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Rev. Al Sharpton joined the call for CPS students to boycott the first day of school. State Senator Rev. James Meeks suggested the boycott, which includes taking CPS students to schools in the suburbs to highlight the funding disparity, at the end of July.
Sharpton, preaching at New Landmark MB Church on the West Side Sunday, said that Illinois's education system violates Brown v. Board of Education. "Whether it will be funding or graduation rates, we are still separate and unequal," he said, and he also vowed that his National Action Network would litigate to change Illinois's educational funding model, which relies more heavily on property taxes and less on state funding.
Blago's not too keen on the boycott idea. He issued a statement saying,
I respect and agree with Reverend Meeks' goal to increase education funding. To that end, I have called the Legislature back into special session on Tuesday to focus specifically on school funding. But I think it's wrong to encourage kids to miss school. Every time a child misses a day in school, that child misses a chance to learn.
And CPS? They're against it, too, especially when Arne Duncan has made such a big deal about attendence on the first day of school. CPS president Rufus Williams said last week, "If the message is to fix school funding, we're all for it. If the method is to keeps kids out of school, we are completely against it." [ABC 7, CBS 2]
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Well if Al Sharpton is for it then it must be a terrible, awful and cringe-inducngly bad idea that is filled with FAIL.
When he set up shop here I died a little inside. The man is nothing more than a press release in a sharkskin suit.
The man is nothing more than a press release in a sharkskin suit.
Great freaking line, and oh so true.
This is so dumb on so many levels that I don't even know where to start.
won't somebody please think of the children?
Here's the worst part, the kids are the ones who are going to get SCREWED.
First there's these kids they're bussing (oh god, that's just a lovely word to bring into this) up to New Trier. Are they really going to make the 20-30 mile trip every day for school? So they're going to see this great school and be told to go home you can't go here.
Then there are the kids at New Trier. Your freshman year starts with busloads of strangers and kids descening on your school to MAKE A POINT. Or your Senior year begins with a media circus. How nice for them.
The staff at New Trier are going to have a security nightmare, plus the media, plus all the normal school functions. And if they close up or try to avoid this nightmare, or parents at NT keeps their kids home (god knows I would) takes about 5 seconds for Meeks and company to scream RACISM at the top of their lungs and make it into a riot.
And god forbid any kids get hurt in the fracas.
In the end, nothing changes, nothing gets better for any of those kids and you just make a big damn mess.
We went from W.E.B. Dubois, to Martin Luther King Jr. to this. It's devolution.
This too shall pass, especially when Sharpton gets his first City Contract
Well I guess the rich kids can't have public schools anymore- that will show them.