"Community leaders" in the Southside of Chicago--hey, didn't Barack Obama used to be one of those guys--are encouraging students to protest poorly-performing schools by playing hookey. Perhaps the guy who came up with the burn-down-your-own-neighborhood protest came up with this idea too. It at least stems from the same idiotic logic. There is apparently an affluent suburban community--New Trier Township--that spends more per pupil than Chicago does. The reaction of community leaders to other people's money--Let's take it!--is not unlike the reaction of other, less respected ne'er-do-wells who are also ruining their neighborhoods. Unfortunately for the Chicagoans, more money doesn't equal smarter kids--if only it were that easy. If Chicagoans are entitled to the education funds of people in New Trier, are New Hampshirites entitled to the education funds of Chicago? You see, although there may be inequality in funding between Chicago and New Trier, Chicago spends more per pupil than the national average. Yet, their schools are still horrible. One problem is that many people in Chicago don't raise their own kids. Upwards of 70 percent of the school children in the districts in question were born out of wedlock. Their current guardians, and the political leaders who mislead them, expect schools to perform miracles with children who haven't been taught by their parent--the plural rarely can be used accurately here--the alphabet, how to count, or to even look both ways before crossing the street. All the money in the world can't take the place of two good parents.

The link you provided only mentioned per-state expenditures by state and, thus, said nothing about Chicago. Could you re-post the per-pupil expenditures for Chicago?

Thanks,

Keith

The per-pupil Chicago expenditures are listed in the initial article linked within this post.

I always say that there aren’t bad kids, there are bad parents. So where does that leave kids with one or no parent(s)?

It’s all Bush’s fault anyway. Or maybe has something to do with Cheney’s Halliburton Hurricane machine.

When the Messiah rains down his goodness as our first coronated monarch, problems like this will just magically go away.

aint this what libbies want? you know let the village raise the kids. parents dont matter.

They would like to take parents out of the equation. Makes it easier to indoctinate the little nippers.

This is from an upstart "Rev"/ political figure.. Meeks is his name , hustling's his game. He's actually a state senator too. Yes , I know I know...but this is IL we're talking about.

He just doesn't realize that there are already too many hands in the cookie jar for his to fit.

Quite embarrassing for us IL citizens.

Funny that parents and kids in Appalachia don't have the same problems...

Somehow, I'm thinking that flat out playing hookey as protest will end up being preferred to homeschooling in the mainstream media.

WE are paying now for not taking care of things in the past.Let's face it we have spent trillions allover the world and spreading our imperialistic mantle supporting countries, donating our tax money for weapons and arming people who later shoots at us, we do not have enough money left to fix schools,hire more teachers, provide jobs and trade schools so of course we are failing.
The gettos of America were self made.
Lack of proper governance by the so called leader of the free world.
Our leader of the past have failed to lead.

The beautiful thing about living in the the U.S. is that it offers the best opportunity, let me write that again, OPPORTUNITY. To succeed.

This isn't about government failing. This is about people failing and no amount of money in the world that's thrown at the problem will help if kids have social or mental problems.