* We’ll open up comments on Tuesday, but there will be a couple of posts tomorrow and two on Monday. Of course, if the craziness kicks in there will be updates. Hopefull, though, we can all take a break during the big, 4-day Lincoln weekend.
* Sen. James Meeks has been railing at the public establishment for quite some time, but he’s amped up his criticisms lately. Today’s Sun-Times has an article about how Meeks is pushing legislation to strip Chicago’s local school councils of their power to pick principals and provide for vouchers for kids in some targeted schools…
“I think they are radical changes,'’ the Chicago Democrat said Wednesday of the two bills now in Senate committees. “Isn’t that what the president ran on — change? America has voted for change.'’
Some school activists were stunned by Meeks’ proposal to convert elected local school councils into advisory bodies. No longer would LSCs select and fire principals and approve school budgets, as required under the 1988 Chicago School Reform Law. […]
Meeks — pastor of Chicago megachurch Salem Baptist — said Chicago Schools CEO Ron Huberman and his predecessor, now U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, have told him that “principals are the most important people'’ in a school while complaining that “we don’t pick the principals.'’ The bill would “eliminate that excuse,'’ Meeks said. […]
Meeks said he also plans to amend a voucher bill he introduced last fall so that students in the 15 lowest-scoring CPS high schools and the 50 lowest-scoring CPS elementary schools would be eligible for tuition vouchers to private or parochial schools.
The Catholic Conference of Illinois is “highly enthusiastic'’ about the idea, said executive director Robert Gilligan.
* Meeks talked about his voucher plan at length to the conservative Illinois Policy Institute. I have posted the audio on YouTube for ease of listening. Check it out…
Some relevant quotes for those who can’t watch at work…
What we don’t understand is the voucher movement seems to be born, or seems to have been started, by Republicans. It was a Republican idea. That’s the way the Democrats look at it. That’s the way black lawmakers look at it. This is a Republican idea. This is what the Republicans want to push on us, and public schools are working in your area.
Meeks went hard after his fellow African-American legislators for being “owned by the unions”…
However, if we’re going to build a coalition, if we’re going to give black lawmakers and people who are owned by the unions, because most of these elected officials are owned by unions. And when I say owned by unions, I simply mean this: you’re coming to us and you have us going anti-union and going against the most, what we allege to be, the most powerful people, or those who hold our elections in the palm of their hand.
So you’re coming to African American legislators, who, they got $500 at most in their account, and you’re trying to get them to take an anti-union position.
And then he explained his idea…
Let’s then have, and this is what my bill will do, let’s have vouchers for failed schools first. Let’s take the top 50 failing elementary schools and the top 10 or 15 failing high schools — the ones we use the statistics for — and let’s say to those lawmakers, hey, if this bill passes the kids who go to this school, Fenger, and Harper, and Harlem, and Marshall, and Austin, let’s give the parents in this area a choice and let the parent take the kid to any school they want to go to.
Now, it will be hard, I’m hoping, for legislators to argue against that. It should be hard for African American legislators to argue against it.
When I was in Haiti, one of the things I realized and recognized…they started with the critically injured first. Those are the people you (treat?) when you come on the scene. You always start with the critically injured. You don’t start with the guy with the scrape on his head. You start with the person with the crushed lungs, and the crushed head. Let’s start with the critically injured.
Let’s have vouchers for the critically injured. Let’s rescue the kids at the bottom. Let’s get them a voucher. Let’s get a voucher in their hand. And then as we see that it’s working for them, and it’s fair for them, or right for them, then in the next phase, let’s help some more people. And let’s help some more people.
But unless we are committed to helping those who we use the statistics, unless we’re willing to help them first, I don’t think it’s going to be an easy sell to lawmakers because we are asking them to put their political careers on the line for an idea that they really don’t get, that they really don’t understand. But when it’s their school, and only their school, they’ll get it, I believe. And I believe they’ll understand it.
