Grassroots Education Movement
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 29, 2010
Student Leaders and GEM to CPS:
Name the Names on Contracts. Public Budget Debates Now.
No Student or Teacher Cuts.
Student leaders and members of GEM, the Grassroots Education Movement, called for Chicago Public Schools to provide line-item budget details and hold immediate public hearings before the Chicago Board of Education casts its budget vote. Later in the day they will call upon Illinois State Attorney General Lisa Madigan to fast track their FOIA requests for all communications surrounding CPS’s budget deficit projections as well as TIF collections and expenditures.
Members of Chicago Youth Initiating Change (CYIC) and other CPS student leaders who led 900 students from 13 schools on a walkout April 8, 2010 returned to CPS headquarters April 27 to meet with CPS Budget Director Cristina Herzog to demand that “CPS takes this devastating budget off the table.” According to Javier Lara Mendez, a senior at Little Village Lawndale High School, students demanded an “equitable, transparent budget with no cuts to students or teachers.”
GEM member Karen Lewis, CORE’s Presidential candidate in the upcoming Chicago Teachers Union election, questioned the veracity of CPS’s announced deficits. “Exactly why should we believe CPS’s deficit numbers? There’s no line-item detail. CPS dances around how much Mr. Huberman makes and we’re just supposed to believe these numbers? Today we demand a line-item accounting of CPS’s budget. Let’s focus first on outside contractors – each one – name the names on those contracts. Then let’s have public community debates NOW before the Board votes on this disaster.” Ms. Lewis added that “35 students in a classroom is inhumane and it nearly guarantees school and student failure. So what’s Huberman really talking about here? Is this about funding or is it about profit?”
Alejandra Ibanez of Pilsen Alliance pointed to a source of revenue for CPS. “It’s unconscionable that Mayor Daley asks CPS teachers to ‘go on a diet’ and put 35 students in a classroom when TIFS take $250 million away from schools each year which are then deposited to the Mayor’s private slush fund. We’re tired of the hypocrisy.”
“These cuts will affect the everyday lives of hundreds of thousands of students like me. It’s a shame that we have to fight for education and extra-curricular activities with all the hardships and violence the youth of Chicago are going through right now,” said Charles Handcox, a junior at Percy L. Julian High School. “We are tired, angry, and ready to take a stand!”
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Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) is a coalition of Chicago-based education and community organizations that includes Blocks Together, Caucus Of Rank-and-file Educators, Chicago Youth Initiating Change, Designs for Change, Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, Parents United for Responsible Education, Pilsen Alliance, South Side United Local School Council Federation and Teachers for Social Justice.
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