in town in part to help Rahm Emanuel’s private-sector anti-violence initiative.
“Emanuel said he’s arranged for public accounting of the effort,” Crain’s reports.
“I’ve asked the University of Chicago to help evaluate their impact,” he said. “We want some real academic vigor.”
That’s funny; why would he start now?
The Toppling
How The Media Inflated The Fall Of Saddam’s Statue.
Breastaurants Are A Thing
In The Random Food Report.
Upton vs. Upton
In Fantasy Fix.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Rigorous.
Posted on April 10, 2013