Kennedy-King Budget Hearing... 'Answer the question!' public demands, louder and louder
A pumped up crowd of more than 70 parents and teachers spoke up at Kennedy-King College on 63rd and Halsted at the CPS budget hearing. It was one of three CPS Budget hearings — all scheduled for the same hour, same day, July 11, 2012, and for the first time, not one of the hearings was held in a Chicago public school. Nobody from the Board explained why the hearings were being held in the City Colleges.
Those who attended the Kennedy-King version had the honor of having the Board President David Vitale sitting in the front row. Except for his entrance the audience only saw the back of his head. Toward the end there was one brief moment when he turned around.
A Board person reading the Power Point sscript of the slide show did not impress anyone, although the audience remained respectful during the half hour presentation and some took notes.
Then it was time for public comments, because this is supposed to be a democracy where everyone tries to work together. It’s our public money, people began to say, and it’s our public schools and our children’s future. Vitale continued to show the people his back. Public education is supposed to be the great equalizer where poor children have equal opportunity, people were ready to say in one of the poorest parts of one of the largest African American ghettos in the world.
Several “improvements” in the budget were exposed as phony.
Teacher Kimberly Bowsky said she was concerned about how the discretionary funds for principals is going to be spent and the need for transparency. She suspects a lot of money is going to go for testing not classroom learning. She asked, “Who is going to monitor how the money is spent?” She argued for full disclosure from each school on how the money was spent.
From the very beginning it was a politically aware group of parents and teachers who took the CPS panel to the woodshed, so to speak, and demanded answers.
The first audience speaker was a parent, Annita, from the Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign who explained they were supporting the teachers of the CTU. She ended with the marching slogan, "Union busting is disgusting."
Another speaker exposed the half billion dollars going to charter school operators, such as UNO, Learn, Nobel Street and many others now feeding at the trough of public money. “This is money our public schools need”, he said. Speakers noted that the half billion going for charter school next year represents ten percent of the total CPS budget.
Other speakers made strong comments that the budget was a political agenda to attack public schools. The budget was called immoral and racist. Several speakers saw similarities to apartheid where there were different cast levels of education.
Matt Luskin from the CTU exposed the hearing as a sham in several ways. He thanked the 70 person crowd for coming, but noted that CPS gave us less than one week notice. His main exposure of the budget was by quoting the CPS statement that they had “used every tool available to seek new revenue.” Matt questioned in tight budget times “what has the Board done to lobby or protest that our school money is going to the TIF funds and downtown business interests?” CPS claimed with some pride that “the city is giving us $30 million” in TIF money.
While Matt Luskin acknowledged that was more TIF money placed into the budget than in previous years, he reminded them that it was far less than the yearly $250 million that takes from the CPS budget to feed the TIF program. “Why are you bragging about receiving money that was taken from the schools in the first place? It’s like they break our legs and we say thank you when they offer us crutches. Since you have used ‘every tool available,' tell us what has anyone on the Board done to try to stop losing education money to the TIFs?”
And, this was the only time David Vitale the Board President turned his head around briefly to look at the CTU speaker.
