After 2 Days, Chicago Boycott Ends

The proposed Chicago boycott I told you about in the Snippets last week went forward on Tuesday and Wednesday, with thousands of Chicago Public Schools children boarding buses for New Trier school district. On Wednesday night, the boycott ended with Sen. James Meeks calling for a meeting with Gov. Blagojevich on the issue of school funding. Remember also, that a new school funding lawsuit has been filed in Illinois and local leaders are beginning to rally together to fight for reform. Momentum, however small, is building in Illinois. 

Thus, I think there is a great opportunity in front of Illinois, and in particular Gov. Blagojevich. It is no secret that Illinois has one of the worst school funding systems in the country. Whatever your position on school funding issues, I think it would be hard to argue that Illinois has a model system. There are vast disparities in per pupil spending in poor and rich districts because of the heavily reliance on local property taxes, a fact that my home Southern Illinois districts know all too well. The state of Illinois ranks 49th in the amount of support they provide to schools, thus leaving the heavy burden of funding schools on local taxing districts. If you live in a district with high property values, you have plenty of money with relatively low assessments. But, if you live in a poor district with low property values, you have less money even with a extremely high tax levy. 

What Illinois has lacked over the years is the courage to deal with this issue, as noted here. No progress is made because no one is willing to deal with this, but someone needs to step up and grab the third rail for the benefit of all of us. Which brings me to Gov. Blogojevich. First, you should know he is probably not going to be re-elected and probably is not going to aspire to any higher office. He has several problems going on, as most Chicago politicians do, and even the Obama campaign did not invite him to speak at the Democratic Convention. He also has decent relationships with teachers unions and has molded the State Board of Education to his liking. He also has a couple years left to get something done and sell it across the state. He is a great candidate to actually get something done and leave a positive legacy for Illinois' kids and I sincerely hope he takes this opportunity.

My plea to Illinois is just do SOMETHING, ANYTHING ...JUST TRY.