Chicago teen deaths spike with Renaissance 2010

by smkovalinsky | October 6, 2009 at 06:39 pm

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A program launched by Mayor Daley with Chicago School Chief Duncan called Renaissance 2010 which sought to improve school districts may be worsening things for some:

"You have a trail of blood and tears ever since they launched (Renaissance 2010)," said Tio Hardiman, director of the anti-violence organization CeaseFire Illinois. "There's a history of violence associated with moving kids from one area to another."

Even in the cold rain, Danielle Jones would rather stand on the street and wait for her father to pick her up from her high school on Chicago's South Side than walk or take the bus, fearing the fights that start in school will be settled later on the streets.
That violence has increasingly turned deadly — including the vicious fatal beating of her classmate, 16-year-old Derrion Albert, whose after school death was captured on a cell phone video.

"It's fights everywhere — in front of the lunchroom, outside of school," said Jones, 15. "It's terrible, and nobody's doing nothing about it."

Activists say the escalating violence among Chicago's teens may have roots in an unlikely place — an ambitious plan to improve education that's also thrown rival gangs together in an often-volatile daily mix.

After images of Albert's death were widely broadcast last week, President Barack Obama is sending his education secretary back to Chicago where, as head of the city's schools, he implemented that plan. Attorney General Eric Holder will join Arne Duncan on Wednesday when they meet with school officials and students.

Since 2005, dozens of Chicago's public schools have been closed and thousands of students reassigned to campuses outside their neighborhoods — and often across gang lines — as part of Renaissance 2010, a program launched by Mayor Richard Daley when Duncan was Chicago Public Schools chief.

While the plan has resulted in replacing failing and low-enrollment schools with charter schools and smaller campuses, it has also led to a surge in violence that has increasingly turned deadly, many activists, parents and students say.

Before the 2006 school year, an average of 10-15 public school students were fatally shot each year. That soared to 24 deadly shootings in the 2006-07 school year, 23 deaths and 211 shootings in the 2007-08 school year and 34 deaths and 290 shootings last school year.

Few deaths have occurred on school grounds, but activists say it's no coincidence that violence spiked after the school closures.