Chicago Teachers Union rally following three days of marching through the communities on the South and West sides of Chicago where the Mayor has decided to close 54 public schools.
Chicago Teachers Union ctunet.org
The speakers address why they are opposed to the closings and repeatedly demand funding for their existing programs to bring them up to the level of that being directed into the new downtown urban communities that cater to more affluent residents.
The disruption of the students education and the community cohesiveness where the schools are located fits with a larger long term plan to move poor people of color out of Chicago and into certain collar suburbs, allowing developers and banks to gain access to land whose value has risen dramatically over the past fifty years. The metric behind the World Business Chicago Plan for Economic Growth and Jobs, which the Mayor endorses, is that there is no place for poor people, especially of color, in Chicago and so there is no need to fund their needs or their childrens'. Parents, teachers and students in the communities are not about to let it happen with out a fight back. On of the speakers identifies what the Mayor is initiating as child abuse. The Chicago Board of Education will announce their decision on Wednesday May 22, 2013, but while they will move their lips, it will be Rahm Emanuel speaking.