In case you missed it, today’s Wall Street Journal carried an excellent column highlighting the efforts of the Illinois Policy Institute and the Rev. Senator James Meeks to promote a school voucher program—a program that will give families stuck in Chicago’s worst schools a chance for a better education and a safer learning environment.
The venue was a sold-out lunch put on by the Illinois Policy Institute (IPI). The result? Something new in Windy City politics: a powerful black Democrat reaching out to a free-market think tank to force reform on the city’s most hidebound institution—the Chicago public schools…
A few years back, Barack Obama named him someone he looked to for “spiritual counsel.” Now the man they call “the Reverend Senator” has done the unthinkable: He’s introduced a bill to provide vouchers for as many as 42,000 students now languishing in Chicago’s worst public schools. He tells me he thinks he can get enough Democrats on his coalition to get it through.
Click here to read the whole piece by William McGurn. Also, check out the Institute’s commentary from late last year in the Southtown Star, Rev. Meeks’s hometown newspaper, about Meeks’s pursuit of school vouchers.
Want to get involved or support the Institute’s work for better education for all Illinois citizens? E-mail us at info@illinoispolicy.org today.