Substance editor updates NAACP on segregation in Chicago's schools
Above: October 13, 2007. Substance Editor George Schmidt (right) with Jean Oden and Sharonjoy Jackson of the education committee of the South Side NAACP.On Saturday, October 15th , 2007, members of the education committee of the South Side branch of the NAACP heard George Schmidt update 40 years of research on racial segregation patterns in Chicago’s public schools.
Photo Above: October 13, 2007. Sharonjoy Jackson with Eben Credit of the Julian High School Local School Council. Mr. Credit had just told the NAACP meeting that the school had lost a dozen teachers at the beginning of October because of position closings ordered by Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan.Schmidt noted that the intensity of segregation of black children in the public schools could be explained in two words: “Richard Daley.” He pointed out that the first mayor Daley, Richard J. Daley, established the patterns of the isolation of black children in the public schools that persisted through the remainder of the 20th Century.
Richard M. Daley, Schmidt noted, has simply updated the policies of his father, which promoted the maximum isolation of the maximum number of black children.
Schmidt noted that there are more segregated all-black public schools in Chicago than in the entire distance one can drive between 135th St. and the Gulf of Mexico.
