Senator, Pastors Lead Truancy

From Audri and Jim Lanford's e-newsletter (available without charge from http://famous-quotes-quotations.com/quote.html):

"Did you know that today, besides being Labor Day in the U.S., is the beginning of National School Success Month? This is a month to help parents encourage their children to do better in school. Achieving success in school isn't always easy, but it is doable if you put your mind to it. Remember parents -- your attitude makes a difference!"

And then I read the short article on Page 6A of today's Northwest Herald titled "Chicago students to skip first day". Read it.

According to the Associated Press article Illinois State Senator James Meeks (let's see; where have we heard that name before?) and 85 pastors are planning to help Chicago students boycott school on Tuesday and will provide more than 100 church buses to transport thousands of students to Winnetka, where they will attempt to register at New Trier High School and Sunset Ridge Elementary School.

Meeks and the pastors (and the students and their parents) are attempting to draw attention of uneven funding of schools in Illlinois. Well, duh.

But what's wrong with his method? How about
1. contributing to the delinquency of minors?
2. interfering with education?
3. endangering the health and lives of children by unnecessary transporting them around the
city?
4. truancy?
5. trespassing, if they enter the grounds of New Trier or Sunset Ridge and are not there legally to attend? Schools today prohibit visitors without reason to be there.

Looks to me like Sen. Meeks' gripe might be with his fellow legislators for failing to provide proper funding for Chicago schools, or maybe his gripe is with the Chicago Public School System for how it distributes the money it has.

What if Winnetka Police, supplemented by County and State Police and law enforcement agencies from nearby communities, arrest every violator attempting to disrupt the education of the students at New Trier and Sunset Ridge?

What if the Chicago Public Schools System processes every one of those absent students for truancy? Is that how Meeks wants them to spend their limited resources? Is Meeks going to provide legal funds to each parent?

You legislate stupidity. How does stupidity get elected? Sure, Chicago Schools have problems. So stop bellyaching and fix them!

The best thing the parents could do is have their children in their own schools tomorrow. And then throw Meeks out of office!