More Voices From Crane

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease." -- Alderman Ed Smith

Ald. Ed Smith

At the Crane community hearing, Alderman Smith spoke out passionately against closing Crane down. Really, I can't think of another situation where all of the elected people opposed the plan of the appointed people.

To those who are in charge, let me make it perfectly clear. We will not quit. We want you to understand we've got to march. We've got to raise hell.  Whatever we've got to do, Crane must stay open! We will take this fight wherever we've got to take it. We will stand up to whoever we have to stand up to. We will make our point to whomever we have to make it to. Crane must stay open! I want to hear it from the crowd! Crane must stay open! Crane must stay open! Crane must stay open!

I hope he does march. I hope he does raise hell. We'll see. 

"Crane made me a man." -- Joe McDermott, CTU

I don't have a picture of Joe McDermott, but he gave an electrifying speech toward the end of the evening. It really is striking, the difference between the passion of these in-the-trenches educators and the tinny, bureaucratic thinness of the people appointed to shut schools down based on test scores. I hate to go all ad hominem here, but when I look at, say for example Donald Fraynd, the CPS turnaround guy, I don't see a man that people would rally around. I don't see a guy that would inspire the confidence of a community or a guy who's a legend back at the school he ran. I can't even picture him running a pep assembly, to be honest. You know what you need to run a pep assembly? Pep.

Anyway, this is what Joe McDermott had to say:

Let us also remind the board that seven, eight years ago, Mayor Daley and Arne Duncan came to Crane to praise us for our success. You want to say this stuff has been going on for ten years? You came here seven years ago and said, "Good job, Crane." And then what did you do? You took away the Metro program. You took away other programs.
I want to say something to the Christian preachers who came here, to my Christian brothers: What good is it to gain the world if you lose your soul in the process? 

And, finally, this. I don't usually spend much time over at Russo's place, but I saw this anonymous nugget in the comments. It's a report from the Crane board hearing, which was just last night. Evidently, one of the paid protesters last night was reading from the wrong script, which goes along nicely with my own observation that not one of the paid protesters at the earlier Crane hearing could even name the school that the hearing was about!   Here's the comment from over at Russo's:

Last night at the Crane hearing at 125 N. Clark, one woman spoke at the podium in sweeping generalizations about respect for those who cared about their school(s) and the importance of educating our children, etc. For the first minute, it was unclear whether she was in support or against the CPS proposal to phase-out Crane. But then, during her 2nd minute, she continued to cite the failure(s) of BEST PRACTICE, repeatedly identifying problems with/at BEST PRACTICE, etc. In the audience, myself and many of my fellow Crane supporters sat incredulous. It was obvious that the woman speaking was reading from notes that were in support of the closure of Best Practice High School. Of course, the meeting at hand was about CRANE! At no time did this woman waiver from her position that BEST PRACTICE should be closed! She was completely unaware of the absurdity of her words. (The Best Practice meeting isn't until this evening -- Wed. Jan. 25).
We keep witnessing, directly or indirectly, many non-invested (or at least less-than-invested) people attending and speaking at these CPS school action meetings and hearings in support of whichever CPS proposal is being presented at that time. Mostly, it's just sad. In this case, it was funny. But actually, it wasn't.

Good lord.