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    Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings in Chicago's South Side
    Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings in Chicago's South Side
    Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings in Chicago's South Side
    Audiobook6 hours

    Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings in Chicago's South Side

    Written by Eve L. Ewing

    Narrated by Lisa Renee Pitts

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Eve L. Ewing knows Chicago Public Schools from the inside: as a student, then a teacher, and now a scholar who studies them. And that perspective has shown her that public schools are not buildings full of failures-they're an integral part of their neighborhoods, at the heart of their communities, storehouses of history and memory that bring people together.

    Never was that role more apparent than in 2013 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced an unprecedented wave of school closings. Pitched simultaneously as a solution to a budget problem, a response to declining enrollments, and a chance to purge bad schools that were dragging down the whole system, the plan was met with a roar of protest from parents, students, and teachers. But if these schools were so bad, why did people care so much about keeping them open?

    Ewing's answer begins with a story of systemic racism, inequality, bad faith, and distrust that stretches deep into Chicago history. Black communities see the closing of their schools-schools that are certainly less than perfect but that are theirs-as one more in a long line of racist policies. The fight to keep them open is yet another front in the ongoing struggle of black people in America to build successful lives and achieve true self-determination.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJun 25, 2019
    ISBN9781630155070
    Author

    Eve L. Ewing

    Dr. Eve L. Ewing is a sociologist of education and a writer from Chicago. She is the author of Electric Arches, which received awards from the American Library Association and the Poetry Society of America and was named one of the year's best books by NPR and the Chicago Tribune. She is also author of Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side and the co-author (with Nate Marshall) of No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. She is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many other venues. 

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    • 5/5
      Really good sociological examination of the Chicago Public School system and the historical factors that lead to the specific circumstances of schools that were slated to be closed in 2013. Ewing wanted to look into the phenomenon she saw where schools were determined to be "failing" and yet the families who used those schools would fight against those closures. As I said, I had read what is basically chapter two for a sociology class but everything else was new to me. I am a sociology major and I'm very interested in educational sociology so this book was right up my alley. If you're at all invested in the current state of public schools, I would recommend this book.