Are schools the next target of gentrification? Chicago has been closing public schools in the areas developers want.(NEWS)

THE CHICAGO BOARD OF EDUCATION has closed or is planning to shut down up to 70 schools. At the same time, 100 new schools are scheduled to open under the city's Renaissance 2010, a project spearheaded by Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Commercial Club of Chicago, and funded in part by $50 million from the private sector. Critics of Ren2010, as it is often called, see a disturbing link between the project and gentrification. The "failing" schools targeted for closing are almost all in poor communities of color. Since 90 percent of Chicago public school students qualify for subsidized lunches, and the student body as a whole is mostly Black and Latino, this in itself is not surprising. But analysts like David Stovall, a professor of African American and education policy studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, say the closings are heavily concentrated in gentrifying areas. "This is a piece in the larger picture of making Chicago a 'global city' and displacing residents seen as undesirable," Stovall said.

What happens in Chicago is significant for the rest of the country. The city's controversial 1995 school policy is widely considered to have been a model for the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act. Under the initial policy, Chicago schools labeled as "failing" were put on probation. With Ren2010, two-thirds of the new schools are charter and contract schools, employing non-union teachers and granting a high degree of flexibility in curriculum and focus. Chicago Public Schools spokesman Malon Edwards said any individual or organization could propose a new school. Priority is supposed to be given to community residents at the new schools, but the contract and charter schools can also accept students ...