Monday Morning News [html]47 students arrested after fight in high school Tribune A student chipped a tooth during the skirmish but there were no other injuries, said Mike Vaughn, a Chicago Public Schools spokesman. Daley urges preschool for kids Chicago Sun-Times Schools CEO Arne Duncan said the preschool openings including a late-afternoon shift in overcrowded neighborhoods -- are part of a $20 million expansion... Money shuffled to fund more preschool, extended kindergarten Chicago Tribune This school year, the Chicago Public Schools system redirected roughly $10 million into full-day kindergarten programs. The extra money means an additional ... Local activist challenges CPS to do more for Black males Chicago Defender Chicago public schools do not know how to teach Black kids - that is the premise that Phillip Jackson, founder of the Black Star Project, ..[/html]
Digg
Del.icio.us
Tue Nov 20, 2007 at 2:59 AM
Monday Morning News
"Forty-seven students were arrested after a fight broke out at a West Side high school Friday morning, authorities said..."
"A" fight?
With 47 arrests?
And the news hook for CPS is that the only injury was a chipped tooth, so it's no big deal?
Pure spin, this one. It amazes me it even got into the papers, but Mike is slipping, because that's not the kind of comment CPS should be putting out at the general high schools collapse into chaos now that all the "leftover" kids have gotten their programs and checked out the building and the security systems. One of the reasons why certain people get to be public with debacles like Friday's is that they don't make mistakes like this. Next thing you know, they'll catch data driven Arne on a bad hair day and ask about the latest rape, and he'll say something like "but overall our rape rate is down 50 percent" or whatever the spin numbers are this month.
Better never say that to the victim of that rape.
Of, in the case of Crane, to the families of the children who were not really injured in those gang brawls (plural) that left the police cleaning up the mess and the paperworkd until well after the morning shift was supposed to go home. (I know, "watch").
I missed the Crane "fight" because I was two miles north of Crane covering the Clemente "fight" (which also "broke out" at around 10:00 a.m. Friday) and had to make a choice of where to photograph the latter parts of the story.
The fact was, police in both districts were ordered to focus on those two schools, while police officials prayed nothing else went wrong anywhere else for the rest of the school day.
For Clemente, police command ordered every available squad car to take an early lunch after the first mess was cleaned up (a girl fight; five arrests; much residual bad blood that's still boiling as we blog). That way, everybody who could be was at Clemente for the end of the school day.
I counted seven police vehicles on Western south of Division at one point while school was letting out, and when I crossed Western to get a better angle for my photograph of Clemente at about three o'clock, I was heartened to see a line of police (nicely prepared, and including female officers) arrayed across the sidewalk about a quarter block west of Clemente on the north side of Division.
There were also cars parked a block away, sort of in reserve.
Since I couldn't be at two places at once, I picked Clemente and missed the "bigger" story down the street at Crane. But it was a close call, believe me.
But after all, Crane was only a "fight."
With only a chipped tooth.
And since the Tribune wasn't even calling about the "fight" (actually, like Crane, a number of fights, on different floors), Clemente wasn't even "news" (Chicago-style) Friday.
Since Friday I've been asking other sources to call me the next time a "fight" breaks loose at one of the 40 or so general high schools that Arne Duncan sabotaged this year through the usual triaging, leftover kids, program debacles (IMPACT devastated about half of the general high schools, and the devastation was avoided at the others because their programmers knew better than to rely on any system created out of central office during this era, so they did workarounds knowing what would happen if the kids didn't have viable programs at the beginning of school or when the last 150 to 200 arrived between mid-September and mid-October), and other miracle management nonsense.
I'm giving a prize to the next teachers who call me (cell 773-401-6202) about the next "fight" (which, believe me, will happen, and not at the self-righteous charter schools which are now trying to get a few more high scoring kids out of Clemente and Crane).
Forty-seven arrests and Chicago calls it a "fight." What a town!
"A" fight?
With 47 arrests?
And the news hook for CPS is that the only injury was a chipped tooth, so it's no big deal?
Pure spin, this one. It amazes me it even got into the papers, but Mike is slipping, because that's not the kind of comment CPS should be putting out at the general high schools collapse into chaos now that all the "leftover" kids have gotten their programs and checked out the building and the security systems. One of the reasons why certain people get to be public with debacles like Friday's is that they don't make mistakes like this. Next thing you know, they'll catch data driven Arne on a bad hair day and ask about the latest rape, and he'll say something like "but overall our rape rate is down 50 percent" or whatever the spin numbers are this month.
Better never say that to the victim of that rape.
Of, in the case of Crane, to the families of the children who were not really injured in those gang brawls (plural) that left the police cleaning up the mess and the paperworkd until well after the morning shift was supposed to go home. (I know, "watch").
I missed the Crane "fight" because I was two miles north of Crane covering the Clemente "fight" (which also "broke out" at around 10:00 a.m. Friday) and had to make a choice of where to photograph the latter parts of the story.
The fact was, police in both districts were ordered to focus on those two schools, while police officials prayed nothing else went wrong anywhere else for the rest of the school day.
For Clemente, police command ordered every available squad car to take an early lunch after the first mess was cleaned up (a girl fight; five arrests; much residual bad blood that's still boiling as we blog). That way, everybody who could be was at Clemente for the end of the school day.
I counted seven police vehicles on Western south of Division at one point while school was letting out, and when I crossed Western to get a better angle for my photograph of Clemente at about three o'clock, I was heartened to see a line of police (nicely prepared, and including female officers) arrayed across the sidewalk about a quarter block west of Clemente on the north side of Division.
There were also cars parked a block away, sort of in reserve.
Since I couldn't be at two places at once, I picked Clemente and missed the "bigger" story down the street at Crane. But it was a close call, believe me.
But after all, Crane was only a "fight."
With only a chipped tooth.
And since the Tribune wasn't even calling about the "fight" (actually, like Crane, a number of fights, on different floors), Clemente wasn't even "news" (Chicago-style) Friday.
Since Friday I've been asking other sources to call me the next time a "fight" breaks loose at one of the 40 or so general high schools that Arne Duncan sabotaged this year through the usual triaging, leftover kids, program debacles (IMPACT devastated about half of the general high schools, and the devastation was avoided at the others because their programmers knew better than to rely on any system created out of central office during this era, so they did workarounds knowing what would happen if the kids didn't have viable programs at the beginning of school or when the last 150 to 200 arrived between mid-September and mid-October), and other miracle management nonsense.
I'm giving a prize to the next teachers who call me (cell 773-401-6202) about the next "fight" (which, believe me, will happen, and not at the self-righteous charter schools which are now trying to get a few more high scoring kids out of Clemente and Crane).
Forty-seven arrests and Chicago calls it a "fight." What a town!
