‘They got rid of spelling, phonics and penmanship. That’s why black children cannot read.’ – Wirepoints

“They got rid of spelling, phonics and penmanship. That’s why black children cannot read.”

A Chicago parent and former teacher did a great job summing up the failures of Chicago Public Schools during Wirepoints’ recent segment on WVON. Ted Dabrowski and former state Rep. Ken Dunkin discussed the imminent death of the state’s only school choice program and the failures of CPS.

One Chicagoan called into the show and related the following:

I’m in agreement with Ted and I will tell you why. As an educator in the inner cities, I’ve seen and lived everything he said. There are reasons why our young people are not learning, and I’m going to share them with you.

I do believe that we have to give parents the power. As a parent who has raised three sons and a daughter and has grandkids in this system, parents need real choice.

Now as far as the unions are concerned, I did work for the Chicago Teachers Union too, and when I was at the AFT, I asked them when we had the mass termination of black teachers,

“How are we going to defend public education?” And they said we’re going to unionize charter schools. That was in 2011. When I came back from the conference, they opened up a charter school organizing unit at CTU. 

Their goal is to unionize any school. They don’t care if it’s public, as long as they get their dues. 

That’s what their focus is. It’s not on the members, it’s on the dues that are paid. They were willing to sacrifice black teachers to get their goal, that is, to politicize education. They’ve changed their focus to political organizing, which we see now. 

But let me just add this, our focus has got to be on our children…If we are not addressing all of our children, we’re going to see our best be gunned down like we just saw (the Aréanah Preston murder).

We must provide some kind of life for these children, we’re not saying everyone has to go to college, but everyone has to have the ability to be able to work.

I want to add, and this is really important, a point about literacy, because I was there when they took spelling, phonics and penmanship out of the curriculum. That’s why black children cannot read. Because those who are poor rely on those skill sets in order to understand language and to build. So we need to talk about literacy as a key to repairing what is wrong in our system.

Our black children need the same support as the immigrant children have. They get additional Spanish and English teaching, they get whatever they ask for, and we see the positive results.

It’s why immigrants have all the jobs. You have blacks crying over here about jobs. But the black student, he’s speaking Ebonics, that’s his second language, when he gets out of school. He can’t read right, spell or anything. In addition, one-third of jobs are bilingual, so he can’t compete on any level.

There’s so many layers to this and I believe that parental choice is the way. We’ve got to forget the unions, forget the system and give parents the power.

Click to listen to Wirepoints’ full conversation on WVON:

Read more from Wirepoints:

• Illinois on track to become first state to kill school choice
• Educational freedom for Illinois children could look like this: Iowa’s Students First Act
• Chicago Public Schools wants help with massive deficits despite billions in federal aid, plummeting enrollment
• Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system – Wirepoints Special Report