Julie Woestehoff, Executive Director of PURE (Parents United for Responsible Education) spoke both at the press conference (above) and during her testimony before the City Council about the Board of Education’s presentation of a “study” that was based on incomplete information regarding the school closings. PURE published a counter-study (see the PURE website, www.pureparents,org and the February - March 2006 Substance for a copy of the longer PURE study) showing that the Board’s “study” was fatally flawed. A PURE response to a Chicago Tribune editorial criticizing the Chandler resolution and supporting the Duncan administration on school closings was ignored. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.   

West Side videographer and community activist Paul McKinlay (above, testifying at the March 8 City Council Education Committee hearings on the school closings), made several contributions to the debate over the closings. After Illinois State Senator Ricky Hendon told crowds at Collins High School and during the closing hearings that he would force Duncan to rescind the closings, McKinlay and others caught up with Duncan, Scott, Hendon, Congressman Danny Davis and others at a secret west side meeting and videotaped it, alleging that Hendon was cutting a deal and going along with the closings while talking tough in front of his outraged constituents. McKinlay has been the only community leader to note that the school closings are usually followed by the opening of schools as charter schools. The charter schools are often under the  leadership of Catholic School groups (such as Hales Franciscan and Providence St. Mel’s) and in buildings rented from the Catholic Church. Scott and Duncan have never answered McKinlay’s criticisms of the conflicts over giving public schools to Catholic school entrepreneurs and his questions about child abuse. Photo by George Schmidt.

Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan (above right) and Chicago Board of Education President Michael Scott (above left) held their last general press conference on January 26, 2006, and have not held one since. At the January 26 press conference (above), neither Scott nor Duncan was able to defend their announcement that they were going to close another four elementary schools (Farren, Frazier, Morse and Sherman) and one high school (Collins) for what they called “poor performance.” When Duncan attempted to prove that his school closing policy had succeeded at Dodge Elementary School (which was turned over to Winston & Strawn, the law firm headed by former Illinois Governor James Thompson) because he had a “study” that showed Dodge students doing better after returning to Dodge following the reorganization, reporters pointed out that the “study” accounted for fewer than ten percent of the students who had attended Dodge prior to its reorganization between June 2002 and September 2003. Duncan’s “study” was immediately refuted publicly by a PURE analysis (see above) that called the Duncan study “Hogwash”. Other critics were less diplomatic in their views of the school board’s self-serving research department. Since February 1, 2006, for the first time in the recent history of the Chicago Public Schools, Duncan and Scott have held no general press conference and have refused to answer media questions in open forums. The school system’s $2 million “Office of Communications” routinely issues press releases while Duncan and Scott avoid the press, except for photo opportunities at which no questions are allowed. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt