Five reasons why Chicago should have an elected School Board not a Rahm appointed one [View all]

[yurbud]

I have never been too happy with the elected board that overseas my community college district, but reading this, it sound like a board appointed by a corporate boot lick like Rahm Emanuel is not only more corrupt, but incompetent at even things you would expect business people to be good at like keeping up their credit rating.

Is it going to take a million teacher march on Washington to get Obama and the corporate wing of the Democratic Party to stop implementing right wing education "reform that" is ultimately about turning our kids education (and our tax dollars) over to the Wall Street hedge fund managers who broke the world economy?

If they can't do finance right, which is their actual job, why should we trust them with our kids?

1. The CPS board members are appointed by the Mayor and not elected by the people. They answer to the mayor and ignore the community.
   
   
2. Some members of the board voted to raise the CPS property taxes to the highest amounts allowed by the law. At the same time, they have lobbied to lower property taxes for themselves.
   
   
3. Some residents of communities like North Lawndale have seen their property taxes increase at a faster rate than people from other parts of the city, in spite of the fact that property values are decreasing and many home owners are on fixed incomes.
   
   
4. North Lawndale is the target area for school closings, turnarounds and other educational experiments that can distract our students. Yet, there is not one person on the CPS board from the West Side.
   
   
5. Even though the board is made up of business people, Chicago Public Schools just proposed a budget that will spend all the cash reserves for next year. As a result, their credit score was lowered. CPS must now pay higher interest rates. The more money they spend on interest, the less money will be available for the classroom.
   
   http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/news/2012/10/22/20522/five-reasons-why-chicago-should-have-elected-school-board