A Sorting Party!

Our June 7th sorting is a major part of our effort to get supplies boxed up and ready for shipment to the nearly 45 area schools we serve each August. You name it, we sort it. Whether its binders, pencils, index cards, spiral notebooks or backpacks, we need to make sure that the goods are clean, neat and ready for use by the kids.

We can use a minimum of 15 workers on June 7th. The three hours of volunteering are fun and will go a long way towards readying the supplies for the students. We will have plenty of refreshments and will sort rain or shine, 9:00 am to noon. Just send me an email to let me know you're in. My email is rich219@comcast.net. I sure appreciate the help!

Thanks,
Dick

I Can't...

I can't know what it is like to have a low paying job and not able to afford new school supplies or clothes for my children. I can't begin to understand what it must be like to see a child off to school and not be able to help them to the extent you desire. I surely can't fathom what it must be like to be a teacher or principal of a school and to have a diminishing budget which precludes the school from having enough supplies for the children.

And I absolutely have no clue what it must be like for a child to go without some new folders, binders, and spirals.

What I CAN understand and DO is to help children who want an education to have some of the necessary supplies to be successful in the classroom YOU can also help. How?

Head out to 20048 S. Kohlwood Dr., in Mokena on Saturday, June 7th to help us sort thousands, yes thousands, of various student supplies so that the kids have that chance to be better students at the start of the school year this fall. Three hours of help (9:00 am to noon) will do much to help us ready for our deliveries.

To get in on the action simply email me at rich219@comcast.net

Thank you!
Dick

Ready, Set and Sort!

I am looking for some energetic people willing to sort school supplies on Saturday, June 7th from 9:00 am to noon. We are sorting at our house at 20048 S. Kohlwood Dr. in Mokena. What better way to help those children who will need supplies for the start of the school year in the fall. Plenty of fun, lots of refreshments and a great cause. Let me know if you are in!!! Just email me at rich219@comcast.net

Thanks,
Dick

Brown Lives On

There are a couple of amazing tales related to the epic case of Brown v. Board of Education. Linda Brown, the daughter of Oliver Brown, who brought the desegregation case to the Supreme Court is still alive. That is terrific news in a number of respects. Linda has helped to create a foundation to foster educational equality.

Not only does Linda live on, sadly, so does the epidemic of desegregation. There is ample evidence of this tragic scenario, some of which I have laid out over the past couple of days.

I believe Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times has summed it up quite succinctly in a piece which appeared yesterday. Said Steinberg, "Today, the law isn't the problem. Official brutality isn't the problem. The problem is the inertia of a system built up and maintained by both, continuing on its own accord in this segregated city."

Americans have built this system, it didn't happen by accident. And just as surely as we allowed segregation to proliferate in American schools we can just as surely put an end to it. We have to have the courage to do so.

Dick

Often Separate, Often Unequal

School integration in the civil rights era right into the 1970's did something quite remarkable. It worked!! During that period a recent study found that the black school dropout rate fell by a full 25%. A more comprehensive study in 2011 found that the desegregation of the schools in American led to higher earnings, better health and better prospects for life.

Those were indeed positive results of school desegregation as a result of the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1964. Sadly, today, nearly half of the nation's students are low income. A full forty-four percent are students of color. Guess what? Both the low income and students of color are attending segregated schools.

Right now, from my vantage point, I don't believe we have bottomed-out on the segregation problem. As long as the horror of poverty remains and worsens it will leave the most vulnerable behind in those areas which are langusishing. Until these areas of blight are truly repaired school segregation and student stagnation will proliferate.

Now is not the time to mark the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education; rather, it is a time for action.

Dick

50 Years Later - Brown vs. Bd. of Education

This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision where the intentional barrier of segregation in our nation's schools was struck down. Fifty year later, sadly, the trend in many areas of the country - particularly in cities - is that segregation of another sort is alive and well.

Let me put it this way. It is more of an unintentional type of segregation but, nonetheless, it is segregation.

As jobs and industry have left parts of cities and various neighborhoods there has been a flight of the affluent to other areas. As that flight has taken place the poor, often black and brown, are left in the same location. Often these people don't have the resources to be successful. The schools are among the hardest hit institutions.

The segregation is very much driven by economics...industry relocation, low wages (federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hr.), low paying service jobs, run down communities, population flight, reduced land values, low tax base and more. These are real economic problems and are at the core of why black and brown are finding themselves, along with the rest of the American population, segregated from much of the rest of society.

Brown vs. the Board of Education must be reviewed and the tools put in place to end segregation in many of our nation's schools.

Dick

Troy LaRaviere Stands Tall

You have to hand it to Principal Troy LaRaviere of Blaine Elementary. He pulled no punches when he criticized Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for the perceived heavy handiness towards CPS neighborhood school principals. Once you read the article, get a sense of Mr. LaRaviere's background, understand his situation and then examine the situations he brings to the fore then you will understand why he says "principals have no voice."

LaRaviere makes mention of the fact that principals were told to support the longer school day being proposed in addition to having their speeches ready for recall at subsequent principal meetings. LaRaviere also recounts the fact that he was told, by CPS officials, not to appear on WYCC television to comment on school overcrowding. There are other instances recalled by Mr. LaRaviere that speak to having little or no voice.

I have seen the obstacles facing principals (and other staff) when it comes to running their schools. Budget cuts, overcrowding, being short on resources and receiving what I call 'marching orders' from above. These are but a few of the everyday concerns and issues facing many terrific professionals. Mr. LaRaviere speaks the truth.

I don't care if it's a school or business, the professionals 'in the trenches' need to be empowered. When you get right down to it, they are in the know and the 'real' leaders follow them!

Dick