The Chicago Public Schools Disrtict (CPS) recently announced the closing of 54 schools in order to save money, allow those students who are removed from their school to attend better institutions and add a more beneficial learning environment for the students in the CPS district.

After reading into this “beneficial” action from CPS I must say I’m quite disgusted by what they’re doing and feel this is little more than CPS saying minority students are second-class citizens. Also, I feel this act will not “improve” the quality of education these students shall receive, but rather hinder their chances at a good education.

According to New York Times reporters Steven Yaccino and Motoko Rich, in the 100 schools Chicago has closed down since 2001, 88 percent of students who were affected were African American students. The most shocking part about this statistic is African American students only make up 42 percent of the overall enrollment of CPS.

“Students who feel that they belong to their community at school have higher graduation rates, better attendance and overall improved attitudes towards learning and school,” said Molly Swick, an education instructor at NIU. “Closing schools and transporting students outside of their community can have a detrimental impact on students who already struggle with economic and racial inequalities.”

These students need to feel like they are connected to the community. They need positive adult role models in their lives or they run the risk of being swept up into the gang life themselves. What sort of message is CPS sending when it removes these children from their schools and throws them around from one to the next?

The supposed “improvement” to the quality of education these children will receive is also something that has been proven inaccurate. In a study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago, of 38 schools that closed from 2001 to 2006, only 6 percent of the students were enrolled in academically strong schools after their institution closed. With these statistics, how does CPS plan on implementing this “improvement” it claims it is giving to these children?

The worst part about these closures is that, according to an column from takepart.com by Isabel Nuñez, the CPS’s stated agenda of being able to create classes at the ideal sizes of 30 students strongly contradicts studies which have proven that students among classes of 15 perform better than classes of 22. Yet the CPS wants to create classes of 30?

Studies have also shown that poor African American students in the CPS district perform better in smaller classes. And yet they’re taking them away from the chance at a better system of education.

These children deserve a chance at a good education and a future. CPS seems to be more interested in ways of destroying both of these chances.