Nonfiction Blogpost

      

"Chicago to shutter dozens of schools"

             I've recently read an article on 'www.cnn.com' called, "Chicago to shutter dozens of schools". This non-fiction article was written by Dana Ford and Katherine Wojtecki. This article is mainly about how Chicago officials are planning to close down dozens of schools in an effort to improve education and lower the $ 1 billion deficit. 

             "Every child in every neighborhood in Chicago deserves access to a high-quality education that prepares them to succeed in life, but for too long children in certain parts of Chicago have been cheated out of the resources they need to succeed because they are in underutilized, under-resourced schools", is what Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the chief executive of CPS, said about this situation. This quote basically gives all the reasons why Chicago officials are shutting down dozens of schools. These children deserve to get a education in better performing schools in the school district. 

             According to this article, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has about 403,000 students with seats for more than 511,000 students. Data from the district shows that close to 140 of its 681 schools are more than half empty indicating the benefit of closing down several schools to get these students into those nearly half empty schools.

            The authors first starts off by giving information from both sides to give me a sense of what i'm reading about, and they do this by giving us direct quotes and statistics that prove one side correct. The authors want me to decide whether closing down several schools is a good idea or not, and to consider what benefits and disadvantages this situation would have once it occurs. 

            Looking at both sides, I feel that closing dozens of schools will mean a mass amount of unemployment which is an obvious disadvantage for the employees, and that by doing so it'll benefit the children by giving them a better education. An education that every child truly deserves, and should be able to cherish. I think that closing down the schools would really help tackle the $1 billion and give a good education for the children which is what's really important.