Chicago has a problem.
Truth be told, Chicago has many problems, but aside from gun violence, political nepotism, and the inability to moderate debauchery on [the Saturday before] St. Patrick’s Day, the biggest problem is the state of the public schools.
After devastating, city-wide cuts earlier this year (during which time our arts-focused CPS lost one of its art teachers), it was recently announced that a further slashing of up to 30% is looking pretty darned imminent. For my kid’s school, that means that on top of the $72.5k (slashed in February), we’ll lose another $500,000 AS IN DOLLARS. For one school. City-wide? It’s a freaking epidemic.
So why should I care? What’s another 11 teachers lost from one north side school? As many people have pointed out to me- we could move to the ‘burbs. We could, I suppose. I could also move to Pittsburgh and open a popsicle stand but neither has ever been a particular item on my bucket list.
Homeschooling? Private schooling? For sure. Both are things that we could do- except for the fact that Nora’s current K-8 public school has a curriculum and faculty that could easily hold their own against any in the city, not to mention the state. Nora’s principal? Saved the school from closing a number of years back and made it a hotly vied-for, artistic destination school in the public lottery. Nora’s teacher? Lady deserves a trophy bigger than the Stanley Cup for getting a room full of kids (from all neighborhoods and socioeconomic backgrounds) to read out loud. To decompose gigantic numbers. To code apps, to document hatching chicks, to journal absolutely incredible stories. (My kindergarten experience consisted of, as best I can remember, a lot of construction paper shapes and being not-so-gently reminded to not eat the paste.) They have arts classes across the board (well, except for that pesky mid-year closing of the drama department) and daily physical education. The hot lunch is plentiful and nutritious. The facilities are first-rate and the playgrounds are exciting. And the entirety of the staff- from the principal to the janitor- actually give a damn about the students. (For Teacher Appreciation Week, Nora had an absolutely crazy list of folks she wanted to “appreciate” in handmade card form. This list included, among others, the librarian, the lunch ladies, and the playground monitor. Can you tell me the name of your childhood playground monitor?!) We’ve found our home at this school– and it will remain our home until 2027, when we then get to navigate the train wreck of public high schools which have yet to be closed.
Education is a right. Quality education is a right, and not one solely reserved for certain ethnicities, income brackets, and parental work situations. We can’t have it both ways; we can’t tout Chicago’s glory as a world-class metropolis and then, when stuff like this happens, say “Well, at least we have Winnetka!”
Truth time: I didn’t move to Chicago to have children. I moved here back in ’02 to live my grownup life. And I live here; I pay taxes, vote locally, shop in my neighborhood, support the arts, donate to museums, pick up trash on my block, and commute on the trains and buses. We know our neighbors, drink beer at corner bars, and nap on the beach. So I’m sure as hell not going to move from Chicago for my children- at least not for something as batsh*t as funding inequality. (In Illinois school districts outside of Chicago, each one will receive $2,266 per student as opposed to CPS student’s $31. Even if you don’t have kids in CPS, that should piss you right the hell off as a taxpayer.)
Some more fun factoids:
-The Chicago Public School district is bleeding 500 million a year.
–$676 million is owed to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund.
-Governor Bruce Rauner wants to cut an additional $74 million a year from the budget of Chicago Public Schools. He contends that it’s due to under-enrollment, which makes total sense when some classrooms, starting in ’16/’17, will need to house 35-50 kids apiece. (Maybe he should’ve taken a math class with Nora’s kindergarten teacher.)
-Programs are being slashed. Summer school is practically nonexistent. (Which should absolutely help with that whole “get kids off the street/boy, gangs are a crazy issue/what’s up with all of these guns” thing.)
-It doesn’t take a clairvoyant wizard to see how this story will end if lawmakers don’t get their heads out of their asses. The removal of caring, intelligent adults? Complete and utter abandonment of the kids who- quite literally- have nowhere else to go? An overcrowded cesspool where kids have to fight for resources, let alone attention?
Wait wait wait- I lost my train of thought. Had I been describing the state of Chicago’s public schools or the plot line to LORD OF THE FLIES?
I’m so angry. Why isn’t everybody angry? We can all talk a good game about this but, at the end of the day, the ones seriously being wrecked by these decisions are kids who weren’t even born when the crisis started. And I can’t solve this. It’s entirely out of my pay grade to navigate the many failures, many sides, and many excuses. But Rauner, et. al? Since extravagant political spending and borrowing got us here, it’s decidedly in yours. Equal funding for Chicago’s public school students is not a bailout, nor is it a grand gesture towards a struggling charity. I’m doing my job, raising people who will live and work and contribute in the city of Chicago. Every single teacher and educator in my life is more than doing their job– acting as teachers, surrogate parents, and even therapists in an increasingly thankless career.
So Springfield? Do yours.
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