With Reverend Meeks attempting to draw attention to the current state school funding crisis, I’m compelled to take a long hard look at my education and where I am today, and if it had anything at all to do with the location of my classroom and the amount of money flowing into it.

I moved quite a bit in my youth, but spent a significant amount of time in Milwaukee’s public school system in the 80s. It was innovative if nothing else – I was bused across town to a not-so-great neighborhood as part of a “schools of choice” program. My sister attended a French immersion school. I landed a coveted spot in the high school program for the “college-bound”, again, in a not-such-a-nice neighborhood. There were gangs around. There was crime. But there also was a fierce commitment to education, from all parties involved - teachers, students and parents. I have no idea how schools were funded at that time, but I do know that families played the most important role in whether you succeeded or failed.

Cut to my junior year, where I was plucked from an extremely diverse student body to one in Wheaton, where you could count the number of minority students on one hand. Students drove nicer cars than my parents did. The worst crime committed was that of the “liquid lunch.” Still, I believe that success had more to do with familial involvement than anything else. For all the success, with out 90 percent-plus graduation-and-on-to-a-four-year-college rate, there were still the handful of kids whose parents played almost no role in their child’s life, and it resulted in mediocre scores and the occasional dropout. However, I will say that as a school, we lacked for nothing that served our educational needs. Books, supplies, technology (read:Overhead projectors that worked!) - it was all available to us.

Now, as I look to my children and their education, I find myself at a social/moral/ethical crossroad. Having experienced school funding in another state that was equalized through a much-heralded property-tax cut, I know what happens when you take school funding off the property-tax rolls and leaves it solely with the state at an equal amount per child. To this day, this experience colors my own perception of how incredibly fortunate my kids are now to be here, with fabulous facilities, curriculum choices and more. There’s nothing sadder than closing a school, and it stings to watch neighboring school districts forced to try to poach students from other districts simply to attract more funding. I don’t want to go down that road, even if it would cut my tax bill by almost half.

Still, I find the conditions of inner city and even rural schools appalling. It is easy and frankly, perfectly justifiable to say that we here on the North Shore deserve the schools we have - after all - we do pay A LOT to fund them, and even more comes out of our pocket as the school year steams along. But I guess I find myself silently applauding for Rev. Meeks, however misguided this effort to enroll kids at New Trier may be. I empathize with the kids and parents who are symbolically going through the motions, running the risk of some embarrassment, to shine a light on how bad Chicago Public Schools have it.

Look, I’m sure there are better ways to manage CPS’ budget – and teachers, parents and most importantly students – play the largest role in the success of a school. But should we bear some social responsibility to help our neighbors? Is it fair that our kids have such a leg up? And if it is, shouldn’t we still be trying to help?

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Technorati Tags: New Trier High School, Reverend Meeks, Chicago Public Schools, school funding, North Shore Chicago schools

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Thoughts(t) , Kids(t) , Check this out!(t) . You can leave a response.