It’s been such a gloomy budget-cutting stretch for the Chicago Public Schools that I’d thought I’d cheer you up by going back to a glorious moment from just a few months ago. This was in May, when Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky and Alderman Ameya Pawar joined the locals to block Mayor Emanuel from creating more charters in Rogers Park and Uptown.
But that’s only part of the story. CPS doesn’t spend its money wisely—consider the $20.5 million principal-training contract that the board handed out to a company that used to employ former CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett.
The board then oversees a true-up count that occurs after the 20th day of the school year. That means if CPS determines they “overprojected” a school’s enrollment, it’ll snatch away some of the budget.
Of course, at that time the mayor was about to launch his reelection campaign. And the last thing he needed was an insurrection of parents upset about school cuts.
To illustrate the importance of neighborhood schools, Pawar likes to tell his own family’s story. His father and mother—immigrants from India—moved from Rogers Park to Des Plaines in the 1980s because they didn’t think the local schools were up to par. They also didn’t want their children’s future to be dictated by how they scored on standardized tests that controlled admission to selective enrollment schools. And they didn’t want to shell out big bucks for private tuition.
