We write on behalf of the Coalition for Authentic Community Engagement and are cautiously optimistic about the district’s recent release of its Success 2029: Together We Rise strategic plan. However, our optimism is tempered by the process leading up to it, which has significantly contradicted the values the board professes within the document.
In its plan, the board declares that “For every major decision, we will engage stakeholders by centering CPS’ spectrum of inclusive partnerships, prioritizing the voices of those most impacted by structural inequity, to design and implement a more equitable school district and learning environment.”
In fact, the board has just done the opposite. To be fair, Chicago Public Schools boards have historically taken action without direct input from communities. However, it is disrespectful to call the development of this plan inclusive when the board pre-established the direction and is only asking communities to weigh in on the implementation of its ideas.
The engagement the board promotes was neither centered on the critical strategic questions nor inclusive of the full range of CPS stakeholders. It is disingenuous to communities to include unrelated outreach — such as back-to-school events, targeted policy engagements or board meetings — as evidence of engagement, merely to inflate the total number of stakeholders “engaged.”
Simply put, saying a thing does not make it real. This engagement effort lacked the scale and open-endedness of an inclusive, authentic and anti-racist process. Instead of genuinely involving families in shaping the district’s future, the board has imposed its beliefs without taking any time to understand what CPS parents and caregivers envision for their children’s education. The board dictated the plan’s elements without considering families’ priorities and now are looking to engage communities in a limited fashion, only to discuss how to implement those predetermined decisions.
This approach contradicts the very principles that many board members have publicly upheld and have reaffirmed in this plan. With the upcoming transition to an elected board, it is baffling why this board is rushing through a plan that will guide CPS for the next five years. This timing raises serious questions about the board’s commitment to genuine community engagement, echoing the old-guard politics of Chicago’s past.
We recognize elements of the proposed plan may resonate with our communities. Therefore, we will take this plan directly to our stakeholders — representing hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans — to determine what they support and what they reject. Our coalition of more than 30 organizations, from across Chicago and representing the vast majority of families who choose CPS, will not endorse any plan until it has been fully vetted and approved by our communities.
In short, we will do the upfront work you promised to do. We will share our findings with this board, but more importantly, with members of the incoming elected board. We believe this will empower the new board to make decisions that truly reflect the will of the people.
We invite this board to join us in this effort, as we vet this plan with the people it should have engaged from the start.
Dr. Byron T Brazier, chairman, Woodlawn Children’s Promise Community; Grace Chan McKibben, executive director, Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community; Daniel Anello, CEO, Kids First Chicago
SEND LETTERS TO: letters@suntimes.com. To be considered for publication, letters must include your full name, your neighborhood or hometown and a phone number for verification purposes. Letters should be a maximum of approximately 375 words.
Blame Greyhound for loss of bus depot
From what I’ve read in the Sun-Times, Greyhound sold its bus stations to an outside entity to enrich itself.
The loss of the terminal is thus Greyhound’s fault. It is a for-profit company and should bear most of the cost of building a new facility. Greyhound should not get away with passing their corporate expenses onto taxpayers.
Barry Aldridge, Lake View
Give street lanes back to drivers, not cyclists
In response to the recent letter “Bike safety isn’t a one-way street. Don’t put it all on drivers,” no amount of measures by the city will lesson the effects when traffic lanes are given to bike riders. Drivers and vehicles, unfairly, are now forced to use one-lane main streets, such as Halsted and others, that are vital and run the length of the city.
What was once a pleasure — driving to work, sporting venues, restaurants and theaters — is now a nightmare. One-lane gridlock not only drives people nuts, it will drive people back home, which means lost revenue for the city. What about the danger of first responders not getting to where they need to be?
Three-lane streets down to two, two lanes down to one, turning lanes gone, decreased parking … all for the bikers. Do bikers pay the high fees for a city sticker? No. Do they cause wear and tear on lanes needed for parking, cleaning equipment, or an ambulance? Yes.
No amount of compromises or commitments, by the city, the bikers or the drivers, will make up for the loss of street lanes or the loss of pay when you’re late for work.
The only solution is to give some lanes back, especially to the main streets. The third largest city in the nation needs all its traffic lanes, to work, shop, play, eat, step up the economy.
Why not bike the next street over? Why not buy a city sticker and have a real voice on the matter?
Gail and Wally Gorman, Bridgeport
Bike-riders need rules, too
The Sun-Times did the impossible and managed to present only one side of a highly controversial issue: the need for new rules and street designs to make biking safer. You hit all the highlights on traffic controls, redesigning some streets, lowering speed limits, etc.
What you avoided completely is the need for laws (I’m not aware any exist) to make pedestrians and pets safer from bikes. I live in a retirement home and have seen people and animals hit and injured by regular bikes, motorized bikes, skateboards and scooters, on sidewalks, in crosswalks, park and beach walking paths.
One possible solution to at least ease the problem would be to license bikers and pass some laws delineating where and how they can ride. If the city is spending money on changing streets and painting and erecting signs for bikers’ protection, the bikers should pay some of the cost by buying a required license and paying fines for violating laws.
By all means change the rules and restrictions for drivers, but don’t put 100% of the onus for bike safety on them.
Tom Sharp, Uptown
Suburban bikers ignore the rules
I have not lived in Chicago for some time, so I am not sure how well the city bicyclists obey the rules of the road. I live in Crystal Lake and drive to Lincolnshire every day. I drive some back roads, and I can tell you the bicyclists who sometimes ride in packs ignore rules completely: No stopping at stop signs, no signaling for turns, crossing an intersection against the red light and riding in tandem on narrow back roads, forcing cars to follow the pack. Bicyclists as well as automobile drivers should be held accountable for safe travel on the roads.
Regina Gomory, Crystal Lake
Trump doesn’t understand tariffs
The recent presidential debate clearly shows candidate Donald Trump doesn’t understand what U.S. tariffs on foreign products are and do. They are not, in effect, a sales tax that transfers dollars to the federal government that can be spent. The tariff dollars imposed are simply added to the price that American consumers pay for that product.
President Joe Biden has kept some of Trump’s tariffs in place and has imposed a few others, not to raise revenue but to protect American manufacturers from low prices on foreign goods that result from foreign government subsidies. Those subsidies result in unfair competition.
Mary F. Warren, Wheaton
“The Bear” is great, but it’s not a comedy
Congratulations are indeed in order for the great Jamie Lee Curtis on her winning the creative arts Emmy for best guest actress in a comedy series for her role in the “Fishes” episode of “The Bear.” However, those of us who are big fans of “The Bear,” and especially of the “Fishes” episode, are dumbfounded those who dispense Emmy Awards insist on categorizing “The Bear” as a comedy series.
There are plenty of funny moments in “The Bear,” and there were even a few in “Fishes.” However, it is beyond a stretch to call “The Bear,” and especially that episode, a comedy. “The Bear” is a serious and wonderful dramatic series with a smattering of hilarious moments, not a comedy series with a few serious moments. “Fishes” was a masterpiece, largely due to the performances of Curtis and her fellow guest star, Bob Odenkirk. But a comedy it wasn’t, especially to those legions of viewers who have memories of the sort of dysfunctional family Christmas the episode portrayed.
Mark M. Quinn, Naperville
On St. Adalbert
Here’s an idea: The Archdiocese should sell Holy Name Cathedral to developers and make St. Adalbert the new cathedral. I’m sure they could get much more money for the Holy Name site.
Michael Shawgo, Edgewater
Publish full speeches of presidential candidates
What would happen if the speeches of the current presidential candidates were printed in the paper verbatim, without embedded commentary? Opinions would be shown separately and clearly labeled as one person’s interpretation of what was said.
I can hear the groans of those who believe that people are too stupid to read and understand long texts. Others of us are truly busy. But being part of a participatory government takes time and effort. Sometimes we have to sacrifice the important for the more important.
Some of us ignore print news in favor of video sound bites and tweets, but these media feeds increase apathy while also reducing the ability to understand complex issues. We need to see the whole picture, not sanitized versions that cherry-pick what is shown based on bias. Misinformation and limited access to information is what one sees where dictators rule and some kind of Big Brother chooses what people see. Consider China, Russian or Iran.
Publishing the full texts of at least some of the speeches given in coming weeks would allow us to ponder the motivations behind what was said and consider the implications in the context of our local and national scenes. We need to see and read what is being said before we make our choices about who best demonstrates the skills needed to govern the greatest nation in the world.
Mary Hansen, Northbrook
City Hall’s budget mess
More talk of increased property taxes yet guaranteed incomes, talk of increased Chicago Teachers Union salaries, etc.? Through this all, an unheard of three years without a firefighters’ contract? What’s it going to take? City Hall and those that support the insanity have to have their feet held to the fire. Chicago will never make it out of this mess with this uncontrolled crew.
Barbara Czarnecki, Portage Park
‘Subjected to the rule of lies’
During their debate, Donald Trump referred to Kamala Harris as a Marxist. Although name-calling is childish, Trump’s constant lying is frightening.
Hannah Arendt, a German Jew who was able to flee Nazi Germany in 1933, has written the following: “This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people you can do anything you want.”
Jo Ann Brown, Palos Hills