ABSTRACT
The New Schools Expo, held at Williams School Multiplex and sponsored by CPS, Parents for School Choice, Illinois Network of Charter Schools, and the Commercial Club of Chicago's Renaissance Schools Fund. The expo to market charter schools to prospective students and their parents was, according to the Chicago Defender (African American newspaper), attended by over 700 parents and students. The school parking lot is jammed with school buses which provided free transportation from South and West Side African American communities. Tracy Hayes, Communications Director of the Renaissance Schools Fund told the Chicago Defender: “We are very pleased with this event and plan to make it an annual affair.” The public face of the event is Parents for School Choice, an organization of mainly African American parents which is funded by the Commercial Club and the Gates Foundation. Registration tables are staffed primarily by African American women wearing red T-shirts emblazoned with the slogans: “My Choice: Great Schools” and “Our Children's Education in OUR Hands.”
