Twentieth-century education reformer John Dewey thought that schools should be institutions "in which the child is, for the time, to be a member of a community life in which he feels that he participates, and to which he contributes." Today in Chicago we have an unelected school board that meets at a time when students and working parents are typically unable to attend. Students remain uncertain about their ability to critique and protest school policies. Comments made by parents and students at official hearings on recent school closings went almost entirely ignored. The ideal of schools as democratic communities has deteriorated in Chicago, leaving many residents feeling voiceless and disengaged.