Scan barcode
A review by mmingie
Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side by Eve L. Ewing
4.0
I received an ARC of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
"We see that this community's choice to resist a school's being characterized as 'failing' is in fact about much more than the school itself: it is about citizenship and participation, about justice and injustice, and about resisting people in power who want to transform a community at the expense of the people who live there."
This book was excellent. It is nonfiction, but it is short and the author's style moves it along very well. I devoured it in two days. That could have been one, but the situation was set out so plainly and made me so angry I had to put the book down for a moment and step back.
From the beginning, when the author gives descriptions of people and places we can see clearly her feelings toward the system. She tells about how board members and superintendent (called CEO) of the public school system are appointed by the mayor and not voted on by the community. She tells about how the first CEO in the process was replaced due to scandal. She makes it obvious that the whole system is corrupt and set for certain children and communities to have a harder time.
The book was tied together primarily by exploring the history of policies that ruin institutions in the Black parts of Chicago. It explored segregated housing, the amount of children that put in a small area, how instead of bussing these kids to other schools throughout the city new schools were built to keep the races segregated and how when the projects were torn down and fewer children were enrolled these schools were closed and the children sent to other schools that performed just as poorly. This was done well. She doesn't hide after making the accusation of racism in the title. She backs it up through the whole book.
"We see that this community's choice to resist a school's being characterized as 'failing' is in fact about much more than the school itself: it is about citizenship and participation, about justice and injustice, and about resisting people in power who want to transform a community at the expense of the people who live there."
This book was excellent. It is nonfiction, but it is short and the author's style moves it along very well. I devoured it in two days. That could have been one, but the situation was set out so plainly and made me so angry I had to put the book down for a moment and step back.
From the beginning, when the author gives descriptions of people and places we can see clearly her feelings toward the system. She tells about how board members and superintendent (called CEO) of the public school system are appointed by the mayor and not voted on by the community. She tells about how the first CEO in the process was replaced due to scandal. She makes it obvious that the whole system is corrupt and set for certain children and communities to have a harder time.
The book was tied together primarily by exploring the history of policies that ruin institutions in the Black parts of Chicago. It explored segregated housing, the amount of children that put in a small area, how instead of bussing these kids to other schools throughout the city new schools were built to keep the races segregated and how when the projects were torn down and fewer children were enrolled these schools were closed and the children sent to other schools that performed just as poorly. This was done well. She doesn't hide after making the accusation of racism in the title. She backs it up through the whole book.