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suntimes.com Member of the Sun-Times News Group
Daley voices concerns
about gay high school
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City
Hall Reporter, From the Web, October 25, 2008
Mayor Daley on Thursday expressed
strong reservations about the Chicago Board of Education’s controversial plan to
open the city’s first high school serving gay and lesbian students.
One day after his handpicked school board put off a vote on the School for
Social Justice Pride Campus, Daley explained why — by expressing his concerns.
“You have to look at whether or not you isolate and segregate children. A
holistic approach has always been to have children of all different backgrounds
in schools. When you start isolating children and you say, ‘Only 50
percent here, 40 percent here’ — same thing we went through with the disabled —
then you want to do that when they’re adults,” Daley said.
Daley insisted he was not behind the board’s decision to put off a final vote on
Social Justice High until Nov. 19. The school would serve a 50/50
population of gay and straight students.
Schools CEO Arne Duncan had hoped to open the school in the fall of 2010 to
offer parents and students more choices and a feeling of safety. He has
argued that gay and lesbian students have higher drop-out rates because they
feel ostracized.
Duncan was emboldened by a national survey of 6,000 middle and high school
students released by the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network. It
showed that nearly 90 percent were harassed at school and that 61 percent felt
unsafe.
Rick Garcia, political director of Equality Illinois, said Daley is “absolutely
correct” on Social Justice High.
“There’s no doubt there’s violence and bullying of gay kids and something has to
be done, but segregating them is not the answer,” said Garcia. “It doesn’t
stop bullying at other schools. And if a kid is different and the object
of scorn or bullying, instead of addressing it, the teacher might say, ‘Send him
to homo high.’
“Instead of a school for gay kids, maybe we need a school for the bullies.
Gay kids are not the problem. Bullies and teachers and administrators who
don’t stop the bullying are the problem,” he said.
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