Chicago’s public school system is still facing major problems more than just air conditioning in schools. It’s the under-enrollment of Black students, racism, and lack of education.
No Air
The lack of air conditioning in schools when Chicago is facing a heat wave when children are attending school is showing neglect toward the children’s learning environment. With the temperatures peaking at 110 degrees, the only solutions towards this issue is opening windows and doors within the classroom, using window AC units in hopes that the heat wave passes quickly. Rather than finding more permanent solutions to ensure this doesn’t happen again. The main cause of this setback is the district buildings having old infrastructure.
But air conditioning is a minute issue compared to the other issues within the Chicago Public School system.
Under-Enrollment in the CPS Classrooms
There has been a major decline within the enrollment of Black students in CPS for an entire decade. From 2013 to today, the amount of bodies continues to dwindle due to the fact that many of the city’s Black residents are moving. As well as the closures of schools throughout the city, over 300 schools have low student count. The main cause? Students feeling undervalued and not seen.
“We’ve been doing research on CPS’ enrollment and what we’ve seen is that there are schools who are in low-income communities, schools that are disproportionately Black that have low enrollment,” says Black Community Collaborative founder and CEO Natasha Dunn. And the reason? Students who have applied to schools in their area, are denied admission.
Thousands of these students even have the proper credentials yet are still getting rejections. This as a result causes students to travel far from their homes in order to go to school. Dunn also stated, “Some of the enrollment issues are predicated on the fact that CPS is just not really following that protocol in terms of monitoring schools that are under-enrolled or underutilized.”
These decisions that are being made are dismissing and ignoring Chicago’s Black student body.
Lack of Safety with a Hint of Racism
Ensuring the well-being of these children doesn’t stop at just stop at home and the outside world. It’s also what goes on within the school walls. Many parents have concerns with the treatment and teaching of their children. For example, mother, Nicole Collins, who is a parent leader with the Community Organizing and Family Issues/POWER PAC IL has two children both attending schools with a high Latino student body.
Collins’ daughter, a fourth grader, deals with racist taunts from her peers, as well as having her classes being in Spanish; excluding her from her lessons. There will be instances where her daughter goes to ask for more clarity on the lesson. Her teacher promising to help her another time but never following through.
Collins’ son, attending Chicago Bulls College Prep, was feeling unsafe both inside and outside of school. While attending Chicago Bulls College Prep, his school received bomb threats, and had constant fights. Giving him an unsafe learning environment. Then on his way home, Collins’ son is harassed by Latino gang members solely because of him being African American. No child should experience these types of things just because of the color of their skin.
Students Falling Short in School
Another major problem amongst our students is performing low in academics. Many Black students are falling short in math, reading, and science. This issue has been going on before the pandemic, worsening afterward. According to statistics, 75% of at low-performing elementary schools failed to meet standards on the state exam. The high schoolers’ rate were even worse, Half of the more than 5,000 students scored in the lowest category for math on the state exam indicating that they can only do basic mathematics.
Low performance always ties into the learning environment. If the learning environment is not valuing and helping the students in the way they need to be, the consequences will continue to be failure. CPS has to start taking into account how critical this is for our children and their futures.
Written by Saniya Fields
Sources:
Illinois Policy: Trapped in Chicago’s Worst Schools: Education Outcomes in Chicago’s Lowest-Performing Schools by Illinois Policy
Illinois Policy: Chicago Public Schools Hit Record Graduation Rate as Math, Reading Scores Drop by Hannah Schmid
WTTW News: Black Students Face Continuing Challenges in Chicago Public Schools by Erica Gunderson
Chicago Sun-Times: Problems in CPS go far beyond a lack of air conditioning by Letters to the Editor
Top and featured image Courtesy of Colin Davis’ Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Inset image Courtesy of David Schott’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
