School funding protest extends to downtown Chicago
Demonstrators staging a school boycott to protest Illinois' education funding system Wednesday set up impromptu classrooms in the lobbies of downtown Chicago government and business buildings.
The bright orange T-shirts of Chicago Public School students and their supporters stood out from the conservative work attire at 18 sites, including City Hall, the James R. Thompson Center and Boeing's headquarters.
State Sen. James Meeks, the boycott's leader, said he could not yet estimate how many students participated in the boycott's second day, but he said the number was in the hundreds.
The day before, when school started for CPS, more than a thousand students boarded buses to suburban Northfield, where they symbolically registered at the affluent New Trier High School.
Boycotting students will continue to skip classes in their regular schools all week. Retired teachers have been giving lessons in math, reading and writing as a substitute for regular classes.
"We don't want them to miss a day of learning, not by any means," said Lenette Edwards, a former CPS teacher.
At the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, about a dozen students sprawled on the floor of the visitor's center. Pastor Willie Comer of Salem Baptist Church said Merc officials offered to send a speaker to teach the students about trading.
Another 40 students filled a walkway at Fifth Third Bank, where a bank employee gave a presentation about credit cards, loans and interest rates. Similar scenes were played out in 16 other buildings, including the Aon Insurance building and Bank of America, said Tasha Harris, a spokeswoman for Meeks.
Meeks said he was pleased with the way his group was treated across the city. He said he's hoping to meet with advisers from the businesses to discuss ways they can help solve the funding problem.
"We need their minds," Meeks said. "They should care. This is their future workforce."
CPS CEO Arne Duncan repeated Wednesday that keeping children out of school is wrong even if the message is right.
"The fact is that those students who missed the first day, or in some cases the first four, have missed valuable learning time," he said in a statement.
Mayor Richard Daley has called the boycott "irresponsible." Gov. Rod Blagojevich has said Meeks is using children as "pawns" and the school boycott is a bad idea. A spokesman said he would not be meeting with Meeks this week.
Meeks called Blagojevich "the bad guy" on Tuesday. Asked Wednesday whether public remarks antagonizing the governor would set back any chance for compromise, Meeks said, "It can be done without the governor."
But Meeks has threatened to prolong the boycott until state leaders, including the governor, take some action, such as supporting a $120 million program to pump funding into key ailing schools.
Property taxes make up about 70 percent of school financing in Illinois, so rural and inner-city schools are usually less well-funded than suburban schools. Funding critics said the system constitutes unequal education between poor and rich, and black and white.
Wanda Hopkins, assistant director of Parents United for Responsible Education, said Meeks' boycott has been successful because it's drawn public attention to the funding issue and has exposed which politicians support education funding and which don't.
"Therefore, we got to take this to the polls," she said.