158 Critical Planning Summer 2006 Critical Planning Summer 2007 ...

158Critical Planning Summer 2006 2007

Contested Space: The Struggle for theLittle Village Lawndale High SchoolJoanie FriedmanSchools often reflect the spatiality of existing power structures, however, at times they can alsoproduce alternative structures of power. In 1998 the Chicago Board of Education promised to buildthree new high schools, two in gentrifying neighborhoods on the north side and one in Little Village,a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood on the southwest side. While the two schoolson the North Side were completed, Little Village’s site remained empty. On Mothers’ Day in 2001,a group of mothers and grandmothers from Little Village went on a 19-day hunger strike to protestthe fact that the Board of Education had not delivered on its promise. Advocates for the new schoolstruggled (a) to obtain the promised funding for the school, (b) to be included in the design andconstruction of the building and (c) to be independent of the neo-liberal educational reform policy inChicago known as Renaissance 2010. Little Village Lawndale High School (LVLHS), the $63 milliondollar complex that resulted from the struggle, incorporates the memory of the strike and the valuesof the strikers into the architecture of the building. While the bricks and mortar of the school forma permanent monument to the strike, the school’s meaning is not fixed. As the school approachesthe end of its second year, it continues to be a contested space in the city of Chicago.IntroductionEducation theorists such as Michael Apple and Henry Giroux analyze education’s role in the perpetuationof the economic status quo in urban America (Giroux 1988; Apple 1991; 2001). Often called “reproductiontheorists,” these thinkers look at public education through a Marxist lens to identify how institutional structurescreate and maintain inequality. “Critical geographers” like David Harvey, Neil Smith and Don Mitchellalso follow a Marxist tradition, focusing on location and spatiality to understand why inequality exists whereit does (Mitchell 2003; Smith 1996; Harvey 1991; 1973). While a combination of education theory and criticalgeography can explain the structures that maintain inequality and the spatialization of power dynamics, theyneglect to account for the self-initiated opposition sometimes raised by charismatic and persistent communitiesseeking to overturn structural injustices. The narrative of Chicago’s Little Village Lawndale High School(LVLHS) illustrates one such case in which the community interrupted the dictating power of the institutionby asserting its collective voice.The story of LVLHS begins on Mother’s Day 2001, when a group of Mexican-American mothers andgrandmothers went on a hunger strike to fight for a new high school. It ends in September 2005, when a new$63 million building opened its doors to accept students. This study draws upon information gathered fromCritical Planning Summer 2007 SPATIAL JUSTICE 143

Figure 1: School Quality Distribution Pre- and Post-1995(The year of the amendments made to the 1988 Chicago School Reform Act)Source: Lipman 2004: 51-52there is a need to maintain scarcity in the housingmarket by “disinvesting” in certain locations so thatold buildings can be razed and new ones built, thusfeeding the market system of exchange. Similarly,there is an emerging pattern of disinvesting in schoolsand then reopening them as largely privatized entities.Renaissance 2010, also known as Ren10, is part ofa larger plan to close 60 Chicago public schools andreopen them as 100 new, small schools—the majorityof which will not have union representation andseveral of which will be privately operated. PaulineLipman argues that the goal of Ren 10 is to reshapethe educational geography of Chicago by aiding thegentrification of particular neighborhoods and, in effect,increasing educational inequality (Lipman 2007).In 1998 the Chicago Board of Education allocatedfunds to construct three new high schools withthe eventual goal of having one selective enrollmenthigh school in each of the six city regions (see figure1). By 2001, two of these schools, Northside Prepand Walter Payton—selective enrollment high schoolslocated in North Park and Near North—had beencompleted and were accepting students. However,Critical Planning Summer 2007 145

the site designated for the third new high schoolremained vacant. 4 This third site was located at thecorner of 31 st and Kostner in Little Village, a Mexican-Americanneighborhood that suffered from highschool overcrowding.The distribution and speed of new school developmentwere related to the social and economicmakeup of the neighborhoods. While North Parkand Near North, which are middle- and upperincomeneighborhoods on the North side, quicklyreceived new schools. Little Village, a low-incomeneighborhood on the Southwest side, did not—anironic outcome considering that Little Village hadthe greater need for improved educational resources.The spatial inequalities of resource distribution areevident in the tables below. Table 1 reveals that theLittle Village neighborhood holds a critical mass ofpoverty, with more than four times the populationof North Park, the largest number of families livingbelow the poverty line, and the lowest medianfamily income.Table 2, which shows graduation rates, attendancerates, test scores, and racial demographics, comparesNorth Side Prep and Walter Payton—the high schoolsconstructed in North Park and Near North—withFarragut Career Academy, the school that previouslyserved Little Village.As evident by the table, Farragut Career Academysuffered from the lowest attendance and graduationrate. In addition, as the AP score and curricularstandards data show, Farragut had by far the lowestsuccess rates while also having the highest percentageof non-white students.There is a relationship between demographicsand high school success. In an Education Weekarticle, journalist Mary Ann Zehr described the Farragutenvironment: “Luis Reyes, a 17-year-old whoattends Farragut High, says … ‘the school is crowdedand suffers from high teacher turnover.’ More than aquarter of the teachers at Farragut have emergencyor provisional credentials; on average, schools inChicago have 8.2 percent of teachers in the samesituation, according to the Illinois School ReportCard” (Zehr 2004: 34).The Struggle for the Little VillageLawndale High SchoolPaul Vallas, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, attributedconstruction delays in Little Village toinadequate state funds and told Little Village communitymembers that they needed to lobby the statelegislature in Springfield to obtain funding (Garcia2002). According to Jesus Garcia, Executive Directorof Little Village Community Development Corporation(LVCDC), “The Board’s representatives wouldnot accept responsibility for the delays and becameintransigent; they politicized the issue so as to confuseand divide the community while refusing to acknowledgefailure” (Garcia 2002: 6).Tim Martin, the facilities manager for ChicagoPublic Schools, came to Little Village and providedtwo “options” for a new high school, each of whichwould serve only a fraction of the students the advocatesrepresented. When the community protestedthese choices, Mr. Martin derogatorily implied that aschool would do little for the community: their sonswould still end up in gangs, while their daughters146Critical Planning Summer 2006 2007

Table 1: North Park, Near North, and Little Village ComparisonNeighborhoodPopulation in2000Source: Chicago (2003); Bureau of the Census (2000)# of Families below povertylinein 2000Median Family Income in 2000North Park 18,514 329 $58,984Near North 72,811 1883 $93,934Little Village 91,071 3905 $32,317Table 2: Walter Payton, Northside College Prep and Farragut Career Academy ComparisonSchoolsWalter Payton(Near North)NorthsideCollege Prep(North Park)AttendanceRate94.1%(# of students800)96.6%(# of students990)GraduationRate% meeting orexceeding standardsin Reading, Mathand Science89.1% Reading 95.1% Math93.0%Science 93.0%98.0% Reading 99%Math 98.5% Science98.5%Studentsscoring 3or better onAP examsRacialdemographic82.0% White 40.4%Black 27.5%Hispanic 22.8%Asian 8.8%83.0% White 40.0%Black 7.2%Hispanic 22.5%Asian 28.9%FarragutCareerAcademy(Little Village)90.3%(# of students2549)57.6% Reading 23.0% Math16.0% Science 11.0%3.0% White 0.2%Black 17.9%Hispanic 81.9%Asian 0.0%Source: Schools (2005); Education (2005)Critical Planning Summer 2007 147

would still just get pregnant. Immediately followingthis meeting, block club leaders trained in communityorganizing began a series of events that resulted in themost visible of the political protests: a hunger striketo fight for the high school that had been promisedto Little Village. 5On Mother’s Day in 2001, a group of Mexican-American protesters, predominantly mothers andgrandmothers, gathered near the corner of 31 st Streetand Kostner Avenue across the street from land thathad been cleared in preparation for the constructionof a new school (see image 1). Alderman RicardoMunoz had spent years lobbying for a new highschool in response to residents’ frustration over thelack of educational options in the neighborhood.Angered by neglect and Mr. Martin’s arrogant anddemeaning attitude, the protestors staged a hungerstrike on the site, which they named Camp Chavez inhonor of the famous Chicano organizer of migrantfarm workers.The series of events leading up to and followingthe strike represent a larger struggle about whoshould have access to city resources and how communitydecision-making should inform the processof resource distribution. Throughout the 19-dayhunger strike and their struggle to stay engaged inthe design process and define the school’s classification,LVLHS advocates worked collectively to obtainthe city resources that had been promised to them.They demanded money when they were told therewas no more money. They not only insisted on beinga significant part of the planning process, but alsocame to guide it.The hunger strike’s highly publicized eventsshifted power away from the CEO of Chicago PublicSchools and towards the community. Accordingto a description provided by Jaime de Leon (one ofthe hunger strike organizers) when the strike began,CEO Paul Vallas refused to come to the site or acknowledgethe strikers and said that he did not wantto come to Little Village to meet with a few womenwho are refusing to eat. On the sixth day of the strike,after several media outlets had covered the story andmore than 500 people were camping out on CampChavez, Vallas changed his mind and decided to visit.He arrived in his business suit with a cohort of staffmembers. He stood outside the tents and asked thestrikers to come speak to him. The strikers (who weredressed in casual clothes) stayed where they were andtold Vallas that if he wanted to speak with them, hewould have to enter the tent and sit on a milk crate.Vallas paused, but eventually sat down on the milkcrate to talk to the strikers. Thus, the hunger strikerswere able to control space by dictating the location inwhich they would negotiate. Community memberswere proud that such a powerful figure was forcedto negotiate on their turf, on their terms (DeLeon2006).During the 19-day strike, advocates developeda unique democratic decision-making process. AsGarcia explains, “The hunger strikers and a handfulof volunteers who dedicated time, resources anddedication to the campaign were allowed to participatein the discussions when decisions were tobe made. The strikers had voting rights and [sought]consensus [from] those participating in the discussions”(Garcia 2002: 26). This process is importantbecause the strikers were fighting for just resourcesin a just fashion.148Critical Planning Summer 2006 2007

community and gather design ideas. They distributedcameras to residents and asked them to capture imagesthat defined their neighborhood. The communityparticipants returned with images of local murals,monuments and mosaics that were then incorporatedinto the building design (see image 2; Beach 2006).In her book The Power of Place, author DoloresHayden writes, “Many cultures have...attempted toembed memory in narrative elements of buildings…[C]ommon urban places like union halls, schools,and residences have the power to evoke visual, socialmemory”(Hayden 1995: 46-47). The LVLHS complexis an example of monumental architecture, becausethe architect infused the space with traditional signsand symbols. The design team wanted the building toreflect the neighborhood’s Mexican-American heritage.They decided to use the Aztec creation myth ofthe “Five Worlds” or “Five Suns” as an analogy forthe school’s educational structure. The Aztec mythclaimed that when each of the four elements (wind,water, fire, earth) emerged separately, none survived.It was only when all four rose together and createdthe fifth element—that of community—that theworld was created. Working with the Small Schoolsproject of the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC),the architect used this guiding theme to create foursmall schools within the larger complex, with a sharedspace as the “fifth element.” Other architecturaldetails made reference to the strike, such as the glasswindows inside the school that were crafted at 19degree angles to represent the 19 days of the strike.Fourteen flowering trees were planted in front ofthe school to represent the fourteen original strikers(see image 3). Most dramatically, in the center of thecomplex is a multi-story silver spire (See image 4). Onthe inside of the spire there is a sundial that highlightsthe exact 19 days of the strike. At one point duringthose 19 days, light hits a combination of mirrors tomagnify and reflect the light on the opposite wall ofthe spire (see image 5). The technique of aggregatingmultiple sources of light into one centralized spacesymbolizes the community’s collective struggle for theschool and monumentalizes their unity and strength.Since the community was included in the design process,a unique space was created to pay homage to theneighborhood, the Mexican-American culture and theadvocates who struggled to create it. Moreover, oneof the four small schools in the complex dedicatedits curriculum to social justice. 6 Through its tangiblestructure and intangible curriculum, the school wasdesigned to keep an empowering political event freshin the minds of its students. As stated on the school’swebsite (www.lvlhs.org), the mission of the SocialJustice School reads, “Our students will cherish andpreserve their ethnic and cultural identity, will serveand determine the future of our community, and willhave a passion for peace, justice and the dignity of allpeople” (School 2007).The community struggled to stay in control of aprocess usually enacted behind closed doors. Afterthe school design was completed, the drawings werehanded over to the Public Building Commission(PBC) for construction. The PBC officials toldthe community members that they were no longerneeded and that the next phase was just “technical.”However, the advocates demanded to be includedin more mundane decisions such as tile material andpaint color (Martinez 2006).Finally, even after the money was allocated, thedesign established and the physical building completed,the community had to fight to maintain its150Critical Planning Summer 2006 2007

self-identity. School leaders (principals, teachers, advocates)objected to the announcement from ChicagoPublic Schools that the school would be counted as aRenaissance 2010 school. In line with the community’sdedication to social justice, the school’s planners objectedto it being identified with a plan that has beencriticized for promoting gentrification in Chicagoneighborhoods. Rito Martinez explains:The neighborhood Transition Advisory Council(TAC)] wrote all these letters saying we refuse tobe part of Renaissance 2010. [The Chicago PublicSchools] would come out with new literature announcingthe new Renaissance 2010 and our namewould be on there and we had counter media sayingwe were not, going back and forth, back and forth.Ren10 has, as you know, a very dark cloud over itespecially in the Kenwood/Oakland neighborhoodwhere it was used to gentrify a community – andwe did not want to be a part of something that wassuspect in such a horrible way. It was against all ofour values. (Martinez 2006)Figure 3: Images of the neighborhood collected by the school design team.Source: Collected by OWP/P.Critical Planning Summer 2007 151

The local school community held a press conferenceto reject the designation. In a press release onDecember 13, 2004, Linda Sarate, one of the original14 hunger strikers, stated: “We just want everyoneto remember that our schools were the result of acommunity struggle that did not have anything todo with Renaissance 2010.” TAC member Josie Yanguasadded, “We share some of the same concernsthat other folks have from around the city regardingRen10. It just leaves too many unanswered questions,on issues like evaluation process, the community’srole in governance, and autonomies”(De Leon andCoronado 2004). Despite a press conference and apress release objecting to the categorization, ChicagoPublic Schools currently lists all four of the smallschools in LVLHS on their Renaissance 2010 website(Schools 2007).Contested SpaceAlthough construction has been completed and theschool is in its second year of operation, the spacecontinues to be contested. While the bricks andmortar are fixed, the meaning of the space is not.Constructed by a design team to reflect the values ofsocial justice embodied in the struggle for the school,the building is constantly taking on new meanings.Before the school opened, for example, the ChicagoPublic School Capital Planning Group, operatingunder the (often contested) desegregation consentdecree in Illinois, drew the boundaries for the schoolso that 30 percent of its slots are secured for studentsfrom neighboring North Lawndale, a predominatelyAfrican-American neighborhood. This action hasresulted in tension between residents of the twoneighborhoods. In order to represent the populationserved, its teachers and administrators, as well as theofficial school website, call the school Little VillageLawndale High School (LVLHS). However, the frontof the building bears the name “Little Village HighSchool” in large block letters (see figure 7). Thissemantic discrepancy affects who feels “ownership”over the school.Controversies over boundary lines and whocan be admitted to the school have also changedits meaning for residents of both Little Village andNorth Lawndale. To those who are denied access, theimpressive spire and $63 million campus representwhat their children are not able to receive. Recently,State Senator Martin Sandoval created a stir whenhe initiated a referendum on the issue of whetherthe boundaries of the school should be changed toinclude more residents of Little Village. The results ofthe referendum showed that a slight majority of LittleVillage residents who completed the referendum werein favor of redrawing the boundaries. While this referendumwas purely advisory and no boundary lineswere redrawn, the meaning of the school continuesto be contested (Rossi 2006: 6).David Harvey’s assessment of housing resourcesasserts that residential inequality is due to the scarcityof good housing, itself a product of a capitalist society.The LVLHS case reveals that there is a scarcityof educational resources in Chicago and that particularcommunities are excluded from deciding how theyare distributed. The events described above demonstratethe struggle over the unequal distribution ofeducational resources and the ability of residents todetermine if, how, and where public money is spentin providing educational resources for their neighborhoods.152Critical Planning Summer 2006 2007

Figure 4: 19 degree walkway designedto represent the 19 days of the strike.Figure 6: The inside of the spire acts asun dial to highlight the exact calendardays of the strike.Figure 5: The Spire rises from the centerof the building.Source: George Beach, OWP/P.Critical Planning Summer 2007 153

There are several moments within this case studyin which the construction of meaning is determinedby the construction of space. For example, the strugglebetween CEO Paul Vallas, who at first refusedto negotiate on Camp Chavez but later conceded tonegotiate while sitting on a milk crate in a tent, showshow the hunger strikers used their space to wieldpower. The design team for the building used iconsand symbols of the strike and Mexican-Americanculture to shape the physical structure of the buildinginto a living monument. Finally, the completionof the school (the building and the curriculum) andthe ongoing fight for self-definition reveal the powerof advocates to create meaning for residents ofLittle Village and other neighborhoods throughoutChicago. The story of LVLHS shows not only thatthe spatial distribution of educational resources oftenbenefits wealthier, predominately Caucasian areas atthe expense of lower income minority areas, but alsothat lower income minorities can fight for and securereallocation. The struggle for the LVLHS building illustrateshow space reflects power (“good” schools arebuilt in wealthy neighborhoods without a struggle) butalso how space can produce power and how collectiveaction can result in a more spatially just distributionof educational resources.Figure 7: The school is known as Little Village Lawndale High School. Only “Little Village” appears on the building.Source: OWP/P.154Critical Planning Summer 2006 2007

Joanie Friedman recently completed her Master of Arts atDePaul University’s Social and Cultural Foundations inEducation Program. She is a graduate of Brown Universityand currently works at the University of Chicago’s CivicKnowledge Project.Lead PhotographLittle Village Lawndale High School , Chicago- Jason ReblandoNotes1 Plus programs are defined as elementary magnet schools,regional gifted centers, and classical schools; grade seven totwelve Academic Centers for “academically advanced students;”and traditional magnet high schools, InternationalBaccalaureate programs, College Prep Regional MagnetHigh Schools, and Math, Science, Technology Academies(MSTAs). Minus programs are defined as vocational highschools and elementary schools using scripted direct instruction(DI) and Education-to-Career Academies (ETCs)and Military Academies, see Lipman (2004).2 The Illinois State Legislature passed the 1988 ChicagoSchool Reform Act that created Local School Councils inorder to create a more democratic system of control ofthe public schools. LSC’s had the power to hire and fireprincipals, and allocate the school’s discretionary funds. The1995 amendment to the Chicago School Reform shifted thepower away from the LSC’s and consolidated power in theMayor’s office. The Mayor was given the power to appointthe Board of Trustees and the chief executive officer (CEO)of the Chicago Public Schools. The Mayor also had thepower to dissolve Local School Councils when necessaryand cancel union contracts. The 1995 law gave the mayorthe power to control millions of dollars in CPS contracts,see Lipman (2004), p. 35-36.3 Lipman writes, “As a whole, regional magnet high schoolsreflect dual functions of the state. They support capitalaccumulation through their strategic location in key gentrifyingand upper-income neighborhoods while legitimatingcity government and CPS administration by being “fairly”allocated to all regions of the school district.” (Lipman2004, p. 55)4 The schools for the other three regions were Jones CollegePrep, Lindblom College Prep and Southside CollegePrep (now Gwendolyn Brooks), see Schaeffer (2000) andLenz (2000).5 Strikers included Manuelita Garcia, Linda Sarate, MariaElena Lee, Carolina Perez, Toribio Esteban, Claudio Gaete,Ruben Magdaleno, Samuel Garcia, Andrea Guzman, CarolinaPerez, Carolina Gaete, Gema Gaete, Maribel Yanez,Teresa Roman, Hugo Ceja. These are the names providedby Jaime DeLeon, an organizer at LVCDC (DeLeon 2006).The exact number of hunger strikers varies because somemembers dropped out and some joined late. It is importantto note that there were both men and women who werehunger striking – but the media highlighted the mothersand grandmothers in the group. While there are 15 nameshere, several publications listed that there were only 14strikers, see Russo (2003)6 Each of the four schools (Multicultural Arts School,Infinity, World Languages and Social Justice) has its ownadministration and curricular focus but is housed withinthe same complex so that each school can share resourceswhile maintaining a close relationship among students,faculty and administration.ReferencesApple, Michael. 1991. Ideology and Curriculum. New York:Routledge.———. 2001. Educating the ‘Right’ Way: Markets, Standards,God, and Inequality. New York: Routledge Falmer.Beach, George. 2006. Interview with author. July 26:OWP/P.Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce.2000. 2000 Census of Population. Available on the internetat: www.census.gov. Accessed on April 4, 2007.Critical Planning Summer 2007 155

Chicago, City of. 2003. Economic Demographic Information.Available on the internet at: http://egov.cityofchicago.org:80/webportal/COCWebPortal/COC_EDITO-RIAL/South_Lawndale.pdf. Accessed on March27, 2007.De Leon, Jaime. 2006. Interview with author. Little VillageCommunity Development Corporation: February10.De Leon, Jaime and Coronado, Linda. 2004. Press Release:Little Village Community Development Corporation. Archivedat Little Village Community DevelopmentCorporation, 2756 S. Harding Avenue, Chicago, IL60623-4407.Education, Illinois State Board of. 2005. eReport card publicsite. Available on the internet at: www.ISBE.state.il.usAccessed on February 9, 2007.Garcia, Jesus. 2002. The fight for a new high school inLittle Village. Masters Thesis. Chicago, IL: Collegeof Urban Planning and Policy Analysis, Universityof Illinois at Chicago.Giroux, Henry. 1988. Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a CriticalPedagogy of Learning, Critical Studies in Education andCulture Series. Westport, Conn: Pergin and Garvey.Harvey, David. 1973. Social Justice and the City. Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press.———. 1991. From Space to Place and Back Again: Reflectionson the Condition of Postmodernity. Paper readat UCLA GSAUP Colloquium, May 13, 1991.Hayden, Dolores. 1995. The Power of Place Urban Landscapesas Public History. Cambridge, Massachusetts: TheMIT Press.Kozol, Jonathan. 1991. Savage Inequalities. New York: HarperPerennial.Lenz, Linda, Anderson, Veronica. 2000. System still riddledwith inequities. Catalyst Chicago . Available on theinternet at: http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/news/index.php?item=262&cat=19. Accessed on March14, 2007.Lipman, Pauline. 2004. High Stakes Education. New York:Routledge Falmer.Lipman, Pauline and Haines, Nathan. 2007. From EducationAccountability to Privatization and AfricanAmerican exclusion –Chicago Public Schools’ “Renaissance2010”. Educational Policy 21(3): 1-32.Martinez, Rita. 2006. Interview with author. Little VillageLawndale High School: July 26.Mitchell, Don. 2003. The Right to the City: Social Justice and theFight for Public Space. New York: The Guilford Press.Rossi, Rosalind. 2006. 4 who fasted for high school can’tsend kids. Chicago Sun-Times January 10: 1.Russo, Alexander. 2003. Constructing a new school. CatalystChicago June:1-7.Schaeffer, Brett. 2000. Some see elite schools as drain onsystem. Catalyst Chicago December: n.p. Availableon the internet at: http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/news/index.php?item=256&cat=23. AccessedMarch 14, 2006.School, Little Village Lawndale High. 2007. Available onthe internet at: www.lvlhs.org Accessed on March14, 2007.Schools, Chicago Public. 2005. Scorecards. Available on theinternet at: www.cps.k12.il.us/Schools/hsdirectory/HS_Directory.pdf . Accessed on February 9, 2007.———. 2007. Renaissance 2010 Web Page. Available on theinternet at: www.ren2010.cps.k12.il.us . Accessed onMarch 14, 2007.Smith, Neil. 1996. The New Urban Frontier. London: Routledge.Zehr, Mary Ann. 2004. Close to home. Education Week23(26): 30-35.156Critical Planning Summer 2006 2007