Number of half-empty Chicago public schools doubles, yet lawmakers want to extend school closing moratorium – Wirepoints
April 19, 2024
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A set of state lawmakers want to extend CPS’ current school closing moratorium to February 1, 2027 – the same year CPS is set to transition to a fully-elected school board. That means schools like Manley High School, with capacity for more than 1,000 students but enrollment of just 78, can’t be closed for anther three years. The school spends $45,000 per student, but just 2.4% of students read at grade level.
Hopefully, all media will get the message, in Illinois, too.
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about Illinois’ highest-in-the-nation property taxes, why lawmakers don’t want to touch the tax’s cost drivers, just how much Illinoisans’ tax burden has grown over the decades, why Gov. Pritzker failed to meet his promise to reform property taxes, and more.
The fact of the matter is that the exodus will look a lot like Michigan or Connecticut. Slow, middle class exodus as college kids leave and don’t return, retirees leave and don’t come back, college grads who lived in Lakeview during their dating years return ‘home’ to whatever state that is. Virtually all my post-college friends from out of state have left. They all went home after getting married and having kids. Too expensive, too liberal of a state, even for upper middle class educated liberals. 25 years from now the state will be unrecognizable, with a vibrant rich urban… Read more »