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*** UPDATE *** No meeting yet, but they’ve apparently narrowed the possible days down to two…
Now that state Senator James Meeks has called off his Chicago school boycott, he and Governor Rod Blagojevich are working out a meeting date to discuss plans to help underfunded schools.
Meeks says the governor’s office has suggested Monday or Tuesday as possible dates. […]
Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero says the governor is happy to talk with Meeks but it’s up to the legislature to approve funding.
* After weeks of claiming that Gov. Rod Blagojevich had broken his promises to adequately fund education, Sen. James Meeks now calls the guv a man of his word…
A controversial, four-day Chicago Public Schools boycott ended on Day Two — after Gov. Blagojevich said any meeting with its organizer, the Rev. James Meeks, wouldn’t happen during a boycott.
“We’re asking all students to return to their schools,” Meeks said Wednesday night after about 500 protesters converged on the lobbies of 18 corporate and government downtown buildings during the day.
“We believe the governor is a man of good will and a person of his word,” Meeks said. “So, we are therefore seeking a meeting on Thursday to discuss school funding reform.”
* But…
Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero was noncommittal. “We said we would not meet during the boycott. If the boycott’s over, that’s another thing,” Guerrero said. “But it has to be when all the legislative leaders are available.”
* The governor got away with one on ABC 7…
The governor says Meeks is pointing the finger in the wrong direction.
“I can’t rewrite the school funding formula the legislature has to do that. And I’m with him, we should work to get the legislature to do it,” said Blagojevich.
Apparently, the reporter forgot that Blagojevich just launched the “Rewrite to Do Right” campaign. RRB thinks he can rewrite anything, especially ethics bills. Why not the school funding formula?
* Anyway, the dropoff in the number of school boycott participants is probably what motivated Meeks more than his newfound trust in Blagojevich…
Earlier Wednesday, fewer protesters than Tuesday boarded 20 buses at South Side and West Side churches, headed for destinations such as City Hall and the Thompson Center, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Aon Corp.
* More details of the attendance drop…
At City Hall, 18 children sat outside Mayor Richard Daley’s office as two retired Chicago Public Schools teachers asked them fill out work sheets and draw pictures. At the James R. Thompson Center, student Shalafonte Walls, 10, worked on a math sheet as people walked past the children. […]
About 10 children were turned away at the Aon building, but later were allowed inside to conduct classes and eat lunch paid for by Aon.
* This, however, has some truth to it…
Organizers said the two-day boycott was effective and brought attention to the issue of school funding at the country’s third-largest school system with more than 400,000 students.
“Everybody in the state is talking about school funding and the inequities between high property value districts and the kind of education they get and low property value districts,'’ Meeks said.
* Related…
* Blagojevich, Daley also use children when pushing political agendas
* McQueary: No hugging in this 10-step program
* Brown: Meeks right about the bottom line
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 9:37 am
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And so it ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Comment by Ghost Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 9:39 am
Rev Meeks is losing his credibility. Maybe he has decided that, whatever the school funding formula is or may be, he is better off throwing in his lot with our Blago in the runup to the 2010 guv’s race. Blago has, of course, signaled that he will be running.
Or maybe the Obama campaign is not thrilled at pictures of African American children from Obama’s home town, led by an African American reverend, storming wealthy nearly-all-white suburbs in the runup to a presidential election which could still turn competitive, despite recent polls suggesting Obama is pulling away.
Comment by Cassandra Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 9:46 am
Meeks is down to his final at-bat. His only remaining leverage is a real or implied threat that he’ll challenge Blagojevich for a run in 2010, with the intention of chipping away at one of Blago’s few remaining pockets of support.
Comment by The Doc Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 10:01 am
This is not good. Blagojevich isn’t serious about changing the whole funding formula. Why work with a guy who wants to rewrite other legislation but decided he can’t single-handedly rewrite the school funding formula. An unfortunate ending!
Comment by Levois Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 10:01 am
Go home, Meeks. You’re an embarrassment.
All I want to know — this is Illinois, after all — is who’s getting the money.
Comment by Macbeth Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 10:09 am
Dear Reverend Meeks,
As always, thank you for your leadership. I am a fan because I know your communities and people.
I had been a student in a rotting school years ago. Nothing has changed, except the additional millions in funding sent to it each year. Things have gotten so bad that the private high school has more students than my old alma mater. Catch that? Folks where I came from are overtaxed, yet are unwilling to send their kids to public schools. Instead they are spending thousands of dollars they do not have to avoid it. The crappy public school system is driving people and businesses away, driving real estate values further downward. A lot of familes I grew up with have moved to Indiana to avoid Illinois taxes and government.
It has been this way for years. Yet those in charge of our educational system have done nothing but send millions of additional funding. The hallways of my alma mater are filled with students who cannot or will not learn, regardless of how much money is spent.
The come from broken homes. They often live in rental property owned by absentee landlords. Their mothers try to find work or work in minimum wage jobs, leaving the kids with aunts, grandmas or fending for themselves. Too often my fellow students did not get enough to eat or enough sleep to function in school. A lot of the daily disruptions we witnessed could have been from a lack of sleep or simply giving up. While they wore the latest fashions, and were clean, but it was a weak facade covering fragile, confused, angry young men and women. Those of us from two parent families couldn’t relate to our friends’ disinterest in education, but we knew they wanted what we had.
We never got homework. We never prepared for tests. Class time was a way to kill time mandated by the State in order to graduate. Half of us didn’t make it. Even I went out of my way to graduate a year early, just to get out of that hated school.
So please don’t tell me that the reason there are social problems in my hometown is due to a lack of educational funding. Money - we get. While we could probably use even more, we’ve been going in that direction for years without improvements.
So please propose solutions that reform instead of enrich.
Sincerely,
VanillaMan
Comment by VanillaMan Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 10:43 am
Who’s getting money? What do you mean? For what or from whom?
Comment by Levois Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 10:50 am
Meeks, let me carry the offering bags from House of Hope to the bank this week…you can trust me too!
Some people never learn.
Comment by Wumpus Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 10:55 am
What a joke. Meeks is about to get burned twice.
In other words, he is toast. He went from possible contender to an embarrassment. The school funding people need a new leader, one with credibility and common sense.
Comment by siriusly Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 11:02 am
Why is a corporate monopoly bad, but a government monopoly good? What’s wrong with a little competition from specialized charter schools?
Aren’t there any corporations in Chicago that would like to help and put their name on a building?
Better yet, set up a school online so we can shift money for buses, gas, kitchens, cleaning, and buildings to more teachers and computers for every student! Time to end our addiction to oil, starting with the next generation.
Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 11:19 am
VM. You hit the nail on the head. Your point of most of these kids coming from broken homes is the main point. Unless society can fix itself no amount of money at the schools will help. For that matter even most of the “reforms” won’t help. Life has a way being a vicious circle. Kids from troubled or broken families tend end up creating future troubled or broken families. How do we fix society? There is a Nobel Prize and the best seat in heaven for anyone who does. There are no easy answers. But until we connect what is happening at home into the classroom things will not improve.
Comment by Been There Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 11:21 am
The argument that “no amount of money will help” is specious at best.
The lack of funds creates a lack of programs and extracriculiar activites that can combat some of that broken hom issue. Give CPS new trier funding for teacher salaries and extracuricular activities for a few years and we will see an improvement.
keeping the school improverished and saying money does not help begs the question. We have not thrown millions at CPS, just the opposite. We throw millions at New Trier. If money has nothing to do with success, then New Tirer tax base would be demanding lower taxes and a cut in the amount going to their school. After al they have strong families so no need to fund the school at the level they do.
We say money wont help the problem, but we never adequately fund the lower income schools to see.
Meeks gave up a critical issue thats need addressed, Illinois PUBLIC schools should not reflect different amounts of support based upon location. Every public school kid in Illinois should recieve the same dollar amount.
When new trier cuts their funding, dumps all of their extracurricular programs and relies on good parenting to help their kids excell I will reconsider the idea that education comes only from strong families.
Comment by Ghost Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 11:38 am
Blago 2 - Meeks 0
Meeks has absolutely NO credibility when he now says Blago is a man of his word. Meeks threatened to run for governor to get his 15 minutes of fame. He threatened a school boycott again to get his 15 minutes of fame. Meeks has now spent every ounce of credibility he ever had.
Comment by Little Egypt Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 11:50 am
But the state does send more money to CPS than it does New Trier, and the Feds send more money to CPS than it does to New Trier. The folks that live in the townships served by New Trier, have chosen to tax themselves for their school system. They value education for their children and their neighbor’s children. That’s the way the public school system was set up, each community could decide how much it valued education and tax themselves accordingly.
To be honest, I’m not sure how Blagojevich could change school funding. He can’t raise the income tax by himself and there’s not enough money to raise the foundation rate without doing so. Even if the foundation rate is raised, it will not resolve the disparities in funding. New Trier will continue to have more at its disposal than CPS and Mattoon Community District 2 and all the others.
Comment by cermak_rd Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 11:52 am
Its easy to bash those who you perceive as wealthy. Rev. Meek’s argument falls apart because Chicago’s funding is around 10% higher than average. He would be correct if the funding was near the bottom of the expenditure ranking.
The Chicago Tribune reported that the average money spent per pupil in the state of Illinois is 9,488. Chicago spends more than the average at 10,409, 3,685 (35.4%) which comes from the state. The elite example the article used was Lake Forest at 16,225 per student, 487 (3%) per student coming from the state.
As I have stated before. If the solution to Chicago’s education problem is money (I actually agree with VM), then they should raise their own taxes. Chicago Schools get only 48% of the funding from local sources. Collar county districts like Lake Forest provide 95.7%. With all the wealth of the business community and high end residents, Chicago can do better for their children than crying poor to Springfield.
Note: Comparing a unit district like Chicago to a High School District like Lake Forest is statistically inaccurate because high schools tend to be more expensive to run than grade schools.
Comment by Plutocrat03 Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 12:01 pm
===Rev. Meek’s argument falls apart because Chicago’s funding is around 10% higher than average.===
More goofy, out of context statistics.
Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 12:04 pm
A lot of people were talking about Mark Brown’s column yesterday where he outlined Chicago’s relatively small contribution to schools as compared to New Trier’s — 48% to 97%.
Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 12:07 pm
I am of the impression that Chicago real estate taxes are not based on 33 1/3% of the assessed value of homes but on a lower percentage. Is this true?
Comment by Little Egypt Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 12:17 pm
Looks like Meeks left honesty and integrity behind when he joined the Democrats and bailed on his Honesty and Integrity Party.
“We believe the governor is a man of good will and a person of his word,” Meeks said.
That statement either lacks honesty or integrity, take your pick.
Comment by TaxMeMore Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 12:31 pm
Rich,
I think you’re in the wrong thread.
On Meeks and education. It appears Meeks has sold out again for Rod’s pig in a poke. And the education in Chicago schools will not improve one iota.
Comment by Fan of the Game Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 12:47 pm
What can be done to protect downstate (any non-Chicago I suppose) taxpayers and parents from the lawsuit filed against the state? Any groups out there joining the proceedings with taxpayers in mind?
Comment by Penny Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 12:54 pm
Oops. I’ll move it over.
Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 1:39 pm
Meeks is a good man and a good legislator. Knowing him, I’m pretty certain that he’s a good minister, too. He is turning his cheek and trying again, and good for him.
BTW, I was very impressed at how new Trier handled this. The problems aren’t there fault.
Comment by steve schnorf Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 1:50 pm
Meeks missed his shot. Call me crazy (or Team Sleep, whichever you prefer), but I think he could have stolen the 2006 Dem primary had he run. Instead, he’s now saddled with two muffed opportunities and a dream/goal put on hold.
It’s time to institute a full-blown voucher system. We need to try something else because the chances of real “reform” can’t be that good.
Comment by Team Sleep Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 1:56 pm
I think the Reverend/Senator Meeks did a ggod job publicizing legitimate concerns about an important public policy issue.
I am not taking his comment that he trusts the Governor literally. Ending the boycott seems both prudent and expedient.
Comment by Captain America Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 2:29 pm
Maybe my math is wrong, but in this awful revenue year, schools got $360 million in new dollars. Infiscal 08, another terrible year for everyone, the schools got $600M in new dollars. That’s a billion the last two years and it’s not enough. Let’s close more treatment centers, throw the mentally ill onto the streets, close all the state parks and historic sites so the schools can have more, more, more.
If they need it, pass an income tax increase so the State of Illinois doesn’t complete its long descent into hell by axing every other aspect of state operations.
Comment by ilrino Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 2:30 pm
Rev. Meeks is Charlie Brown and Blago is Lucy holding the football.
Comment by Indigo Montoya Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 5:19 pm
Meeks threatened to run for Governor, then backed off when Blagojevich promised to sell the Lottery for education. Didn’t happen.
Meeks threatened a boycott to protest education funding, then offered to back off for a 40 to 100 million dollar pilot program. Didn’t happen.
Meeks then agreed to call off the boycott for the promise of a meeting with the Governor.
He wanted billions, he settled for a Blagojevich promise to hold a meeting. With Meeks as the lead negotiator, it’s no wonder there hasn’t been any progress.
Comment by Truth Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 5:45 pm
Nice job, Kristen! It’s obvious you put alot of thought into your 10-step (woops! 9-step) Program!
Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Sep 4, 08 @ 8:19 pm