Chicago

Chicago

By MILTON RAKOVE

The
tangled
roots
of
Chicago
school
problems

WHILE the City of Chicago tries to adapt to the new political and governmental changes brought about by Mayor Jane Byrne's election to the city's mayoralty, an old and perennial problem has once again reared its head to confront the city fathers: What to do about Chicago's public school system?

The quality of the education offered by the city's elementary and secondary school system has been an unsolved social problem for nearly half a century. The problems of a school system that was never first rate in the days of the great ethnic migration to the city from eastern and southern Europe have been exacerbated since World War II by the immigration of more than a million blacks and at least 500,000 Latins from Mexico and Puerto Rico into Chicago.

During the great ethnic migration of eastern and southern European ethnics to Chicago, the questionable quality of the city's public schools was a matter of little concern to the new immigrants. Since they were heavily Roman Catholic, they created their own private parochial school system in the city and sent their children there to be

inculcated, not only with the traditional three "R's," but also with religious teachings and disciplined behavior by the nuns and priests of the religious orders in the largest Catholic archdiocese in North America. The public school system was heavily peopled by Chicago's non-Catholic children, but was controlled by the Catholic political leadership of the city through key appointments to the Board of Education, the Office of the Superintendent of Schools and the hierarchy of the administrative bureaucracy. And the public school system was used by the leadership of the political machine and the powerful trade unions as a patronage appendage of those two organizations. The quality of education was not a political problem in the city, since the majority Catholic population and its political leadership had no political interest in the problems of the public schools.

The replacement of the non-Catholic white popultion of the city by blacks and Latins has changed the character of the public school system. It is now about 60 percent black, 20 percent Latin and 20 percent white. The Board of Education, which must be politically responsive to the power structure of the city and the strong feelings of the white population, has clung to the concept of the neighborhood school, drawing school boundaries to coincide as much as possible with the city's segregated housing patterns.

But the critical financial condition of the public school system, the increased reliance on federal funding, and the push for compliance with federal civil rights desegregation policy by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) has now placed the public school system in Chicago between a rock and a hard place. If the city does not accept federal busing standards to integrate the 20 percent white students with the 80 percent black and Latin students, the schools could be cut off from federal funds. If the school board gives in to the federal bureaucrats, the probable consequences would be a political revolt against the city's white politicians by their white constituencies, and massive movement of white children from the public schools to private, parochial and suburban schools. There is little chance that the Board of Education and the political leadership of the city will give in to the federal bureaucrats.

What will they do, then, if the federal bureaucrats remain intransigent in their insistence on busing the children and desegregating the schools?

They will follow the maxims and practices of politics which have served them so well for so long in retaining political power in Chicago. They will resist as long as possible, retreat gingerly from exposed positions, do nothing if they can, do as little as possible if they have to act, stand fast on a line that would bring the wrath of the public down on them if they cross over it, and suffer the consequences of federal administrative punishment if they must. In politics, as in life, many things are possible for those who stand and wait. A new president might be elected, a new HEW secretary chosen, a new attorney general appointed or a new court decision rendered. In a few years, there may not be enough white children left to integrate, the problem may become moot, and the possible political consequences of retribution from the voters for giving in might be averted. That may not be the best course of action from a moral or legal standpoint, but it is the most likely one from the standpoint of practical political necessity. The real tragedy is the subordination of the interests of the children to the posturings of the adults on both sides of the issue.

There are, of course, alternative courses of action open to those adults. The HEW bureaucrats could foreswear rigid enforcement of civil rights guidelines and permit the use of federal funds to gild the ghetto schools and raise their quality significantly. Or the politicians in Chicago could foreswear federal funding, if necessary, and raise local property taxes substantially to secure the funds to improve the quality of the currently segregated school system. But either of those alternatives would require a politicization of the bureaucratic mentality on the one hand, or action on a social problem by politicians to their possible detriment on the other. Or they could meet half way and benefit themselves, the children and the city in the long run. There is still time to do that.

November 1979/ Illinois Issues/ 33