Education for working class children in Chicago is under attack.
There are too many students in every class – teachers cannot give them the attention they each need.
Needed support staff is being cut: librarians, school nurses, social workers, counselors, custodians.
There aren't enough funds or teachers for programs like art, music, physical education, shop, robotics and computer science.
Buildings are not maintained adequately, and supplies and books are short.
Schools are closed or "turned around," and students are moved from one school to another. Public school money is directed towards selective enrollment and charter schools. The neighborhood school system is under the gun.
There are schools that provide a decent education – like the private Lab School where Rahm Emanuel sends his kids.
What's good enough for his kids is good enough for our kids!
But Emanuel says there isn't enough money to give the schools that serve working class children what is needed.
He even dares to say there's a budget crisis because of teachers' pensions – the same pension system Chicago politicians have underfunded for years.
Lies! There is money, but the banks and corporations have been stealing it from the public school system.
For years, the politicians took money from public school budgets, handing it over to the big "developers."
Property taxes that should have been going to the schools instead were "captured" by TIFs, and diverted to private corporations and "developers."
The banks scammed CPS into an extra fraudulent bond deal that cost the system 100 million dollars.
Huge companies like Aramark and Pearson got contracts to provide services to the schools – taking a big profit right off the top to do it.
That money needs to be taken back from the corporations and banks that stole it.
Use it for the public schools – so all children can get a decent education.