I want the whole nation to look at Illinois," said a defiant Meeks, pastor of Salem Baptist Church and a state senator. "I want the whole nation to ask, 'Why is Illinois racist?' I want them to ask, 'Why is Illinois treating low-income students like that?' "
The issue boils down like this. The state of Illinois ranks second from the bottom in state funding for education. As such, most funding is left to localities. As a result, areas like Winnetka, Illinois have funding that far outweighs that of the South Side and South West side of Chicago. Because Winnetka, home of New Trier High School, is mostly white and affluent, while the South and South West side is mostly African American, Meeks throws out the racism charge.
To protest the inequity, Meeks has organized a boycott for September 2nd, in which thousands of inner city students will get on a bus and head over to New Trier where they will attempt to register for school. As far as political stunts go, this one is about as grandiose as they come. That said, the punditry mostly takes issue with the method not the message.
Keeping kids out of school the first crucial days is just wrong, no matter how you look at it. But it's a wrong the Rev. James Meeks seems ready to commit Tuesday when he leads, by his estimate, about 2,000 Chicago Public Schools students on a three day protest to call attention to the shameful inequities in school funding in Illinois. Meeks and the students intend to ride buses up to wealthy north suburban schools, where the kids will make a show of trying to enroll.
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We can't support Meeks' tactics, but we share his frustration. He's right when he says the state's current method of funding education has led to appalling extremes of rich
schools and poor schools, and he's right when he says it's not enough anymore to make speeches and write letters to the editor. The Sun-Times has editorialized for decades in favor of school funding reform -- and gotten nowhere.
Personally, I am not so upset with his method. Most of these kids have never been outside the confines of their neighborhood. It could do them some good to see the North Shore of Chicagoland. The message I have a problem with. The punditry and Meeks fail to see the 800 pound gorilla that is staring me in the face. That is that the state government is obscenely corrupt. Just over a month ago, the Chicago Tribune offered a preview of what would happen if Meeks plan ever came to fruition and the state was more intimately involved in funding for education. In this piece, the investigative reporters at the Tribune meticulously tracked how $20 million in funding meant for after school programs wound up in the hands of former criminals. Other times, the funding wound up going to programs that didn't exist. Once they walked into the location of an after school program to find a building with no electricity. This is what awaits us if funding becomes primarily a function of the corrupt and incompetent state government.
What Meeks wants is a system in which inner city schools look more like New Trier. Instead, what we will get is a system in which New Trier will look more like all the inner city schools. Inequity in schools is a bad thing, but there are worse things. Worse than inequity is a system in which every school is equally incompetent, inefficient, and corrupt, and if our state government runs our schools that's exactly what we will have. If Reverend Meeks really wants to improve inner city education the first thing he needs to do is clean up the State government that he is intimately a part of. Until then, I want our state government nowhere near our school system.
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