Senator Chris Lauzen Critiques Senator James Meeks School Publicity Gimmick

State Senator Chris Lauzen, who represents the area just south of the McHenry-Kane County line, has written an insightful analysis of the publicity ploy of Chicago State Senator James Meeks, which I share below:

KEYS TO SUCCESS FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION

Public education done right is one of the most beautiful products of American Democracy. Yet Chicago Public School parents along with taxpayers around the State of Illinois legitimately wonder why only half the freshmen who start their studies in Chicago Public Schools will graduate their senior year.

While your children, my children, and the children of New Trier went back to school nearly two weeks ago, my friend and Senate colleague Pastor James Meeks was misleading children and parents under his care and guidance on a fieldtrip boycott of their own classes. It was as if Moses had led his followers back to Egypt. While some children studied, others protested. Right concern; wrong direction.

Even Mayor Daley said it right when he observed that it’s simply wrong to hurt children by using them to make a politician’s point.

Like Jesse Jackson, Sr. before him has done twice on a smaller scale in our area, once in Naperville and again on the far east side of Aurora, Chicago politicians travel to the suburbs to mischaracterize the school funding process in Illinois, attempt to make parents and students feel guilty about the substantial local sacrifices they make for their children with inaccurate information, and they demand more money.

The problem with their protest, at least in our area, is that Chicago Public School students already receive 33% – 50% more money per child per year than our own children.

Chicago politicians squander nearly $400 M (equivalent to $1000 more funding per student per year) in Tax Increment Finance district money that goes to Chicago City Hall, with its legendary patronage waste and corruption, rather than Chicago Public Schools. It is obvious that the lovely city of Chicago, Illinois is one of the wealthiest concentrations of property value in the world, yet politicians whose family members practice property tax appeal law continue to protect an insanely complicated, self-serving, screwed up tax system.

I highly recommend articles recently written in our local papers by neighbors Sherry Tatar and Anthony Stanford along with Eden Martin from the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago which outline the much deeper complexity of the problem and solution including

  • the suburbs’ greater “tax effort” with our higher property tax rates (Chicago has not had an education property tax referendum in more than 30 years!),
  • the huge disproportion of education paid by state and federal taxpayers already for Chicago Public Schools (i.e. 52% Chicago, 4% New Trier, 40% West Aurora, 62% East Aurora),
  • the beneficial role that even a single parent who deeply values education has on his or her children, the importance of safe and nonviolent neighborhood schools etc.

Chicago Public Schools receive funding levels in the top 5% in the state in terms of per student annual operating expenditures, but they want more. It seems obvious to anyone who is paying attention to facts with an honest conscientious disposition that academic performance is a result of not only the amount of money spent, but how that money is spent.

Parents, politicians, and administrators should focus on recognizing that the earlier we start to teach our children love for reading and school the better, enhancing teacher competence and motivation, demanding curriculum taught by best practices proven by research, systematically measuring annual individual progress rather than group performance against a static index (NCLB), strengthening the skills and motivation of our school principals, making success for each student “personal” to at least one adult in a safe, productive environment (make it “cool” to be smart), and take the cap off the number of charter schools in Chicago.

You cannot review your property tax bill or read important books on social justice and education in America without becoming both furious and despondent. Until we treat “all” children like we treat our own children, we will continue this draining debate about equity, adequacy, and productivity.

I believe that only equal opportunity and true freedom with consequences guarantee justice. Until every family has the ability and means available to wealthier families- – through per pupil tax dollars already spent in the current system – – to either remove their child or choose for that child their best education, we will continue to feed a monopoly more money with less result. Our public school teachers and administrators can successfully compete for our best students and the government dollars that enrollment would bring. (Emphasis added).


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