Rahm Emanuel Now in the Crosshairs - Closing of Under Performing Public Schools Raises the Hackles of Jesse Jackson

Rahm Emanuel is about to experience for himself that the racebaiters of the world don't care about your politics.  He is planning on closing 17 poorly performing public schools.  Not something that is sitting well with the likes of Jesse Jackson.

“I cannot wait another year and allow a child to be caught in a school system that, for five years running, has been on the watch list or the troubled list with no prospect of getting off of it. … Nothing to me is worse in the sense of discrimination than leaving kids in a system that, year-in-and-year-out, has been scored as failing.”

Not that you are apt to hear me say this often, but he is right.  These schools need to be closed and these kids have the right to get a better quality education.  Jackson on the other hand is calling it:

“educational apartheid,"

No, Mr. Jackson apartheid is keeping these black children in a failing school that gives them little to chance of becoming a productive adult.  It would be apartheid to keep them there.  Jackson is under the impression that just spending more money will solve the problems.  Chicago spends more money per pupil then they do for the students in the public school system where I live.  We have a 90% on time graduation rate and almost 92% rate of students going onto a post-secondary education.  The problems go beyond money.

Someone actually took the time to write down the costs associated with the low graduation rates for the city of Chicago (which is just above 50%) and the results of what it costs the community are staggering:

15% of high school dropouts were in the jail system in the year 2010-2011 overall and rise to 25% for blacks.  More than 50% of the prison population in Illinois are high school dropouts.

Nearly 48% of 18 to 64-year-old high-school dropouts in Chicago did not work even one week last year. The statewide number, 42%, is not much better and is four times higher than the figure of those with bachelor's or higher degrees.

If those numbers are not enough:

The study, based on U.S. Census data, suggests that dropouts nationally will be a net drain on the government, collecting an average of $70,850 more in benefits like food stamps in their lifetimes than they'll pay in taxes. In comparison, the typical high-school grad will make a net positive contribution of $236,060.

About 33% of dropouts will collect food stamps, twice the share of graduates, and fewer than half will own a home. And such bleak figures tend to be passed down to their children.
"Children living in families headed by high-school dropouts face a substantially above average probability of encountering cognitive, health, housing adequacy and nutrition problems that will limit their future, their chances of securing a bachelor's degree by their mid-20s are close to zero."

Now, I don't believe that every person should go to college.  Some people are not cut out for it and they would prefer to do jobs that don't require a college degree.  But they will still usually need some sort of training or education in order to find a job that will allow them to live above the poverty line.  While that is not true in all cases, it is true in many.

So it seems that Jesse Jackson would prefer that these kids just stay in these schools, increase the odds of them dropping out and have a much harder time leading lives that will bring more financially security to them.   He plans on filing a lawsuit to stop the closing of these schools.

There are no words for the stupidity of what Jesse Jackson is doing.  People need to wake up and realize that the likes of Jesse Jackson has lost all relevance and his ideas of what constitutes fairness not only are outdated but dangerous to the community that he says he is trying to help.

This report details the costs to society as a whole in just one state.  multiply this by 50% and it is not hard to see why we are broke.  Our broken educational system is not just drain on us financially, it is becoming a national security issue.  It was just 40 years ago that we had the highest rates of high school and college graduates in the world.  We now rank at 21st.  That is how far we have fallen is such a short time.

Again, you not likely to see this again real soon - Kudos to Mayor Emanuel for having the courage to take on the unions and Jesse Jackson to do what is right for children instead of what is easy.