ABSTRACT
The public debate over charter schools in Chicago is scripted by media events as completely as the town hall meetings of George W. Bush were scripted during the 2004 election campaign. Carefully framed to reflect only the privatization agenda, the debate about charter schools in Chicago takes place in carefully scripted events where informed and critical questions are ignored as completely as they were blocked out of the Bush campaign meetings. The school, which still bore the sign "Good Counsel High School" over one of its entrances, is located at the corner of Peterson Avenue and Pulaski Road a mile south of Chicago's northwestern city limits. By January 2006, Chicago International Charter School had 5,608 students. Another charter operator expanding across the city at various campuses is American Quality Schools, Inc., which is run by former Illinois Schools Superintendent Michael Bakalis.
