Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan made his back-to-school push from the pulpit on Sunday, while some pastors preached about a planned boycott of the first day of school this coming Tuesday.

As CBS 2's Pamela Jones reports, State Sen. Rev. James Meeks anticipates that up to 2,000 CPS students will miss the first day of classes at their home schools. The issue is the school funding formula that ties money for schools to property taxes.

"The definition of insanity is to do the same thing the same way and expect a different result," Meeks said. "We have to do things different."

The protest involves sending CPS pupils to the elite New Trier High School and Sunset Ridge Elementary School on the North Shore and attempt to register at those institutions. Meeks' intention is to highlight an inequality in resources and education between public schools in the inner city and the well-to-do suburbs.

More than 100 church buses are in the waiting.

New Trier has agreed to open its Northfield freshman campus to allow students to register, and they say they will debrief parents and students on the rules of registration. Among them are that students must pay tuition to attend schools outside their home district.

But Meeks says the point is the education that inner-city students are not receiving.

"We've been asking kids to go to school for 35 straight years," Meeks said, "and they go to school, but they're missing an education because the schools that they go to don't have the resources to adequately educate them."

Meeks has the support of about 85 pastors who repeated his message at their churches. Bishop Larry Trotter discussed an additional component of the protest that involves sending students to the lobby of 20 downtown office buildings Wednesday through Friday in lieu of attending school.

"We have college materials, we have grammar school materials it's going to set up like a Montessori school. We're going to have school in the Chase Manhattan building, and City Hall, and LaSalle Bank and all the places," Trotter said.

"I just believe if we make enough noise by Friday, there will be somebody saying here's the money, go take care of your school," Trotter added.

The school boycott is receiving support from some parents. Maurisha Gaiter didn't raise her two daughters to be honor roll students by letting them skip class, but on Tuesday, that's what they plan to do, with their mother's encouragement.

Upset by her daughters' overcrowded classrooms, outdated textbooks and shortage of computers, Gaiter is sending 11-year-old Maurisha and 14-year-old Sakiijdra to New Trier with other students in the boycott.

"I don't want to send my kids to any second class school anymore," she said. "If I have to keep my kids out for a whole month, I'm willing to do that."

Another supporter, Janel Ford, said she hopes the protest succeeds in highlighting the realities of school funding disparities.

"I hope that it makes a difference," Ford said. "I think that if for nothing else people will finally be able to see that the funding disparities are real. And that the achievement gaps are real."

But some parents at a Humboldt Park back-to-school festival Saturday said "no thanks" to the boycott.

"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."

For his part, Duncan agrees that state funding for Chicago Public Schools is lacking, but he says it is adults who should wage war on that issue on the floor of the state General Assembly and in the courts.

"Our children have to be in school. They have to get an education," Duncan said. "We have to continue to build a culture where education matters."

Illinois is one of many states where most school funding comes from property taxes. Here, property taxes account for about 70 percent of school funding, meaning rural and inner city schools generally end up with less to spend per student than suburban schools in areas with higher property values.

Chicago Public Schools, the country's third-largest school system with more than 400,000 students, spent $11,300 per student last year. In Winnetka, New Trier High School spent $17,500 a student, near tops in the state.

But Illinois State Board of Education spokesman Matt Vanover said those numbers aren't comparable because the Chicago district comprises hundreds of elementary and secondary schools. The Winnetka district has only the one high school. Vanover said high schools typically receive more funding than elementary schools.

Chicago also is on the high end for spending, ranking 18th out of 395 districts measured in funding per student. The state's least-funded district is Auburn, a community south of Springfield. It spends about $5,500 per student -- less than half what Chicago spends.

Some supporters reportedly hit the streets on Sunday to sign kids up to participate in the boycott.

During the Democratic National Convention in Denver last week, Meeks had previously said he would call off the boycott if a deal for new school funding plan was reached. But Gov. Rod Blagojevich left the convention early, and Meeks says it is now too late.

CBS 2's Pamela Jones, the Associated Press and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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