Getting almost a hundred people out on a freezing, snowy night to watch a documentary on corrupt teacher unions taking advantage of taxpayers is quite a feat, but Americans for Prosperity-IL and the Lake County Tea Party did it Wednesday night in Round Lake.
The night's featured documentary, The Cartel, focused on the unfathomable spending in the New Jersey school system, the head-shaking sheer number of school districts, administrators, superintendents, curriculum consultants, special advisors and other staff and the unaccountable cost of school building projects, just to name a few. For an hour and a half, The Cartel gave the dismal details of billions being spent in New Jersey schools while producing some of the worst-educated students in American history.
Arguments for and against school choice, charter schools, public schools and private schools were throughout, but the evidence was overwhelming that New Jersey, and other financially-strapped states such as California and Illinois are likely to be suffering identical very expensive education-less plagues.
An emotion-stirring segment spotlighted the delight and heartache of youngsters anticipating whether their names would be drawn during a charter school enrollment lottery. After hearing her daughter's name read as one picked to go to a charter school one mother jumped from her chair in excitement and tearfully declared, "Now my daughter's got a chance."
A chance, she cried, not a guarantee at having a better life due to a decent education. She was simply overjoyed that her child would have something she would not otherwise have had unless she was attending an urban charter school, not her community's public school. A chance.
On the other side of the room, a little girl cried in her mother's arms because her sad lot was to have her name placed on the charter school's waiting list. A gut-wrenching and effective scene.
So what is the solution to this national education crisis? Nothing new. Simply, education choice.
More money is most commonly the prescription we hear from teacher unions to improve failing schools. However, as the film points out, in New Jersey, public school districts were found to be spending from $350,000 to almost $500,000 per classroom. How much would it take to create a marked improvement in academics? one observer in The Cartel asked.
All those questions will surely be mulled over the next few months in the minds of nine particular people attending The Cartel's showing Wednesday night. Those nine's names are on upcoming school board election ballots throughout Lake County. If they are elected, they'll need to know what questions to ask when faced with proposed budget increases, staff advancements and tax hikes. The information some of those candidates obtained Wednesday night will surely to spark ideas for more school budget accountability and transparency.
The most common reaction to films like The Cartel is that things are different in our own communities. We see how bad it is elsewhere and then we look at our neighborhoods, and feel okay about what we see. Sure, we get upset about higher property taxes but the outrage dissolves and we return to work to bring home less and less while school administrators walk away with more and more.
Nothing ever changes until there's enough emotion stirred to engage and cause activists to believe the risk is worth the action that could shake their previously peaceful worlds. Whether we see it or not, there's an education crisis all around us, even in our very own Illinois suburban neighborhoods.
Some will say The Cartel's purpose was to accentuate the negative and unfairly represent the anti-teacher union side of the story. They'll say the documentary is corporately-funded and that only the rich will profit from its showing.
Problem is there's also enough unbiased facts in The Cartel to at least make us rightfully question just how much we're being forced to pay and sacrifice every day. How much should we pay to enable the abuse of a system and eventually facilitate an inexcusably illiterate generation?
Those important, relevant questions are stirring new leadership to combat a system that's taken advantage of its generous community's pocketbooks for way too long.
Lake County is fortunate to have courageous new community leaders emerging that are challenging the status quo all about them. Round Lake's mayor was in attendance last night, as was Mundelein's State Rep. Ed Sullivan. Rep. Sullivan announced to the crowd that he would be working once again to pass school choice legislation in the Illinois House, along with Chicago's Senator Rev. James Meeks in the Senate, to stir hope for those trapped in failing schools, with no chance.
Lake County Tea Party's board members Lennie Jarratt, Michael Carbone, Peter Karlovics and Paul Mitchell are actively encouraging Lake County citizens to get involved in this spring's local school board elections as candidates as well as voters. Americans for Prosperity-IL's local rep Collin Corbett and Republican Assembly of Lake County's Raymond and Doreen True continue to encourage political involvement in the area.
If it's the frustration of higher property taxes or the disappointment of low academic performance that gets more taxpayers involved in school board meetings, reading murky budgets and filing more and more FOIAs to find out how taxpayer dollars are being spent, that's a good thing. The more that get involved, the better off the people of Lake County, the greater Chicago area and the state of Illinois will be.
We've all got a whole lot to learn, even if it means educating ourselves about what we've allowed to happen. Whether Illinois is as bad as New Jersey's school cartel is is not the point. It's what we do to correct it and give kids a chance that we should all be focusing on.
At least Lake County's on its way.
Find out more on the web about National School Choice Week, The Cartel movie, and these organizations.
