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Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side
“Failing schools. Underprivileged schools. Just plain bad schools.”
That’s how Eve L. Ewing opens Ghosts in the Schoolyard : describing Chicago Public Schools from the outside. The way politicians and pundits and parents of kids who attend other schools talk about them, with a mix of pity and contempt.
But Ewing knows Chicago Public Schools from the as a student, then a teacher, and now a scholar who studies them. And that perspective has shown her that public schools are not buildings full of failures—they’re an integral part of their neighborhoods, at the heart of their communities, storehouses of history and memory that bring people together.
Never was that role more apparent than in 2013 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced an unprecedented wave of school closings. Pitched simultaneously as a solution to a budget problem, a response to declining enrollments, and a chance to purge bad schools that were dragging down the whole system, the plan was met with a roar of protest from parents, students, and teachers. But if these schools were so bad, why did people care so much about keeping them open, to the point that some would even go on a hunger strike?
Ewing’s answer begins with a story of systemic racism, inequality, bad faith, and distrust that stretches deep into Chicago history. Rooting her exploration in the historic African American neighborhood of Bronzeville, Ewing reveals that this issue is about much more than just schools. Black communities see the closing of their schools—schools that are certainly less than perfect but that are theirs —as one more in a long line of racist policies. The fight to keep them open is yet another front in the ongoing struggle of black people in America to build successful lives and achieve true self-determination.
That’s how Eve L. Ewing opens Ghosts in the Schoolyard : describing Chicago Public Schools from the outside. The way politicians and pundits and parents of kids who attend other schools talk about them, with a mix of pity and contempt.
But Ewing knows Chicago Public Schools from the as a student, then a teacher, and now a scholar who studies them. And that perspective has shown her that public schools are not buildings full of failures—they’re an integral part of their neighborhoods, at the heart of their communities, storehouses of history and memory that bring people together.
Never was that role more apparent than in 2013 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced an unprecedented wave of school closings. Pitched simultaneously as a solution to a budget problem, a response to declining enrollments, and a chance to purge bad schools that were dragging down the whole system, the plan was met with a roar of protest from parents, students, and teachers. But if these schools were so bad, why did people care so much about keeping them open, to the point that some would even go on a hunger strike?
Ewing’s answer begins with a story of systemic racism, inequality, bad faith, and distrust that stretches deep into Chicago history. Rooting her exploration in the historic African American neighborhood of Bronzeville, Ewing reveals that this issue is about much more than just schools. Black communities see the closing of their schools—schools that are certainly less than perfect but that are theirs —as one more in a long line of racist policies. The fight to keep them open is yet another front in the ongoing struggle of black people in America to build successful lives and achieve true self-determination.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published October 22, 2018
313 people are currently reading
10721 people want to read
About the author
Eve L. Ewing
100 books1,205 followersDr. Eve Louise Ewing is a writer and a sociologist of education from Chicago. Ewing is a prolific writer across multiple genres. Her 2018 book Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism & School Closings on Chicago's South Side explores the relationship between the closing of public schools and the structural history of race and racism in Chicago's Bronzeville community.
Ewing's first collection of poetry, essays, and visual art, Electric Arches, was published by Haymarket Books in 2017. Her second collection, 1919, tells the story of the race riot that rocked Chicago in the summer of that year. Her first book for elementary readers, Maya and the Robot, is forthcoming in 2020 from Kokila, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Her work has been published in many venues, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Poetry Magazine, and the anthology American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, curated by Tracy K. Smith, Poet Laureate of the United States. With Nate Marshall, she co-wrote the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks, produced by Manual Cinema and commissioned by the Poetry Foundation. She also currently writes the Champions series for Marvel Comics and previously wrote the acclaimed Ironheart series, as well as other projects.
Ewing's first collection of poetry, essays, and visual art, Electric Arches, was published by Haymarket Books in 2017. Her second collection, 1919, tells the story of the race riot that rocked Chicago in the summer of that year. Her first book for elementary readers, Maya and the Robot, is forthcoming in 2020 from Kokila, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Her work has been published in many venues, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Poetry Magazine, and the anthology American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, curated by Tracy K. Smith, Poet Laureate of the United States. With Nate Marshall, she co-wrote the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks, produced by Manual Cinema and commissioned by the Poetry Foundation. She also currently writes the Champions series for Marvel Comics and previously wrote the acclaimed Ironheart series, as well as other projects.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 453 reviews
October 25, 2018
This is so well written. I am biased in my praise for this book because I am a CPS teacher, and have been for 8 years. My former school was on the list of schools slated to close. I attended many a public meeting and watched teachers, families, students, and community members beg and plead to keep their school open. So I can say that Eve Ewing hits every emotion that happened during that time period, and explains what it was like to an outsider. I’m not that outsider, but I’m here to tell you that this is the truth.
Ewing writes this book in the best possible way that non-fiction can be written: it’s compelling. I know a lot of this information, I get it, and yet I still read on, hurtling toward what everyone knows will happen, it’s in the title. These schools are closed. Ewing describes it so well, and ties the school closings to our beloved city’s difficult past, present, and future with race. I also really enjoyed the discussion of mourning an institution, which I don’t think I’ve ever thought of before but now can give words to my feelings while driving through gentrified neighborhoods and schools turned into loft apartments. This book highlights Chicago’s true shame in the form of trying to ruin public education, and it explained so well what happens when a school closes.
I can’t recommended this book enough, and also, the actual book itself is A+, with its creamy pages and texturized inside cover. Also sorry this is so long, I just have a lot of feelings about this book/Chicago/education/school closing.
Tl;dr version is to read this book bc it’s shorter than my review and really really good.
Ewing writes this book in the best possible way that non-fiction can be written: it’s compelling. I know a lot of this information, I get it, and yet I still read on, hurtling toward what everyone knows will happen, it’s in the title. These schools are closed. Ewing describes it so well, and ties the school closings to our beloved city’s difficult past, present, and future with race. I also really enjoyed the discussion of mourning an institution, which I don’t think I’ve ever thought of before but now can give words to my feelings while driving through gentrified neighborhoods and schools turned into loft apartments. This book highlights Chicago’s true shame in the form of trying to ruin public education, and it explained so well what happens when a school closes.
I can’t recommended this book enough, and also, the actual book itself is A+, with its creamy pages and texturized inside cover. Also sorry this is so long, I just have a lot of feelings about this book/Chicago/education/school closing.
Tl;dr version is to read this book bc it’s shorter than my review and really really good.
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February 17, 2019Can we all agree that Eve Ewing is amazing?
August 30, 2020
Tbh a must read!! Especially if you live in Chicago or work in education or have received public education. I thought it was gripping and readable so I just zoomed through it! Could not put it down! Rly a great opportunity to learn more bronzeville history since that is the neighborhood I work in. Also teehee Eve Ewing both cites and quotes my MOM and dangggg that was cool to see 😎 go mom go!
May 13, 2019
A sociologist examines the 2013 Chicago public school closings, bringing in the history of Chicago social movements, city systems, neighborhood reputations...It's a fascinating and disturbing topic. I think the book is hampered a bit by being very clearly graduate work--Chapter 4 in particular reads like a chapter from an academic's dissertation or thesis. A lot of really interesting points are for some reason relegated to the notes section. And by interesting points I mean some of the endnotes are literally 2 pages of topical information and analysis that I think would've fit perfectly into the chapters. Also, I think this book missed out by not including anything about the Chicago Teachers' union and their knock-down drag-out fight with Mayor Emanuel, very little about how budgets were doled out, and barely mentioned the impact of charter schools. As an explanation for what caused the school closings, this felt patchy, but the chapters on people's responses to the school closings were rich, meaty, and informative.
January 31, 2019
"People will take everything you have, then blame you for having nothing."
November 19, 2018
In 2013, then-mayor Rahm Emanuel unveiled a plan to shut down “failing” public schools at a rate previously unseen. Citing budget deficits, declines in overall enrollment, and low test scores, the closures were framed as an unfortunate inevitability, driven by objective metrics and Chicago Public Schools administrators’ desire to do better by students “trapped in underutilized schools”. Given the city’s explanation, Emanuel’s plan might easily have been interpreted as a hopeful shift; once their “woeful” schools were closed, displaced students would be routed to supposedly higher-performing ones. Nevertheless, strident protest from Chicago’s Black communities -- sit-ins, press conferences, vigils, counter-proposals, a hunger strike -- captured national headlines. “[I]f the schools were so terrible,” asks qualitative sociologist Eve L. Ewing, “why did people fight for them so adamantly?” To answer this question, Ewing presents an accessible, carefully researched power analysis of segregation and public policy, in the context of school closures as they particularly impacted Bronzeville (a historically Black south side neighborhood). Most compelling is how Ewing centers the perspectives of those most impacted by school closures, uplifting their voices by transcribing public comments and interview testimonies. Such theoretical emphasis counters the long history of the silencing and repression that Ewing uncovers through her work, and prioritizes the community members’ own methodology for evaluating the schools in their city: one that “centers black children and black communities as constituents with voices that matter, and… acknowledges the racialized social system we live in.” Despite Bronzeville residents’ tremendous efforts, all six of the schools represented in Ewing’s research ultimately close, and Ghosts in the Schoolyard then becomes an investigation on institutional mourning -- how impacted communities make sense of the trauma they endured, and how they remember what city officials attempted to eradicate. Also an accomplished poet, Ewing uses lyrical prose as deftly as statistical data to engage general readers and researchers alike.
July 30, 2022
a needed read that gave insight into how Chicago has failed its patrons of public schools. also gave further insight into the structural racism that causes these failings.
May 22, 2019
I read this book because it was on the discussion list for the Open Discussion Project at Anderson’s, our local bookstore. It is a pretty fast read and provided a lot of information on the challenges within Bronzeville, the almost exclusively black area on Chicago’s south side. Very eye opening for me to learn about the challenges and history associated with the CHS (Chicago Housing System) and CPS (Chicago Public Schools). This book specifically focused on the 2013 closings of 50 elementary schools within Bronzeville. The community banded together to protest and fight the closings as they felt their voices and culture were being ignored. While I really liked the learnings... the stats provided, the school board structure info, the community culture, etc., I hope there is a follow-up book discussing solutions. Tough, deeply embedded issues need to be addressed and Chicago’s new Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, might just hold the key.
The Chicago Real Estate Board (CREB) actively encouraged restrictive covenants (private agreements between property owners and Real Estate Agents that homes were not to be sold to or occupied by black people), sending advocates and speakers across the city to praise the strategy to white property owners.¹⁸ It also voted to expel any of its members who rented or sold to black people on a block otherwise occupied by white residents.¹⁹
"Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side" by Eve L. Ewing.
The Chicago Real Estate Board (CREB) actively encouraged restrictive covenants (private agreements between property owners and Real Estate Agents that homes were not to be sold to or occupied by black people), sending advocates and speakers across the city to praise the strategy to white property owners.¹⁸ It also voted to expel any of its members who rented or sold to black people on a block otherwise occupied by white residents.¹⁹
"Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side" by Eve L. Ewing.
June 14, 2018
Wow. I knew the Chicago Public School system was bad, but this opened my eyes to a whole new world of gentrification, racism, elitism, and more in one of the most segregated cities in America. What is terrifying is the way nothing has changed -- from protests in the 1960s for black children to go to better schools to now -- much is the same. Great, easy must-read.
February 19, 2019
i feel like in quality and content this book is a 5 but my rating system has no real logic. regardless this book was great i want to read more books about chicago history. she really walks you thru how institutional racism came to be/operates today in CPS. also loved her analysis about neoliberalism and schools.
February 23, 2023
“This, we insist, is our home. Broken though it may be, it remains beautiful, and we remain children of this place.”
Incredibly well-researched, well-written, & thoughtful. Hits harder now that I’m a teacher. Schools mean SO much.
Incredibly well-researched, well-written, & thoughtful. Hits harder now that I’m a teacher. Schools mean SO much.
December 2, 2018
Beautiful and brilliant. An incredible work of sociology.
January 1, 2021
“People will take everything you have, then blame you for having nothing”
June 29, 2024
This book really shines a light on the horrible policy decisions made in education, especially towards communities of color. Love how Ewing dove into the history of public policy and how that plays a role into our education system today.
My big takeaway is this question:
When will school districts and policymakers actually invest into teachers?
Which can easily be done by..
Provide the funds to achieve advanced certificate and advanced degrees. And more importantly, teacher salaries, so that students in the most need can have access to high-quality teachers instead of solely relying on solutions such as closing schools that are considered “failing.”
My big takeaway is this question:
When will school districts and policymakers actually invest into teachers?
Which can easily be done by..
Provide the funds to achieve advanced certificate and advanced degrees. And more importantly, teacher salaries, so that students in the most need can have access to high-quality teachers instead of solely relying on solutions such as closing schools that are considered “failing.”
January 17, 2024
4.5 - the high ratings start coming and they don’t stop coming !! loved this book so much, it really helped me learn more about the history of cps and, more specifically, bronzeville public schools. my only gripe is that i genuinely wish it was longer/meatier personally (but the actual length does allow it to be easily digestible and approachable for any audience, so i really can’t complain that much l o l)
October 17, 2022
This book is really pushing me on to become an education major
February 27, 2020
Ewing is strong at using discourse analysis to look at student, parent, teacher, and community reactions to school closings in Bronzeville and addresses some of the overarching policies and histories that led to the initial round of 21st century school closings in CPS.
I have the bad habit of putting education books on my shelf and sitting on them. This book is now dated, as any education book becomes before long. I understood the loss having started my teaching career at TEAM Englewood. TEAM was one of those initial "new" schools that served to replace the "failing" schools, but that system too didn't work. In my opinion, regardless of TEAM having a really wonderful staff, it, like all of the other small and charter high schools around it, didn't have the size or resources to have enrichment programs and a wide variety of electives to really serve students. I think a return to the larger neighborhood school is positive and one of the aspects of Ewing's book mute in modern day.
Because of this, I felt like this was a three star book while I was reading it just because it really is of a moment; however, it is well-written which means it should've been a four if I had read it when I first learned of it. Then, she included an excerpt from "Wreck-it Rahm," which is worth at least one star alone. Overall, this is a really interesting book; it's just history now.
I have the bad habit of putting education books on my shelf and sitting on them. This book is now dated, as any education book becomes before long. I understood the loss having started my teaching career at TEAM Englewood. TEAM was one of those initial "new" schools that served to replace the "failing" schools, but that system too didn't work. In my opinion, regardless of TEAM having a really wonderful staff, it, like all of the other small and charter high schools around it, didn't have the size or resources to have enrichment programs and a wide variety of electives to really serve students. I think a return to the larger neighborhood school is positive and one of the aspects of Ewing's book mute in modern day.
Because of this, I felt like this was a three star book while I was reading it just because it really is of a moment; however, it is well-written which means it should've been a four if I had read it when I first learned of it. Then, she included an excerpt from "Wreck-it Rahm," which is worth at least one star alone. Overall, this is a really interesting book; it's just history now.
September 24, 2019
A super interesting book about school closures. I was happy to learn the content but was unmoved overall by the book and felt like I didn’t really get armed with more ways to discuss and approach the school closure situation. I also feel like the book lost steam in the last 1/4. Good but not great.
July 8, 2021
Really good sociological examination of the Chicago Public School system and the historical factors that lead to the specific circumstances of schools that were slated to be closed in 2013. Ewing wanted to look into the phenomenon she saw where schools were determined to be "failing" and yet the families who used those schools would fight against those closures. As I said, I had read what is basically chapter two for a sociology class but everything else was new to me. I am a sociology major and I'm very interested in educational sociology so this book was right up my alley. If you're at all invested in the current state of public schools, I would recommend this book.
September 26, 2020
Essential.
June 19, 2024
I just finished my first year teaching in CPS (was in Dallas before) and wish I had read this before starting, not least because my school was one that was slated to close in the 2013 closures but didn’t. An essential read for any educator trying to understand why the frame of a “failing” school is a faulty, often anti-Black narrative and that there is another reality where a community and its people are at stake. Have always been an Eve Ewing fan, and she delivers here.
February 23, 2025
Ewing's analysis is thick and well evidenced but writing is extremely accessible. She is able come from the perspective of both a social scientist and a member of the impacted community. A great analysis of policy and its impact.
January 10, 2024
From the acknowledgements: “Thank you to everyone who got on the train and rode north. Thank you for making us a home here.” 🧡
August 11, 2025
so well done and interesting and gave me so much to think about
February 26, 2019
Parts on this book were a bit dry to me (I think just due to the author taking the perspective of a sociologist/researcher in her writing style), but parts of it were also really powerful and those parts taught me a lot and will stay with me for a long while. I would highly recommend it to those interested in inequity in our school systems. This book provides a unique perspective on that conversation that I haven’t seen anywhere else.
——————————
“These events and policies are racist because they result in the systemic disenfranchisement of black people and harm to black children- regardless of intent- and because they are bound up in the perpetuation of historical policies rooted in more explicit racism. And this, in part, is why people fight so hard for their schools: because the fight is actually about a great deal more than just one building.”
“Interest convergence: the idea that black people will be permitted to achieve a measure of racial equality only in moments and through methods that happen to serve the interests of white people.”
“This version of reality- in which the value of a school is directly related to its nurture and support of lasting human relationships, and in which history matters- stood opposed to another reality. In this other reality, numbers don’t lie, the question of ‘good school’ versus ‘failing school’ is simple and beyond debate, and the only history that matters is last year’s test scores. And it is the second reality that comes with the power of enforcement.”
“Political leaders and decision makers are loath to have an honest conversation about the racism we still live with and the ways it may affect our current reality. Given that unwillingness, the next necessary step- figuring out how to dismantle these racist structures- feels very far away.”
——————————
“These events and policies are racist because they result in the systemic disenfranchisement of black people and harm to black children- regardless of intent- and because they are bound up in the perpetuation of historical policies rooted in more explicit racism. And this, in part, is why people fight so hard for their schools: because the fight is actually about a great deal more than just one building.”
“Interest convergence: the idea that black people will be permitted to achieve a measure of racial equality only in moments and through methods that happen to serve the interests of white people.”
“This version of reality- in which the value of a school is directly related to its nurture and support of lasting human relationships, and in which history matters- stood opposed to another reality. In this other reality, numbers don’t lie, the question of ‘good school’ versus ‘failing school’ is simple and beyond debate, and the only history that matters is last year’s test scores. And it is the second reality that comes with the power of enforcement.”
“Political leaders and decision makers are loath to have an honest conversation about the racism we still live with and the ways it may affect our current reality. Given that unwillingness, the next necessary step- figuring out how to dismantle these racist structures- feels very far away.”
October 31, 2018
A fan of Ewing's other diversely genre'd projects, I was eager for this opportunity to read a volume of her scholarship. Ghosts in the Schoolyard is a serious book about a serious topic, but don't mistake that seriousness for dryness or distance. Ewing is forthright about her personal and professional investment in the Bronzeville community and her analysis is stronger for it. Whether you are a born and raised Chicagoan, a transplant, or have never even set foot in the city, this book offers crucial lessons in American history and education that are relevant to everyone. Ewing uses an array of evidence from stats to interviews and does an excellent job of balancing academic rigor with an inviting tone that makes this a smooth read for non-sociologists and non-scholars. As critical as I am about the Chicago machine, I still found myself profoundly moved reading this, meeting the real people whose lives have been irreparably altered by people in power who have no interest in serving the needs of the community. I'm so glad this book exists and I hope more sociologists take note of Ewing's method.
January 28, 2019
“As the people of Bronzeville understand, the death of a school and the death of a person at the barrel of a gun are not the same thing, but they also *are* the same thing.”
Eve Ewing does not disappoint. “Ghosts in the Schoolyard” tells a story of the unprecedented public school closings in Chicago under Mayor Rahm Emanuel starting in 2013. It centers the voices of the students, parents, teachers, and other community members who resist narratives about their so-called “failing” schools, and places the conversation firmly in the context of Chicago’s long history of systemic racial discrimination. It is both personal and political, and steeped in her love for this flawed, beautiful city and its black communities.
Eve Ewing does not disappoint. “Ghosts in the Schoolyard” tells a story of the unprecedented public school closings in Chicago under Mayor Rahm Emanuel starting in 2013. It centers the voices of the students, parents, teachers, and other community members who resist narratives about their so-called “failing” schools, and places the conversation firmly in the context of Chicago’s long history of systemic racial discrimination. It is both personal and political, and steeped in her love for this flawed, beautiful city and its black communities.
December 16, 2020
Very impressive writing with incredible accuracy of these events. I covered most of the news stories Eve writes about in this book. When people question why Chicago is the way it is, or in particular, why some parts of the African American community are in the situation they are in, the problems with the public education system in Chicago should be considered one of the main pillars of crime and disorder. Eve points this out in an easy to understand way for those who truly want to know the problem.
July 17, 2019
"This, we insist, is our home. Broken though it may be, it remains beautiful, and we remain children of this place. We insist on a right to claim it, to shape it, to keep it. We took the freedom train to get here. Might as well do the work to get free."
Displaying 1 - 30 of 453 reviews