— An anti-Senn set up by Ald. Smith, Arne Duncan?

By Barbara Page

The fall 2004 “Naval Offensive” (as it was called by many Senn students, parents, and teachers) was not the end of 48th Ward Alderman Mary Ann Smith’s plans to gentrify — and possibly privatize or charterize — much of Chicago’s Senn High School. After the Chicago Board of Education voted at its December 15, 2004 meeting to establish a “naval academy” at Senn — despite opposition from the majority of virtually every group in the school and community — Smith’s attacks on the school continued.

— An anti-Senn set up by Ald. Smith, Arne Duncan?

By Barbara Page

The fall 2004 “Naval Offensive” (as it was called by many Senn students, parents, and teachers) was not the end of 48th Ward Alderman Mary Ann Smith’s plans to gentrify — and possibly privatize or charterize — much of Chicago’s Senn High School. After the Chicago Board of Education voted at its December 15, 2004 meeting to establish a “naval academy” at Senn — despite opposition from the majority of virtually every group in the school and community — Smith’s attacks on the school continued.

In January 2005, select appointees began to receive invitations from Smith to become part of a “task force” to advise Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan on future “improvements” to Senn. The “task force” was scheduled to meet in secret with Smith and Duncan at the nearby Broadway Armory by the time community and school leaders heard about its existence.

Remarkably, Smith appointed no Senn parents or students to the committee, and the teachers she selected were there without the knowledge of most of the school staff. The LSC and principal were also ignored. Members of the Save Senn coalition soon got wind of this and organized Senn supporters to attend the inaugural meeting of what would later be dubbed the “Senn Tomorrow” committee at the Broadway Armory on the evening of February 8, 2005.

Though Smith and Duncan commiserated that the small meeting room at the public armory was “worse than Senn,” the powerful Alderman and CEO deigned to meet with 25 members of their hand-picked committee and twice as many — at least 50 — of the the so-called “uninvited” — the Senn supporters gathered around on hastily arranged folding chairs. Also present at various times during the creation of Senn Tomorrow were former State Senator Arthur Berman and CPS Area 19 Instructional Officer Linda Pierzchalski.

Since Mary Ann Smith’s stated intention is to break up — or “reconstitute” — Senn, it was widely suspected that the task force was a thinly veiled Renaissance 2010 “TAC” (Transitional Advisory Committee) designed to elicit charter school proposals. This suspicion was heightened when community residents, teachers, parents and students learned that the chairman of the task force picked by Smith and Duncan was a charter school principal, John Horan, who heads the North Lawndale College Prep Charter High School at 1616 S. Spaulding. Horan is a resident of the Senn community, but since he had no prior experience with Senn High School itself, his appointment appeared calculated to initiate the charter process.

At the first meeting on February 8, the still-smoldering issue of the undemocratic imposition of a military academy at Senn quickly sidetracked Horan’s agenda, and the meeting ended with a call for a moratorium on the Naval Academy.

The issue of the moratorium was again brought up as a motion at the following February 28 meeting of the “task force,” which by then had been named the “Senn Tomorrow” committee. At the second meeting, Mary Ann Smith’s own appointees voted 14-2 in favor of a moratorium on the Naval Academy! Promoting “trust in the process” was repeatedly cited as a reason to vote for a moratorium, though the vote was widely viewed as a symbolic protest against a foregone conclusion. Indeed, Arne Duncan ignored the vote.

The committee vote against the Naval Academy at Senn was noteworthy considering that the original members were appointed by Mary Ann Smith, the number one proponent of the plan. The Senn Tomorrow committee she and Duncan charged with charting a future course for Senn, overwhelmingly white and middle class, was a stark contrast to the current population of Senn:41 percent Latino; 37 percent African and African American; 15 percent Asian; and only seven percent white (most of whom are immigrants).

Several attending the first meetings objected to the undemocratic means by which members were chosen and objected to the racist implications of a white committee determining the educational future for students of color.

The legitimacy of Senn Tomorrow has been questioned from many fronts. Save Senn coalition members, Senn teachers and others have continually insisted that the Local School Council (LSC) is the duly constituted committee charged with making decisions about the school. The Senn Tomorrow task force created by the Alderman seems to be designed to circumvent the LSC and act as a TAC to elicit Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for the breakup of Senn into charters, a stated aim of Smith’s. This despite the fact that the school has been improving in recent years under Principal Judith Hernandez and does not meet any of the criteria for closure. Though many Senn supporters objected to participating in what is felt to be an illegitimate process, most determined that the committee needed input from the real stakeholders at Senn.

Many “uninvited” Save Senn members, as well as several on the committee, had been calling for more valid community representation from the start. Finally, in April, Senn Tomorrow voted in support of a recommendation by a membership sub-committee to expand the group to include a broad spectrum of voices, including Senn parents, teachers and students, as well as representatives from Save Senn and other community groups. Representatives of Save Senn are well-known community resident and peace activist Chris Inserra and Substance Editor George Schmidt. Other constituencies were also given the right to select representatives. Three teachers (Sara Leven, Brian Roa, and Wendy Boatman) were elected to represent Senn teachers, and representatives of students, the LSC, and parents were also added to Senn Tomorrow.

In addition to the issue of representation, many objected to Duncan and Smith’s repeated failure to inform the community about plans for Senn. In the interest of preventing charters or other changes coming in through a back-room process as happened with the Naval Academy, a Save Senn representative, Chris Inserra, put forward a motion that Senn Tomorrow would adhere to the Illinois Open Meetings Act. There were surprising objections to the motion considering it is standard practice for other bodies — such as the LSC — that deal with issues so important to the community. Several committee members said that they “didn’t have time” to notify Senn parents and other stakeholders about their meetings to discuss the future of the school. The committee stalled, voting twice to postpone the vote. But finally, after substantial pressure by the LSC, Save Senn and others, the committee voted on May 16 to adhere to the Illinois Open Meetings Act.

How the newly constituted Senn Tomorrow will work to “improve” Senn is unclear, members have asked for clarification in a letter to Duncan, but charters are clearly on Alderman Smith’s agenda, At one of the initial Senn Tomorrow meetings, her appointed chairman presented the group with an agenda that provided for timelines leading to “Requests for Proposals” (RFPs) under Renaissance 2010. Most of the committee and Senn teachers, parents, students and community supporters didn’t even know what “RFP” meant at the time. When it became clear, the majority of the members of Senn Tomorrow maintained that they needed more time to understand the present Senn and to elicit input from the broader Senn copmmunities.

Undaunted, Alderman Smith began working — once again without notifying the Senn community — on plans that would ultimately further undermine and privatize much of Senn High School.

In early May, Senn supporters learned that Smith was joining with Doug Fraser, head of the Edgewater Community Council (ECC), to survey locations in the community for a charter school. Fraser serves on the Senn Tomorrow Task Force but hadn’t mentioned the charter plans to the committee at any of its meetings. In a repeat of the secrecy that had begun in the summer of 2004 with the planning of the military academy and continued with the establishment of Senn Tomorrow in February 2005, Smith’s office informed some of her supporters that she was planning to hear a presentation from the “Perspectives” charter school. Perspectives, a small operation that has generated a great deal of uncritical publicity, currently runs a school with approximately 300 students on the near south side.

Although Arne Duncan and others in the administration have routinely praised Perspectives, the Chicago Board of Education has been uncertain about the location of Perspectives. Depending upon which data source one uses, Perspectives is either located at 1930 S. Archer Ave. (“Chicago Public Schools 2004 New Schools Development Department Directory”) or at 1915 S. Federal St. (Chicago Public Schools Office of Instruction and School Management School Listing as of December 22, 2004). The school’s size is also open to question. The Chicago Board of Education’s New Schools Development Department has simply republished Perspective’s own perspective on itself, based on the school’s substantial public relations campaign, though Perspectives has very few students and almost no long-term record upon which to base any claims of success.

At Substance press time, controversy is growing over the implicit approval of the charterization of Senn by Smith and Edgewater business interests. As the 2004-2005 school year drew to a close, those who had begun the school year by challenging the military academy were continuing their work to preserve public education for all of the young people in the communities served by Chicago’s Senn High School.

The sunshine forced on Alderman Smith’s task force has almost certainly delayed the review of RFPs that many suspect was the initial purpose of Senn Tomorrow. Parents, teachers, students and others who would be directly affected by decisions to close and/or charterize Senn are now at the table, demanding to be heard. Confronted by a committee of their own making, Duncan and Smith will have a harder time ignoring community voices as they seek to impose their elitist version of a Chicago “renaissance” on Senn High School.