Tonight's Forum: Chicago School Reform!!!

Tonight's Forum was great! I really enjoyed being in the midst of this passion and energy that fueled the speakers, as well as, the audience. From the start, Kevin caught my attention as he compared the school system to a competitive children's 'water cup' game. The questions that arose were: Why are we losing? Who made the rules of this game, or in our case, this system? What's the story we tell the losers to make them keep playing the game? -But rather than adequately exploring these questions, we ask how can we fix the losers? The system is analyzing the end results rather than looking into their initiating causes.

So many good points were raised, but I'll start by just reflecting on those that left a deep impression on me. During the discussion of vision 1, it was stated that studies showed a strong correlation between test scores and income. Although I agree with these findings, they also only analyze the end result. Poverty itself is not causing low test scores, but the hardships that live within it: not getting adequate sleep, not eating enough/healthy, underfunded schools in the district, not enough/quality school supplies, often less motivated or qualified teachers, more violence and drug distractions, less parent involvement due to more time spent at work and or other reasons, less curricular programs/activities and aid, and the list goes on. Certainly all these aspects are not the case for every child living within a low income family, but there’s no doubt that at least half of them are.

I'll end with Jitu Brown's fitting quote, "School of choice is a coward’s way of saying the school system is still not equal!" -couldn't have said it better.