Monday, June 22, 2009
Arne Duncan
The Obama administration, led by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, wants to turn around thousands of low-performing schools across the United States using a plan utilized in Chicago when Duncan was the head of that city’s public schools. The Chicago plan, however, has produced an angry backlash among thousands of African-American teachers who lost their jobs as part of Duncan’s program. The Duncan Chicago plan, known as Renaissance 2010, forced out many veteran teachers and replaced them with younger, cheaper and predominantly Caucasian instructors, according to critics.
Renaissance 2010 was first implemented in the Windy City in 2002, forcing the closure and reorganization of many schools in poor neighborhoods. Many of the fired teachers banded together into a new organization, the Caucus of Rank & File Educators (CORE), to point out the injustices of Renaissance 2010. For instance, CORE found that the proportion of African American instructors in Chicago public schools has dropped from 39% to 32%. In response to this situation, CORE has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that the school reform program is discriminatory
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Teachers File Racial Discrimination Suit Against Obama Administration's School “Turnaround” Plan (by Bruce Dixon, Black Agenda Report)
Complaint: Renaissance 2010 Hiring Racially Biased (by Angela Caputo, Progress Illinois)
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