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March 28, 2013

Thousands Protest School Closings in Chicago 
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Thousands of teachers, school workers, parents and students joined a
mass protest led by the Chicago Teachers Union Wednesday against the
city’s plan to close 54 schools, most of them in African-American
neighborhoods. About 150 people sat down in the road outside City Hall
and locked their arms together, prepared to risk arrest. Roughly 130
people were detained by police. Teacher Phil Cantor was one of them.

Phil Cantor: "CPS has been closing schools for about 12 years now.
Closing schools to save them is not a way to improve schools. Now
they're closing 54 or more in one year — it's outrageous. It's not
going to help our students, it's not going to help our schools, it's
going to destroy neighbors. We're doing some of this on obedience
because we have to stand up, we cannot just keep letting this these
things happen without reacting."

Some 30,000 students will be impacted by the closings. Chicago Mayor
Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s former chief of staff, has defended
the closings, saying he does not want students trapped in failing
schools.

 

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