Grantee Partner Spotlight with Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education
Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education Executive Director, Jianan Shi, sat down with Woods Fund Chicago in this month's grantee spotlight.
Jianan, can you tell me what drew you to Raise Your Hand, its work, and its mission?
I first learned about Raise Your Hand when I joined the fight to save National Teachers Academy. I was a CPS educator living in Chinatown at the time and I felt compelled to fight as a Chinese American against what I thought was a manifestation of white supremacy. When given false choices, communities were pitted against one another and were burying Black education. RYH was there throughout the fight and when the opportunity came up, I felt building parent power was one of the most impactful ways that I could express my love for this city.
adrienne marie brown calls out that inequities are not by accident but are part of someone's imagination for how the world should be. I love my job because we get to paint our parents' imaginations of a world that works for everyone into reality. We fight to improve democracy, increase funding/resources and dismantle oppressive systems and policies. As I complete 2 years at Raise Your Hand, I still have to pinch myself that I get to be part of building parent power across this city.
As we have reached the close of another challenging school year, what thoughts do you have on the current state of education in Chicago? What observations and lessons do you have about organizing around education throughout the pandemic?
During this pandemic, we were reminded that systems built by those in power will never serve us in the way people fully deserve. We saw institutions struggle to operate in creative and responsive ways. We saw the school district try to fix things by trying to return back to normal as fast as possible when normal never worked for many families. Whether it is through our fight for an elected school board or our work in strengthening local school councils, we must trust that parents, youth and educators know what is best for their communities. During the height of the pandemic, RYH didn’t know all the answers, but we continued to gather parents together to listen and learn from each other. That is how the #TrustLearningCare campaign was formed; from parents and youth working together to fight for what their communities needed in order to heal from the pandemic.
We must continue to reject false choices and band aid solutions as they maintain the status quo. Our current system doesn’t believe we can educate every child. Instead of practicing what they preach, such as targeted universalism, which should be prioritizing the needs of diverse learners first, we are fighting another cycle of CPS delaying and denying services for students with IEPs. That is why we see our district choose a competitive choice model instead of focusing on building strong neighborhood options everywhere. This continues to dismantle Black and Brown communities and make them fight for scraps. We cannot celebrate equity grants when CPS will not be fully funded until 2051, which is why we have convened a school funding coalition.
Our city has perverse priorities, which is why our struggles must be interconnected. Last year CPS funded 33 million dollars to pay for police in schools (including their pensions & benefits) and police out of schools (for their lieutenants and patrol cars as well) when many of those schools had more police officers than counselors. This is what happens when we don’t have a collective vision on safety or discipline. During the pandemic, CPD was able to launch a new drone program, but CPS sent computers to schools that did not function properly. Raise Your Hand led the May 20th People’s Report Card action to connect how elected officials have failed Chicago on multiple fronts.
What are your thoughts on the current CPS CEO search? What direction or outcome do you hope to see?
RYH wrote a letter to the next CPS CEO and provided 3 recommendations:
Our first recommendation is fund Black communities — full stop. Currently, there is a pattern in Black communities that in order to receive new investment, something needs to be taken away. That is why we are fighting with the community to save the 3 North Lawndale schools from being closed.
Our second recommendation is to create real opportunities for authentic and meaningful engagement. Throughout this pandemic, parents have been treated like a check box.
Our last recommendation, based on our work with the youth led #CopsOutCPS campaign and our special education community, is to dismantle institutional adultism. If we say we center youth experiences, we must actually deliver on their demands.