I just sent this letter to the Tribune: 

Responsibility for the tragic death of Fenger student Darrion Albert belongs first and foremost to the perpetrators. Their families must take a share of the blame, and all parents must step up, be visible in and around schools, and take more responsibility for their children's conduct. Police presence at Fenger was clearly inadequate given the imminent threat of violent retaliation for a shooting hours before the fatal riot.

But it is of critical importance to acknowledge that Mayor Daley's Renaissance 2010 program is a significant contributing factor to the increase in violence at Fenger and other affected schools. R2010 has radically destabilized already fragile communities by closing schools – often the only major community institution in some neighborhoods -- and by firing long-time teachers and staff and pushing students out and across gang territory to unfamiliar surroundings.

While the Tribune alluded to this reality by mentioning that CPS made nearby Carver High School into a closed-enrollment military school, you failed to add that Fenger also receives students from Englewood and Calumet High Schools, which are no longer regular neighborhood schools thanks to R2010, or that Fenger is in its first year of CPS-run turnaround under R2010, meaning that nearly all of its staff was fired and replaced this past summer.

Former CPS Chief Executive Officer, now Education Secretary Arne Duncan, wants to award federal Race to the Top grant money based on the extent to which states promote the "Chicago model" of school reform -- turnarounds, charters, and high-stakes standardized testing. These strategies have not worked in Chicago, and are hurting children. We must save our children from further expansion of these "reforms." We've got to tell the truth about what's been happening in Chicago and demand that Illinois and other states stand up for what is best for children.

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More on the Fenger tragedy: 

As usual, Substance is the only Chicago newspaper that pointed out that violence-disrupted Fenger High School is in its first year of CPS-run turnaround under Renaissance 2010.

The Tribune alluded to R2010, reporting that some in the community "blamed the violence on the school district's decision two years ago to convert Carver High School to a military academy, forcing many Altgeld students to transfer to Fenger." 

Even murkier was the Sun-Times quote  from a Fenger mom, "They opened this school up and said everything has changed. Nothing has changed," she said.

The Sun-Times fails to explain that the "change" was the 2009 CPS turnaround.

Substance reports the full story -- that only nine of the more than 100 Fenger teachers were kept in the turnaround, and that "Part of the toxic mix at Fenger was created when the Board of Education closed and radically reorganized Carver High School, Englewood High School, and Calumet High School on the city's South Side...." so that neighborhood students were turned away from their local school.

According to Substance, "At public hearings in February 2009, and earlier, teachers, community leaders and others ...warned that disrupting the general high schools of Chicago’s South Side would lead to increasing gang violence and destabilization.

CPS claims that the R2010 "hearings" are important, but clearly no one at CPS was listening.