Judge rules Chicago public school districts can close 50 schools

An Illinois federal judge ruled Wednesday that Chicago public school districts can proceed with a planned closure of 50 area schools after rejecting a request by parents and teachers to keep 10 elementary schools open. Local critics argue that the closures are fraught with racism.

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court arguing that the district ignored the recommendations of independent hearing officers it appointed. Those hearing officers had expressed concerns about the closing of 50 public schools in the Chicago area.

However, Judge Thomas Allen ruled that the state legislature never specified the hearing officers had binding authority over school closure decisions.

Parents, backed by the CTU, also filed lawsuits in separate class-action cases recently heard in federal court. They asked Judge John Z. Lee to delay the closures for one year, arguing that black and disabled students will be unfairly affected by the closures.

In response to Wednesday’s ruling, CTU president Karen Lewis released a statement expressing disappointment that “the radical experiment that is being conducted on a great number of Chicago’s children by the mayor’s office and the Board of Education [will] continue.”

She added: “The district wrote the rules regarding the power given to the hearing officers, and when the officers’ decisions weren’t to their liking, CPS [Chicago Public Schools] broke its own rules in overturning those decisions and voting to close 50 schools. Under Illinois School Code, the officers’ ruling should have been final.”

The parents’ lawsuit contended that black children make up roughly 88 percent of students affected, although they comprise 42 percent of district students.

Ginger Ostro , budget director of Chicago Public Schools, told Judge Lee last week that a $1 billion deficit in the next fiscal year loomed over the district as it deliberated over its closing plans, which were approved in May.

The closings would save $40 million, which could be used to improve education for displaced students at their new schools. The district would spend tens of million more on schools taking those students, Ostro said.

Critics say talk of budgetary savings by city and schools officials is misleading, leaving the impression that the closures will help address the yawning budget deficit. Pressed under cross-examination last Thursday, Ostro conceded that the closures weren't designed to fix the financial mess facing the schools.

"It's not primarily a budget-deficit initiative," she said about the closings. Instead, the aim was to "better focus our resources rather than spread them thinly across."

Adam Anderson, a Chicago Public Schools planning official, testified earlier Thursday that what guided the district as it decided what schools would be closed was how much classroom space wasn't being used.

A complex "utilization equation" was employed in the process, and the district found there were some 500,000 available classroom seats for 400,000 students, leaving 100,000 seats unused, Anderson said.

Enrollment has fallen over the years with a corresponding decrease in population in African-American areas, which is why so many of the schools that ended up on the closure list were in predominantly black neighborhoods, Anderson said.

One of the lawsuits, however, argues that the consequences have a racial element, saying "white children ... have been almost universally insulated from the negative educational consequences of school closings."

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press