Chicagoland CNN (loan, homes, unemployment)

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by IntlFalls56649

I love Chicago but would not like to live in a place where you have to dread the first nice, warm day because of gunfire. I would hate to live somewhere that you couldn't organize and conduct a peace march because the area surrounding the high school isn't even safe enough - during the day! - to make that happen. I know that it was given a rain check, but seeing the looks on those high school kids' faces after they worked hard to organize this was really upsetting. They really want to make a difference. I can tell these kids will go places someday, but they just have to have the right people around them to believe that, and the principal looks to be doing everything she can. I can't imagine how hard her job is considering she is doing this pretty much alone.

You realize that 75% of the residents of the city live in areas where they are saying the same thing when they watch. Your post makes it seem like you don't really know a lot about the actual residents of this city. People talk about the "real" Chicago and it's kinda funny because it's normally describing the hard up areas like those you're speaking of and those shown in the show - but it's also NOT the Chicago that a hefty majority of the citizens know. "Real" Chicago isn't the ghetto. It's the ghetto, beverly, englewood, the gold coast, logan square, englewood, hyde park, chatham, south shore, the loop, austin, jefferson park, edison park etc. etc. etc.

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by oakparkdude

So what has been the fall-out from the school closings? How many CPS students have been killed in gang violence? I don't recall seeing much in the news, so I'm assuming the worst fears have not been born out?

Another point people gloss over is that the school closing impacted a total of....7% of the student population. In schools that were on average 45% to 72% vacant to begin with.

[glass_of_merlot]

My son's school school closed last year. He went to Trumbull Elementary school in Andersonville. I was more upset because it is such an old school with so much history. Now it just sits there, empty and abandoned. But there are several schools nearby. It took maybe 5 minutes from our apartment to walk to Trumbull. Now we are walking to a school located 15 minutes away. No big deal.

[hlcc]

After watching the 1st episode, all I can say is that a lot of the blame rests on the parents as well. If I remember correctly the peace walk was postponed because the stepfather of one of the student named Wild Bill, a high level gangbanger was gunned down. WTF was the mom thinking when she hooked up with this guy, how is being together with a habitual violent criminal going to help her kid.

[Attrill]

Originally Posted by Chicago60614

Another point people gloss over is that the school closing impacted a total of....7% of the student population. In schools that were on average 45% to 72% vacant to begin with.

The number of kids being impacted by the closures is somewhere between 30,000 and 46,000. That is no small thing, and the upheaval certainly won't help the academic performance of any of these kids.

The methods used to calculate utilization are pretty suspect as well. Forget the idea of "vacant" or empty classrooms, it has nothing to do with that at all. They set minimum class size at 30, with anything up to 36 being considered ideal. Schools were also penalized for having libraries, office space, dedicated art/music classrooms, or any classrooms dedicated to things like special ed, ESL, etc. Our kid's school was considered to be 60% utilized since it had average class sizes of 26, a shared music/art classroom, a library, and a dedicated special ed classroom. The vice principal's office is a 6'X15' closet, the cafeteria is too small (lunches start at 10:45 and end at 1:30), ESL classes are taught in a hallway, but the school was still considered to be drastically underutilized by the CPS formula.

While I'm sure some schools should have been shut down, I've been shocked at how much of the savings they're talking about just aren't there. CPS has admitted they lied about how much will be saved over 10 years and has taken out a $326 million bond to pay for the closures that will most likely eat up any savings that are realized. All this upheaval for basically nothing.

[tcave360]

Originally Posted by dabottom

I am not going to lie, not only is it intense but the "principal" is very hot

[lenniel]

Originally Posted by dabottom

And nice eyes and legs

I guess everyone has their own interpretation of hot......I do think she's trying hard for her school though.

[lenniel]

Originally Posted by hlcc

After watching the 1st episode, all I can say is that a lot of the blame rests on the parents as well. If I remember correctly the peace walk was postponed because the stepfather of one of the student named Wild Bill, a high level gangbanger was gunned down. WTF was the mom thinking when she hooked up with this guy, how is being together with a habitual violent criminal going to help her kid.

Until the 'culture' in the black community changes, this is what it's going to be like.

Notice how many 'husbands' or even 'dads' are at those meetings and protests (and no, it's not because they're all at work).

[Motion]

Originally Posted by lenniel

Until the 'culture' in the black community changes, this is what it's going to be like.

What changes that culture?

Since you got black on this I'll break it down like this. The biggest issue in most black communities around the country is that blacks don't own enough businesses even in their own communities. The black spending dollar doesn't circulate once in most black communities because there aren't enough black owned businesses to spend with. This causes black unemployment and poverty to be higher than they should be. Black businesses(and the support of them) should be playing a bigger role in reducing black unmeployment.

When you have too many men and boys unemployed they spend too much time in the streets trying to earn illegal money. This leads to gang or clique formations and people getting into other forms of street hustling to make money. This high unemployment basically contributes to this "culture" that you were referring to. So in order for blacks to address this "crime culture" that has developed we're going to have to increase black business ownership and the support of those businesses. Blacks can do this by utilizing rotating credit systems that many other groups use to fund businesses. Also the issue of redlining will need to be dealt with. Too many blacks have a harder time getting loans regardless of their creditworthiness. Redlining has had a bad impact on many black communities.

[Aleking]

Originally Posted by lenniel

Until the 'culture' in the black community changes, this is what it's going to be like.

Notice how many 'husbands' or even 'dads' are at those meetings and protests (and no, it's not because they're all at work).

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