Opinion: Chicago is closing schools

Also: The Senate starts debating the Dreamers. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Tuesday, February 13, 2018 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( [David Leonhardt] David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist The Senate began debating the future of the Dreamers last night, a debate that’s scheduled to continue through this week. As it does, don’t lose sight of who’s making the most important decisions here: Republican leaders. Although the debate is starting in the Senate — and Democrats will play a central role in it — a Senate deal wouldn’t be enough. “It’s really hard to imagine ... a Senate-passed bill passing the House,” [Vox’s Dara Lind writes](. Why not? The House has many Republicans who don’t want an immigration deal, because they don’t want to protect the Dreamers from deportation. Democrats are virtually unanimous in wanting to protect the Dreamers, but Democrats don’t control the White House or Congress. In the end, Paul Ryan, the House speaker, may have the biggest decision to make. Any bill that might pass the Senate would likely have the support of a majority of House members — a mix of Democrats and less conservative Republicans. But as speaker, Ryan has the power to block any bill from coming to a vote. And he may use that power if most House Republicans oppose a bill. “When it comes to the dreamers,” [E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post writes]( “their fate depends almost entirely on Ryan.” (I’d add that President Trump matters too, because he could likely influence Ryan and some other House Republicans.) Far too much of the Dreamer discussion has centered on whether Democrats are going to stand tough. That’s not the issue here. Republicans control the government, and they will almost certainly decide whether a bill can pass. Chicago school progress. Some of the most impressive educational gains in the country have been happening in Chicago. Students — [of all races]( — have made striking progress in reading and math. They’re spending more time studying the arts. High-school graduation rates are up. Chicago still has a long way to go. Its math and reading scores remain below the national average, for example. But its recent progress is exciting, especially given the city’s diverse population and relatively high poverty rate. The city’s students “appear to be learning faster than those in almost every other school system in the country, according to new data from researchers at Stanford,” [Emily Badger and Kevin Quealy of The Times recently wrote](. In The Washington Post last week, [Karin Chenoweth wrote]( “If we as a country are really serious about wanting to improve schools and education, we should be studying Chicago.” The gains haven’t come easily, though. They have involved, among other things, greater accountability for school leaders and the closure of some underperforming schools. In a Times op-ed today, [Tamar Manasseh]( makes the case against the next round of Chicago’s school closures, calling previous ones “a fiasco.” I disagree. For too long, school systems have been unwilling to crack down on failing schools. As traumatic as closures can be, they can lead to real progress, as has happened in Chicago. In most other parts of society, after all, institutions aren’t allowed to fail year after year, without consequence. For more on Chicago, [I wrote about its schools]( last year, focusing on the role that principals have played. You can also read [the Stanford University study](. And The Chicago Tribune explained [the latest development]( yesterday: a three-year phaseout, rather than a 2018 closing, for three high schools. As usual, I encourage you to read both sides of the debate. Follow up. Lucas Dolan of American University [responded]( to my column about [Trumpism-for-thee-and-not-for-me]( by noting on Twitter that populist demagogues in other countries have followed a similar pattern. They’ve exempted their own supporters from their policy agenda. In a follow-up email exchange, Dolan credited the political scientists Kurt Weyland and Jan-Werner Müller with introducing the term “discriminatory legalism.” They used it to describe the actions of demagogues like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, who use the law to punish political opponents and give benefits to supporters. These populist leaders, Dolan wrote, “employ discriminatory legalism openly, seemingly with a clear conscience, and without significant political cost.” They can do so because of “the particular moral universe imaged by populists — whereby an ethically pure ‘people’ opposes an inherently corrupt elite,” which “provides political cover for these actions.” I’m not trying to suggest that Trump is the equivalent of Chávez, who was far, far worse. But Trump is certainly using some of the cynical, damaging tools of demagogues. For more, you can read [a 2013 Atlantic article about Latin America]( by Weyland or Müller’s 2016 book, “[What Is Populism?]( The full Opinion report from The Times follows. Editorial [Donald Trump’s Nasty Budget]( By THE EDITORIAL BOARD What happened to all that talk about sticking up for working people? Op-Ed Columnist [Trump Doesn’t Give a Dam]( By PAUL KRUGMAN His infrastructure “plan” is an obvious scam. But why didn’t he offer something legit? 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