I take issue to your editorial “
” (Feb. 14). First, Mayor Richard Daley has not improved the schools in the past 10 years. He has merely privatized 10 percent of the schools via charters, and those charters take the better students and winnow out the lesser students. Thus, the remaining schools (select and magnet schools excepted) look bad. Second, he has defunded the schools by taking $250 million per year by using Tax Increment Financing. Third, there has been no professional experienced superintendent of schools in over 15 years. Fourth, Gery Chico, as president of the school board in the 1990s, had removed a special pension funding part of the real estate tax, which is one reason the teacher pension fund is underfunded. Fifth, a partially elected board would be better than the current board of political cronies beholden to the mayor.
By the way, Richard Daley pere, Michael A. Bilandic, Jane Byrne and Richard Daley fils went to private or sectarian schools in the city. At least mayors Harold Washington and Eugene Sawyer went to public schools.
Fund the schools, investigate the charters’ secretive finances and political nexuses and demand professionals run the schools, not the connected and not the educationally faddish amateurs.
— Stan Palder, Chicago
