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KW: I am so proud of the students and parents in Chicago who are just making it real. These students know that they deserve as good an education as wealthier kids. And, they figured out where to go to apply. I think that this action of having the poor kids go to register at the rich district is simple and eloquent. A great way to point out the classist and racist underpinning of how our government doles out resources. Bravo!
Some people have suggested that keeping these students out of school, or having the students themselves participate in a political action is wrong. Though, what is wrong is anyone who would let any student wallow in a bad, run-down school, when other students right across town get to go to school in a better school. If a bus trip can make the difference between failure and success, then let there be more bus trips, or buses that bring supplies and textbooks back and forth.
To people complaining about the boycott: Fix the problem. Now.
NORTHFIELD, Ill. (AP) — More than 1,000 Chicago public school students boycotted the first day of classes Tuesday in a protest over school funding and instead rode buses more than 30 miles north to try to enroll in a wealthy suburban district.
About 1,100 elementary students and 150 high school students from Chicago filled out enrollment applications Tuesday in the New Trier district in Northfield, New Trier Superintendent Linda Yonke said.
Boycott organizers acknowledged the move was largely symbolic: Students would have to pay tuition to attend a school outside their home district. But the boycott of the nation’s third-largest school district was to continue, with organizers planning to set up impromptu classrooms led by retired teachers in the lobbies of area businesses.
State Sen. James Meeks is leading the boycott of the district, which has more than 400,000 students, and said he hopes the protest forces state officials to act.
“I do not believe that a child’s education should be based on where they live,” Meeks said. He compared the issue to apartheid in South Africa and said the situation makes it difficult for children to rise from poverty…
Filed under: children, Education, News, social & economic justice, US Politics Tagged: | chicago, Class, CPS, Race, racism, schools
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