Words Matter

Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner's comments regarding the condition of Chicago Public Schools is disheartening and hurtful. To say that "many of them are basically crumbling prisons." Are a good number of them crumbling? Sadly, yes. But to invoke the term 'prisons' is unwarranted and not helpful.

The schools have enough problems without someone, anyone, invoking such a harmful word.

As Mary Mitchell so eloquently stated, "but parents don't send their kids to dilapidated school buildings because they don't care. Many of these parents have limited choices." So low property values resulting in low property tax collection, community blight, unemployment, neglect and other causes mean that there are limited dollars available to repair the crumbling structures.

To invoke the term 'prison' is wrong and the Governor ought to know it. What the Governor could best do is skip the language and help fix the problem(s).

Dick