Rico Gutstein
Eric “Rico” Gutstein has been part of the education justice movement in Chicago for the past 25 years, a co-founder of Teachers for Social Justice (Chicago), 1998, and was involved in other political movements before that. He was radicalized young, due to the times in which he grew up. Since 1994, he’s been a critical university educator, teaching/researching/writing about education in political contexts. He was part of the founding “design team” of Chicago’s Social Justice HS (2005), worked and taught there five years, and has worked closely with schools, teachers, parents, youth, community members and organizations, and the CTU in the intense movements against education privatization, school closings, and charter proliferation. He’s a city boy from New York to his heart, but loves ChiTown too. The inspiration from the struggle of the Chilean people for justice and humanity moves him every day.