Re: [Village Post] Attn: Support the Whittier Parents in CHicago
Ora Uzel
If their bid to stop the bulldozers fail, they might be looking for locations for some of their meetings...
Just advocating that you read more into this. As Louis said, there might be a possibility our community could be of help. Like him however, I'm also out of town... :-\
I'm out of town however, this caught my attention Perhaps we could be of help..
Louis b that's...
:_mE
3One2. 8OneZero -8Zero28
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lumpen/C-PS/Version/ETC.. <edmar...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 11:47 AM
Subject: Support the Whittier Parents in CHicago
To: another...@gmail.comHey all. many of you miay be aware of the parents that are occupying a clubhouse building in Pilsen. They are asking for support. The Whittier School occupation is at corner of damen and 23rd st. If you have time please stop by and lend a pair of hands.
In the meantime please sign the online petition linked to below..l\-e
Solidarity Statement:
The Whittier Parents' Committee is staging a sit-in to fight against the demolition of the Whittier Dual Language School’s field house (la Casita), in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. The sit-in has been widely reported as the struggle of a community against the blind austerity cuts instituted by a cash-strapped school board. But in fact this struggle brings to light larger and more contentious issues in Chicago and nationally: control over Tax Increment Funding and the top-down reshaping of public education.
The Whittier Parents’ Committee has been organizing for seven years to push Pilsen alderman Daniel Solis to allocate some of the estimated $1 billion in Mayor Daley’s TIF coffers to their school for a school expansion – he finally agreed to give $1.4million of TIF funds for school renovation. Cynically, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has earmarked a part of this money for the destruction of the school’s field house, which has been used for years as a center for community organizing and services. This would directly undermine the ability of the Whittier community to organize and struggle for educational rights. Parents are demanding to be part of the decision-making process.
CPS has been conducting an extreme makeover of public education: privatization, demolitions, school closures and turnarounds, massive firings of seasoned teachers have been part of the large-scale redesign of public education. Public funds are being used to renovate schools that are privatized, while low income neighborhood schools are being starved of the most basic resources. The fight over the survival of this little field house is an important one in the larger struggles around educational rights, community self-determination and control over public land and institutions.
The undersigned organizations support the demands of the Whittier Parents’ Committee!
1. Do not demolish the field house – use the same $354,000 allocated to demolish the field house to remodel the building and expand the programs offered, including a school library
2. Work with parents and the local community instead of imposing a top-down vision for the school
please also sign the online petition here
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/whittier/petition.html
Moratorium on Deportations Campaign, Chicago
Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators (CORE)
Teachers for Social Justice
Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign
ChicagOtra
Centro Communitario Juan Diego
Southside Together Organizing for Justice (STOP)
International Socialist Organization, Chicago
Community Education Task Force (Rocheser, NY)
Public Education Justice Alliance of Minnesota (PEJAM)
Arab American Action Network (AAAN)
Biblioteca Popular del Barrio
ANSWER Coalition
Mess Hall
Venus Collective
Blocks Together
Mexico Solidarity Network
Project NIA