Category: Education

Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Meeks

Despite widespread criticism that he’s doing more harm to education in Illinois than good, State Senator James Meeks insisted last week that his planned student boycott of Chicago Public Schools will go forward.  Parents are almost unanimous in their opposition.

From the Sun-Times:

Parents at a Humboldt Park back-to-school festival Saturday said “no thanks” to the Rev. James Meeks’ planned student boycott of the Chicago Public Schools’ opening day of class Tuesday.

“The boycott is not good,” said Maybeline Juarez, who makes sure her 13-year-old daughter always attends school. “My daughter is in special education classes, and she needs all the help she can get. Colleges look at that.”

Angelo Valentin, who has five children in Chicago Public Schools, agreed that a boycott isn’t the answer to the schools’ money problems.

“The schools should get their money, but it shouldn’t be in the lap of the children,” said Valentin. “You can’t use them as pawns.”

The last statement really made an impression with me.  Meeks is using children as pawns in a vicious political game.

Meeks’ grand plan is simple: bus 2,000 students to wealthy Winnetka to protest school-funding inequities in Illinois, then try to register them at New Trier High School’s Northfield Campus.

This misguided publicity stunt will do nothing.  The children will not be able to register at New Trier High School.  At the end of the day the children will be left with anger and frustration.  No doubt Meeks will point reporters in the direction of children shouting in anger, or crying.

Then, next week, those kids will have to go to school, starting the year four days behind.  Will Senator Meeks pick up the tab for the Huntington Learning Center or the Sylvan Learning Center?  I doubt it.  When these students who took the four-day field trip with the senator start to fall further behind, Meeks will no doubt take advantage of the opportunity to further point out the failures of education in Illinois.

Another leader in education reform has another idea:

While Meeks prepared for the boycott, Phillip Jackson, founder of the Black Star Project, was at the African Festival of the Arts in Washington Park on Saturday urging men to participate in the project’s nationwide “Million Father March” by taking their children to school on the first day.

Jackson said he also wants better school funding. But he wants children in school on the first day — and every day.

“Every day they’re not in school, they’re further and further behind,” said Jackson, who expects “tens of thousands” of mostly black and Latino fathers in Chicago to take their children to school Tuesday.

Sadly, Meeks’ boycott is all about Senator Meeks, a publicity stunt he can tout during campaigns and from the pulpit.  The children of Illinois, already victims of an unfair educational system, will suffer.


Sen. Meeks Tells Kids to Stay Out of School

It’s off the deep end and off to la-la land with State Sen. James Meeks.  Meeks is struggling to find support for his grand plan to encourage kids to stay home from school at the start of the school year.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

State Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago) met privately with the City Council’s Black Caucus last week to explain his plan to have hundreds of Chicago Public School students boycott the first four days of classes.

Implied, but not stated, was the fact that Meeks would like aldermanic support for his controversial tactics. Apparently, he’s not going to get it.

Aldermen are wise to stay away from this one.

Here is Meeks’ agenda for his four-day stay-out-of-school field trip:

On the first day of school, Sept. 2, Meeks plans to bus students up to the North Shore and attempt to enroll them in schools in Winnetka’s wealthy New Trier district.

The remaining three days—Sept. 3, 4 and 5—will be spent having boycotting students camp out in the lobbies of Chicago’s most prominent downtown businesses. They include the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Mercantile Exchange, Chase Bank, Fifth Third Bank and the Aon Building.

The Chicago Public Schools have struggled for years trying to get kids to actually show up at all on the first day of school.  Teachers want to start the year off right, establish a rapport with the students.  Meeks wants kids to join him on a screaming publicity stunt to Winnetka in a futile attempt to register for classes out of district.

This can only end poorly.

Here’s what’s going to happen:

Meeks will get a busload or two of kids and parents to join him on this quest.  He may even have a better showing than that the first day.  The second day, there will be less participation.  By days three and four, the good senator will be able to get by with a van or perhaps a station wagon.  Most kids will stay home from classes, taking advantage of the extra mornings to sleep late.  Children will thank the Rev. Meeks for extending summer vacation, if they even know who he is.  Gov. Blagojevich and Meeks’ colleagues in the Illinois State Legislature, the only people in the Land of Lincoln who can make a difference, will largely ignore his antics.

Meeks is completely right about the inequities in educational opportunities in Illinois.  His four day holiday for students will accomplish nothing and sends the wrong message.