-By Warner Todd Huston
The move for school choice is not only growing in Illinois in general but in Chicago in particular as politicians and parents both see the downward spiral of the public education system picking up speed.
With the costs of public education soaring but neither the rates of graduation nor proficiency growing accordingly, parents are desperate to find a way for their children to gain a better education.
The state is pumping millions upon millions into the bottomless pit of education and taxes are edging higher every year to support the spending habit. As an example, Illinois school district U46 (west of Chicago in the Elgin area) has $600 million in bond debt and this is just one of the nearly 700 school districts in Illinois.
So, as the system founders, many experiments have blossomed. We all know that charter schools have grown rapidly in the Chicago area, but there are other schools such as Leo Catholic High School in Chicago’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood that are serving as perfect examples of school choice. Leo is a prime example of a private high school that is a wildly successful example of education at its finest.
The school is not fully supported financially by the city’s Catholic system but has since 1926 served students as an independent high school operating in what is now one of the city’s most depressed neighborhoods. The school started back when Auburn Gresham was a heavily Irish-Catholic part of the city but now serves an entirely African American student body. (Edit to note: The Archdiocese of Chicago does support Leo and has provided over $2M in direct, financial operating support for the school between 2009 and 2015, but doesn’t pay all the school’s expenses as it does the schools it has direct control over.)
The school has been such a success that for the last six years 100% of its students have been accepted into a college or university and 96 percent have gone on to pursue higher education.
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School Choice Finally on the Agenda in Illinois”
On this Memorial Day, the anti-American cretins at Salon.com have proclaimed our soldiers to be “dangerous” to the nation. Why? Because spending money on our military takes money away from welfare budgets. And they are serious.
A few years after the Civil War as the nation started upon its long road toward reconciliation, rebuilding, and healing the wife of one of the war’s union generals noticed the touching devotion of Confederate widows, wives and their children as each year they came together to place flowers and little flags at the graves of their fallen. Mary Simmerson Cunningham Logan was so moved by the devotion she witnessed that she urged her husband, Illinois General John A. “Blackjack” Logan, to look into creating what was to become Memorial Day.
HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
Democrats really know how to celebrate Memorial Day, don’t they? We get another prime example of the hate Democrats have for America with the Party’s Tweet featuring Barack Obama eating ice cream in front of a gaggle of adoring “reporters.” And the troops, you ask? What troops?
Obama has now decided that being a wild-eyed hater of Jews is a “rational” action and that the Iranian’s hate for Jews doesn’t make them bad people. How can Jews still support Obama?
Comedian Evan Sayet is launching a nation-wide comedy tour with dates right here in Chicago. This great act is not to be missed, so get your tickets for Chicago’s June 3 show.
A new poll on religious affiliation in the country shows that the number of Christians has declined while the number of people not affiliated with a religion is up.
A useful idiot named John Banzhaf who claims to be a professor at George Washington University, but really spends his time filing nuisance lawsuits on all sorts of topics, has filed a complaint against a Catholic university because the Christian cross is displayed throughout the school. This loon claims that because there are Christian crosses everywhere, why, goshdurnnit, this must offend Muslim students. So he is demanding that the crosses be removed from the school.
A recent poll seems to suggest that Muslims living in the USA want to outlaw our god-given right to free speech and a large number even agree that blasphemers of the Muslim god should be executed… not “over there,” but HERE in the USA! It makes one wonder if it is possible to be both a Muslim and a true American?
A fellow going by the moniker “Stereo Williams,” one who claims to be an entertainment writer from New York, is all weepy because he thinks white kids who are fans of rap music “don’t give a shit about blacks.” But a look at the lyrics of nearly any rap song pretty much proves that the blacks that make the stuff are really the ones who don’t give a shit about blacks.
I have known Mike Flynn for several years, now, and work with him at Breitbart.com, now he has announced his run to replace the disgraced Aaron Schock in the Illinois 18th Congressional District.
In an idiotic act of PCism run amuck, The Houston Rockets NBA team has fired its social media director because he dared to posted two emoticons (or emojis) of a horse being shot by a gun after the Mavericks lost to the Rockets on Wednesday. The media guy’s bosses said that the gun emoji “wasn’t appropriate” and so fired him over it.
First of all let me say that this isn’t an easy decision and I hope that everyone will support me in my time of need. That being said, I want to admit that growing up I always felt different from everyone else around me. Things always seemed so colorless to me and I was always aware that I felt darker than other boys. Now, at long last, I must admit the truth. I must stop living a lie. I must come out and admit that I was born an African American.
This week ten purported Republicans joined the most power mad president in American history to confirm his next candidate for Attorney General, mz. Loretta Lynch. These so-called Republicans cited presidential privilege in their votes but at this point any vote for anything Obama wants is a vote for pure corruption, not the American way.
PBS is not fair or balanced and nothing it does can be trusted. We see this claim fully validated with how the network bent over for actor Ben Affleck’s demand that his slave-owning ancestry be eliminated from a recent program tracing the actor’s family.
A school in Maine got in hot water last week for feeding 5,6,and 7 year olds a “lesson” on being transgendered. But can a 5-year-old even be a “transgendered” kid? No. And to impress on them to think so is child abuse.
On Friday, TVs “Dr. Oz,” Doctor Mehmet Oz, was once again forced to defend himself this time after a group of physicians at Columbia University demanded he be removed from the board over what they claim is his pushing of bad science and unsound medical advice.