Always on the Run: School Creation and Community Struggle in Perpetuity

• In Event: In and Out: Exploring the Role of Participatory Action Research in Classroom and Community Contexts

Abstract

The proposed presentation is situated in Ayers’ assertion that justice-centered struggles for education occur in perpetually contested spaces (Ayers, Ayers and Westheimer, 2010). In relation to the Greater Lawndale High School for Social Justice (SOJO), the complex, moving pieces (personnel and policy) that comprise CPS central administration creates an instance where the school is continually at the whim of neoliberal sentiment largely through standards-based school reform and budget cuts. Framed explicitly in the work of the Collaborative for Equity and Justice (CEJE) and the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), Chicago has been in a process of perpetuating the “three D’s” of corporate school reform: disenfranchisement, disinvestment, and destabilization (CEJE & KOCO, 2012). Particular to SOJO is the “D” of destabilization, as it was the primary processes CPS uses to cater to the whims of their corporate and charter collaborators. Although intimately connected to disenfranchisement and disinvestment occurring throughout the city with other schools serving low-income/working class students of color, SOJO’s story is significant to the larger narrative of neighborhood school destabilization one in a hyper-segregated, politically-charged city.

Relevant to the larger political economy of the city, the events at SOJO from the spring semester of 2010 to the summer of 2013 are of particular significance. Placing the events in context, Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Participatory Action Research (PAR) are used to frame struggle, resistance, and victory at SOJO. Because SOJO is a neighborhood public school that serves less than 400 students, the city’s claim of budget shortfalls ranging between $700-800 million often deems the school “too expensive” to operate. Despite the fact that public dollars are ciphered away from CPS’ budget to fund the new bevy of charter and contract schools, neighborhood public schools often bear the brunt of budget shortfalls. Coupled with the fact that SOJO shares the building with three other schools, CPS has continually argued that a more cost-effective arrangement would be a consolidation of the four schools into one comprehensive high school. Having four separate principals and staff is deemed too expensive for a group of students that collectively would compose a medium sized comprehensive high school in Chicago (1600 students). Contributing to the rationale for consolidation is fluctuating test score performance that sometimes may not meet CPS’ requirements for annual yearly progress. Gatekeeping strategies in this mode create yet another set of pressures on the students, families, teachers, and administrators. In Chicago, if a school has a history of declining test scores, it is placed on probation. If a school is on probation for more than three years, the Board of Education (under the guise of CPS’s CEO with final approval from the Mayor’s office) could choose to close the school or subject it to “turnaround,” where all the staff is fired and invited to re-apply (Morales-Doyle, 2013). Discussed in detail throughout the paper, the rhetoric of underutilization has further complicated matters as the district has moved to close 49 schools.

Author

• David O. Stovall, University of Illinois at Chicago