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Reopening
of schools for the nation’s poor students of color remains a
crisis in our nation’s urban areas. The overall claim from the
Center for Disease Control (CDC) - “…
that
schools are generally safe
for
student attendance with the proper mitigation” -
continues to be purveyed as sufficient to start in-person schooling
on a broad scale.
The
CDC recommendation, recognized as the gold standard for public health
guidance, is the mantra of White political and corporate powerbrokers
even as the COVID-19 pandemic rages from coast to coast. They assume
that the proper protocols of building ventilation, small class sizes,
social distancing, mask wearing, hand washing, and access to
disinfectants are widely available in all school settings.
But
more informative field surveys reveal that, over time, the physical
structures were allowed to decay as student populations of schools in
many urban areas became poorer and more of color. Conversations with
professional engineers contracted to rehab these schools confirm that
the mitigation cavalierly suggested by the CDC cannot be done quickly
or cheaply.
Thus,
the ease of ventilation retrofitting that will make the schools safe
for students and school staff is a hoax, or as the 45th U.S.
President would say - “fake
news.”
Teachers,
counselors, nurses, administrators, and educational support personnel
(paraprofessionals, bus drivers, custodians, building engineers,
school secretaries, security guards, food service workers, etc.) are
expected to fall in line behind the dictates of those with power as
has been the case with essential workers such as those in the
meatpacking industry where infections and deaths are skyrocketing.
In
both instances, workers who refuse to report are threatened with wage
sanctions, suspensions, and terminations. Teacher unions, in
particular, get tagged as villains for advocating for the health and
safety of their members and their students. In Chicago, Democratic
Mayor Lori Lightfoot was taking a hard line as she caters to
interests of White parents and White corporate and political leaders
who want the schools reopened for in-person education, yesterday.
More
than half of African American and Latinx and other parents of color,
whose children make up the overwhelming majority of the district’s
students (except for those who have children with disabilities) are
opting for remote instruction. This is also true in other large urban
school districts, e.g., Milwaukee, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., New
York, Los Angeles, and a host of small- and medium-sized systems.
The
Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has drawn a line in the sand, refusing
to roll over for Mayor Lightfoot, who has developed a pattern of
lying to the constituencies of color who powered her to victory
through a crowded primary field in her first run for political office
in 2019. She promised to push for an elected school board, continue
her crusade against police brutality, which is the basis of her rise
to political prominence, and to be attentive to the needs of the
poor.
After
her election, she held on to her power to appoint the school board
and the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools and filled the positions
with flunkies and cronies. She is assuming a “strong woman”
persona much like that of her male predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, who ran
roughshod over teachers and the broader community during his two
terms in office until the recently deceased former CTU President,
Karen Lewis, pinned his political ears to the wall in 2012.
At
that time, the CTU was negotiating its contract with Mayor Emanuel,
who has a serious “little man” complex and a reputation
for being profane and hard charging while serving in the Clinton
White House, Congress, and as President Obama’s first Chief of
Staff.
In
a tense meeting with Ms. Lewis, who was bargaining for more school
social workers, nurses, smaller class sizes, a moratorium on school
closures in Black communities, salary
increases for her members, and
the removal of the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, Dr. Jean-Claude
Brizard, who at Emanuel’s direction, was working overtime to
privatize the public schools, Emanuel
refused to negotiate and referred to her using the B….
word.
Subsequently,
in September, weeks before the 2012 presidential election, Lewis led
Chicago teachers’ on their first strike in a quarter century.
Backed by students’ parents, the union set up classes in
churches and other community facilities to continue instruction.
After seven days, Emanuel capitulated on all demands.
Teacher
unions from across the country and AFL-CIO affiliates from
battleground states organized to send massive busloads of teachers
and other union members to Chicago to stand in solidarity with the
CTU. Then, President Obama was promoting a pro-charter school policy
at the national level through his Race To The Top (RTTT) legislation.
Since
teachers and other union members were key election volunteers in
terms of door knocking, phone banks, political mailings, and
literature drops in his campaign, Obama could not afford to have them
unavailable during the last month of the race so he called Emanuel
and asked him to settle the strike.
Like
her predecessor, Mayor Lightfoot has revised her requirement for
teachers’ return to in-person teaching demonstrating a
willingness to compromise rather than to decree a mayor-centric
approach. She is beginning to recognize that she can ill-afford to
alienate the teacher union and its allies who are a major part of her
political base.
Negotiations
to revive in-person school attendance produced results that focus on
the needs of teachers and students alike, including staggering
student returns and speeding up and monitoring vaccinations and
testing. Watching these and other conflicts over the reopening of
schools throughout the nation, President Biden has also relaxed his
100 day deadline for in-person instruction.
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