Shaes Chronicles

There is a heavy debate going on in the city of Chicago (again) regarding the funding and overall treatment of the students in the Chicago Public School System. State Sen. James Meeks is calling for parents of city students to skip the first day of school on September 2nd and enroll in the more affluent, suburban schools. Currently, the Chicago schools only spend around 10k per year on each enrolled child, whereas suburban districts spend up to 17k per year on each enrolled child. That difference of $7,000.00 is huge…more than the dollar amount even shows you.

While his heart is in the right place in regards to the situation, does skipping the first day of school solve anything?

First of all, if parents are so concerned about the amount of money that is being spent on their child, they need to be the one’s to cause an uproar over the inequalities here…why is the city’s Senator calling on this to happen?

Second, some of the city neighborhoods are dangerous as it is on their own to go to local schools, how is their safety being assured as they travel outside of their “comfort” areas (or at least, neighborhoods that they are familiar with) to go to better schools? Since they are not district students, they won’t be provided school busses, but instead will have to take local busses and trains every day.

And last, what about those families who are not interested in moving their kids to suburban districts, or, due to transportation and other needs outside of school hours cannot afford to do such a thing? They will have to stay in the city schools where there has be no obvious interest in increasing the funding, thus not really succeeding in anything except giving kids one additional day of summer break.

In a perfect world, this would open the city leaders’ eyes to start making changes, but I guess we will just have to wait to see.

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