Why I demonstrated with Chicago’s teachers

READER FEEDBACK

On Friday, I went to the streets to protest Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner’s disastrous education policies. They are pulling more and more money out of the classrooms that need it the most.

I went to the streets to protest the way politicians like Rauner and Emanuel demonize teachers who care more about their students than these politicians could ever understand. I went to the streets because every student in every neighborhood in this city can succeed if we as a society put our money where our mouths are and invest in these kids’ future.

This was a Chicago Teachers Union protest, for the most part, and I am not a CTU teacher. The cuts that Emanuel and Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool and Rauner are demanding will come down on the schools, for the most part, and I don’t work in a CPS school. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about what happens to those CTU teachers and those CPS students.

You — yes, you at home reading this in the newspaper — you don’t need to be a CTU teacher to care about what happens to these teachers, and you don’t need to have a child in a CPS school to care about what happens to these kids. Just as you don’t need to be a woman to hate sexism and you don’t need to be gay to fight for LGBTQ rights. You don’t need to be black to know # BlackLivesMatter and you don’t need to be undocumented to know the worth of a human being isn’t measured by their birth certificate. You just need to know what is right, and you have to fight for it.

Tell Rauner and Emanuel that these kids need more resources and that we can do that with greater revenue from a progressive state income tax and TIF funds.

David Teeghman, East Garfield Park

Volunteers instead of another tax

Instead of another county tax, why doesn’t Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin go to companies and ask them to run programs for at- risk youth? If the companies ran the programs, they would be run efficiently. Politicians seem to think the only answer to a problem is taxation. Whatever happened to volunteerism, when people who could afford the time and/ or money were asked to help out?

There are many unemployed people who could be useful, until they are able to find a job, helping with such programs. Hopefully it would help them to feel good doing something of benefit for Chicago’s at- risk youth too. Also, doesn’t Boykin realize that most of the gun violence in the city is due to repeat criminals with illegal guns who are out of jail with a “slap on the wrist” instead of what they deserve?

Janet Lumm, Schaumburg