March vs. War-driven Closings of 61 Chicago Schools

CHICAGO, March 27 — PLP marched with teachers, students, parents and workers to stop school closings and the layoffs of 2,000 teachers. We brought a message that only communism can give our children a real future.
In late March, the Chicago School Board announced that 61 schools would be closed before the opening of the 2013-2014 school year. Most are located in black and Latino neighborhoods of the South and West sides of the city. These racist attacks will hurt black, white, Asian and Latino working-class students. When confronted about these racist closings, the Chicago school CEO stated: “It’s not racist to close schools in those neighborhoods.”
PLP has repeatedly warned of the coming wars to decide which imperialists will control the world. The U.S. ruling class will use its state power to mobilize the population for war. Squeezed by imperialist rivalries, the bosses are only interested in educating black, Latino and white working-class youth for this purpose.
U.S. rulers are trying to seize the opportunity created by the right-wing “education reform movement.” The
reformers have successfully mobilized some parents and others to attack unionized public school teachers, demanded the use of standardized tests for data-driven evaluations of teachers, and popularized the call for more charter schools and corporate privatizing of education. They are calling on state governments to institute a “common core curriculum,” which will emphasize regimentation and loyalty to the state.
Under capitalism, co-locations create smaller schools inside old school buildings, dividing students, parents, and teachers from one another and weakening their ability to organize.  School closings are the order of the day for thousands of black, Latino, Asian, immigrant and white working-class children nationwide. These attacks will continue because the bosses need working-class youth to be the foot soldiers in their continuing wars, as well as low-paid workers or part of the reserve pool of unemployed workers. We will continue to bring the message of communist revolution to students, workers and soldiers in Chicago and all over the world. Capitalism is a rotten system that will be destroyed by the masses led by the PLP.