Support Neighborhood Public Schools

August 26, 2013 7:05 PM

While students return to class today, Tribune photojournalist Brian Cassella visits the buildings that sit empty after being shut down by the Chicago Public Schools. More on CPS closings on metafilter here and here.
posted by dinty_moore (22 comments total)

A few years ago our local Brunswick public library temporarily relocated to an unused school building while they built a new building. I didn't really want to visit it because I found it incredibly sad. The thing that crystallized it all for me is the room that used to be the school cafeteria. There were these happy animals painted on the wall, there to help liven up the place for the kids who were eating. But there were no kids eating, and probably never will be again. I found it intensely depressing.
posted by JHarris at 7:11 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

"West Pullman Elementary, 11941 S Parnell Ave in West Pullman. Opened 1894, closed 2013. #cpsgone There are two historic Works Progress Administration murals in the auditorium."

Cripes. I know it's only one small issue among many more important ones in this story, but I hope if this beautiful building doesn't get used again soon they can get some architectural salvage going.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:12 PM on August 26, 2013 [4 favorites]

Does every picture have to have the post apocalyptic filter over it? It has been blazingly sunny here the last several days.

Also, that's pretty much what the actively open schools in my neighborhood look like inside, except with more kids, and you can see more of the dirt because in real life the sun is shining.
posted by phunniemee at 7:13 PM on August 26, 2013 [3 favorites]

Chi Raq by Will Robson-Scott
posted by Ad hominem at 7:15 PM on August 26, 2013

It's difficult to comment on this. The images reflect the desolation of the buildings and the absence of children, sort of the future of education in this country.
posted by HuronBob at 7:16 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

THANK          YOU
FOR          A
GOOD          YEAR


Oh, these are heartbreaking.
posted by JHarris at 7:17 PM on August 26, 2013 [3 favorites]

The things I noticed where who the buildings are named after, who is painted on the walls, how many of them are (or were) magnet schools. I recognize a lot of the addresses, but even if you didn't - the same neighborhoods appear again and again. I have a really hard time thinking about this without getting sad and angry, which is par for the course about me thinking about the south side.

Yeah, they look a lot like other CPS school buildings, with fewer students. That's kind of the point? They haven't been abandoned very long.

There's a lot of empty buildings in these neighborhoods. I really don't think they need any more.

RE: the WPA art in West Pullman - that elementary school isn't all that far from the ruins of the Pullman Factory, a grand old Victorian complex that was burned down by a mentally ill homeless person in the mid 90's. There's a lot of victorian rowhouses and works of public art in the area, and while there's some preservation, there's not enough to go around. (My elementary school was Poe, at 106th and Cottage Grove) It's possible that they might get saved, but I sort of doubt it.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:37 PM on August 26, 2013 [5 favorites]

Yeeeaahh...this isn't the 70's. This is now. The antique filter has got to go. It's doing the story a grave disservice to make it seem as if this were happening 40 years ago.
posted by sexyrobot at 7:39 PM on August 26, 2013 [9 favorites]

I got called by one of those phone polls where they asked me how I think Rahm is doing and what I thought of the school closures. I wish I knew enough about it at that time to be able to call them racist and short-sighted.
posted by bleep at 7:43 PM on August 26, 2013

The thing is the school closures are not in the themselves racist. The white flight from CPS is what is racist. The consequence of that is that when the state government and city council jointly conspired to steal public school pension funds over the last decade or so the oh so blandly labelled 'budget shortfall' required closing schools that had to disproportionately affect minorities and the poor because that is almost all that is left in CPS.

Of course you probably shouldn't ask who were the recipients of the funds that the city and the state used to be required to contribute to the CPS pensions but instead put elsewhere after 'fixing' the laws.
posted by srboisvert at 8:03 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

@srboisvert Are you saying that taking your white children out of CPS is racist? I'd like to understand that better, if you are saying that.
posted by zerobyproxy at 8:31 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

the state government and city council jointly conspired to steal public school pension funds

You have just accused several hundred people of perpetrating a criminal conspiracy while just assuming we would all accept that as true, because hey, it's Illinois and Chicago. I am not saying you are wrong, just that an extraordinary claim requires solid evidence to support it, which you have not provided; just some histrionics. Are you referring to TIF abuses, or something else?
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 9:29 PM on August 26, 2013

It wasn't a criminal conspiracy in the ordinary sense. Just in the moral sense. There was a legal requirement that the CPS pension be funded. The state legislature and the city council changed the law and subsequently underfunded the pension and used the money for other things mostly in other parts of the city.

Now there is this drama about fixing the manufactured deficit by savaging the school and the CPS employees that is presented as some sort of CPS mismanagement or runaway gold plated pension scenario.

@srboisvert Are you saying that taking your white children out of CPS is racist? I'd like to understand that better, if you are saying that.

Sorry I probably should have said 'structurally racist'
posted by srboisvert at 9:39 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

It wasn't a criminal conspiracy in the ordinary sense. Just in the moral sense. There was a legal requirement that the CPS pension be funded. The state legislature and the city council changed the law and subsequently underfunded the pension and used the money for other things mostly in other parts of the city.

That is much closer, but please provide citations or links to articles explaining all this ... how did YOU learn all these facts? Please share. I'm not saying you can't or trying to "burn" you here; I assume you can.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 9:52 PM on August 26, 2013

Set the record straight on teachers pension fund problems
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:33 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

“Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.” - Twain
posted by mullingitover at 12:18 AM on August 27, 2013 [5 favorites]

Certainly closes the door on generations of Chicago culture, and the horrible lens filter loses the effect that these are all being shuttered at the same now time.
posted by buzzman at 4:19 AM on August 27, 2013

The photo filters make it seem like its an attempt at pretending the disuse has been for a generation or so. It seems dishonest.

These school closings seem to be a lot more intricate than currently reported by either side. It costs a lot of money to use a building that's half empty. Of all the line items in a district's budget, I'd place maintaining additional old buildings below things like compensating staff, technology purchases, and other supplies. Radically changing neighborhoods is obviously not a good thing (my district may be a year from a similar overhaul), but its only one consideration in the puzzle.
posted by lownote at 5:51 AM on August 27, 2013

Does anyone actually believe that the money saved by closing these schools is going to technology purchases or teachers within the Chicago Public School system? I can understand it’s difficult, and I can understand that there have been a lot of changes in these neighborhoods in the last decade or two, but the way that this has been done has been either incredibly careless in regards to the student’s needs, vindictive towards the teachers, or both. If they had to close them, there must have been a better way to go around it.
posted by dinty_moore at 6:12 AM on August 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

You have just accused several hundred people of perpetrating a criminal conspiracy while just assuming we would all accept that as true, because hey, it's Illinois and Chicago. I am not saying you are wrong, just that an extraordinary claim requires solid evidence to support it, which you have not provided; just some histrionics. Are you referring to TIF abuses, or something else?

Look into the term 'pension holiday'. Basically, the state and city governments collaborated with CPS management and simply didn't make the full payments to the pension fund for more than a decade. They deferred over a billion dollars and now those payments are due.

So they starved a system for 10 years and are now proposing the solution is for it to go on a severe diet.
posted by srboisvert at 6:38 AM on August 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

I really wish there were laws surrounding the responsible abandonment of large structures. Okay, you don’t need the property anymore. You’re never, ever going to use it again. There’s no way to repurpose it and there’s no historic value. Guess what? You’re still responsible for demolishing the building or otherwise decommissioning it. Yes, it’s expensive, but abandoned property in high-crime neighborhoods is dangerous and irresponsible. People act like it’s just a cosmetic blight, but abandoned property is incredibly difficult to police. Right now, it seems like we value the cost of demolition higher than the safety of those in the neighborhood.
posted by dinty_moore at 6:49 AM on August 27, 2013 [3 favorites]

Dude, isn't instagram photography for the Sun Times, not the Trib?
posted by klangklangston at 2:54 PM on August 27, 2013