Our Failing Public Schools
This was the headline in The New York Times: “Rate of Killings Rises 38 Percent in Chicago in 2012.” My son had just graduated from one of the selective high schools in Chicago and my main thought was, “Get him away from this city.” He had had a largely idyllic childhood in Chicago Public Schools but there was a concrete sense that Chicago was entering the summer in a dangerous state, gangs, guns and random shootings. The history of education in this country included this court ruling, “In 1954, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. "Racially segregated schools," the Court concluded, are "inherently unequal." The Court found support for its decision in studies that indicated that minority students learn better in racially mixed classrooms.”
“You better be better than everybody else.”
photo by Moren Hsu
My advanced placement (AP) English classes were almost entirely white in an urban school that was fifty-six percent African American. Two of the Black students from these classes volunteered to address 8th graders who were entering the high school to tell them how cool it was to be in AP. Although they were enthusiastic, they were also honest. “Most of our teachers don’t care about us,” they said. “So, you have to be better than everybody else.” As we walked back to the high school I apologized, and they shrugged. “Don’t stress, Ms. M. You’re cool.” That was a nice thing to hear but the pervasive nature of low expectations and unconscious bias based on racial identity created pressure the other students did not feel.
The following is a piece I wrote for The Huffington Post in 2012 after Chicago was identified as the most violent city in America. Very little has changed. Over one hundred people were shot over Father's Day weekend 2020 and fourteen died.
Chicago Is Failing Half Its Population: The Young Are the Victims. Originally posted 09/06/2012, Updated Dec 06, 2017.
As I watched my son and his classmates graduate last June at the gorgeous auditorium theater in downtown Chicago, I realized how incredibly lucky we had been in our experiences with Chicago Public Schools and, selfishly, I was relieved Luke was finished. During the years he spent in the system, he experienced almost nothing but happy situations, caring teachers, motivated classmates, supportive administrators and kind security guards who knew who he was and referred to him as, “Our Lukey.” Luke’s success was, however, also a result of his being motivated, personable, white and living in a neighborhood that ensured his acceptance at one of the best elementary and middle-schools in the city which then ensured his matriculation from one of the top magnet high schools. In other words, we are very grateful but we also know our experience isn’t the norm and as the schools deteriorate, despite our mayor’s stated efforts to help them by by extending the school day, and closing 50 neighborhood schools which further damages families on the south and west sides, I believe we have pulled the ladder up.
Last year I took Luke to see the film The Interrupters, which documents the work of a group of ex-criminals working with Ceasefire, an organization dedicated with eliminating crime in some of Chicago’s worst neighborhoods. It is a stunning piece of work, controversial in that there are questions about whether some of the organizers have returned to their criminal ways, but its message is clear: the city of Chicago is failing half its population and the young are the victims. Sitting in the darkened movie theater, I heard someone sniffling and realized my son — my tough, nearly legally adult son, was crying. On the way home he said this. “Mom, I can’t believe I live in the same city. It’s like an entirely different world. It’s not fair.”
No, it’s not fair. Yes, I’m very grateful to the teachers who cherished my boy into becoming a freshman at the University of Illinois, fully prepared for college-level challenges. But I want to drop the ladder back down and help every child, support every teacher, encourage every parent and remind our mayor that no one deserves the salaries he is paying the administrators when half the children live through hell just trying to go to school.
—Molly Moynahan, author and writing coach