Inner-City Schools Shut Down as Middle Fiddles

Posted by Jack Stephens | May 1st, 2008 | Crossposted from The Blog and the Bullet

Barbara at WIMN’s Voics blogs:

The story of thousands of schoolchildren without a library and books should be front-page news. Since when did sending inner-city children to bigger schools become a positive educational step in a city concerned with high dropout rates? The story of established neighborhood schools – with acceptable school rankings – closing their doors for lack of enrollment should be a reason for investigative stories by the media. The community should be outraged, right?

Not in San Antonio. Who’s going to tell this story? Here, one Hearst chain newspaper, the San Antonio Express-News is blitzing its ads on the front page as it seeks even more profits. Corporations, according to Jimenez Reyes, are the real power behind the closing of the six schools in a balance-the-budget bottom-line mentality as the developers seek prime inner-city real estate.

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3 Responses to “Inner-City Schools Shut Down as Middle Fiddles”

1. nobody.really Writes:
   May 2nd, 2008 at 7:03 am

   FYI: Chicago Public Radio’s This American Life did an 11-minute story on The Plan – that is, a widely-held belief that cabals of white people are conspiring to take over poor minority neighborhoods. The example used in the story features the closing of a well-performing inner-city school.

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2. Radfem Writes:
   May 2nd, 2008 at 7:55 am

   Not in San Antonio. Who’s going to tell this story? Here, one Hearst chain newspaper, the San Antonio Express-News is blitzing its ads on the front page as it seeks even more profits. Corporations, according to Jimenez Reyes, are the real power behind the closing of the six schools in a balance-the-budget bottom-line mentality as the developers seek prime inner-city real estate.

   They can shut down underrenrolled schools if they need the prime real estate for the district’s administrative headquarters without actually so even though with the influx of people moving into the area, the school won’t be below capacity for many years.

   I have a friend who lives five blocks away from the only elementary school in the neighborhood and her child gets bused all the way across town as she has for several years. Kids in the neighborhood get bused to about six different elementary schools and two other high schools because of overcrowding. There’s no junior high.

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3. Jack Stephens Writes:
   May 4th, 2008 at 6:33 pm

   Just noticed my typo, it’s not “middle fiddles” it’s “media fiddles.” Ooooops!

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