Mayor Daley's Deafening Silence | 10.14.10
As many of you know on June 1, 2010 RYH hand-delivered a letter to the Mayor requesting a meeting to discuss funding for public school education. This was a couple of days after Mayor Daley gave a rousing speech at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. In the speech he called education the "greatest equalizer", lack of funding a "disgrace" and "tackling the education system in Chicago is what I'd like to be known for". So we thought we would give him a chance.
On June 17, 2010 we also had a rally right across the street from his office, very convenient with a sound system, marched right up to the fifth floor with over 1200+ signed letters. Since that time we have been waiting for the Mayor to answer our letter.
It has finally come to our attention that Mayor Daley has given us his answer. His answer to the parents and students of the Chicago public school system is that he has no solution for funding education and that this is not pressing enough to take the time out to give a reply. We are a very polite group of people, we would have accepted a thank you note saying that they were working on the issue and will get back to us in the near future or this is a complicated issue please give us some more time. Isn't that what we would teach our children to do?
Is this what we want as parents, tax-payers and voters of Chicago? A Mayor who gives speeches on education but has no answers on education.
Well Mayor Daley, in the upcoming election season we the parents, tax-payers and voters of Chicago will be sure to give our answers to you, the aldermen and state legislators running for office. You cannot just say you are supporting education in Chicago while siphoning off our much needed education funds for questionable economic development projects. What developer will want to build in Chicago when families leave the city because of the poor education system? Where will your property taxes to fund TIF come from when families move out of the city?
Don't worry we don't expect an answer, your silence is deafening.