Is college getting too costly to expect anybody to afford the tuition bills?

It seems there’s a new “scam” involving ways that parents make their children out to be indigent so that they can qualify for extensive financial aid to help pay for a college education.

Their reporting may motivate the feds to act

Which some view as a problem in that there is only a limited amount of money available with which to help lower-income families in need, and these students of wealthier families theoretically are taking funds away from others who might also need the money in order to pay for college.

ALTHOUGH THE REALITY may well be that college has become so costly that just about everybody thinks they’re amongst the financially needy who need help in covering the cost of tuition bills.

I suspect many of the families whose activity has been uncovered by the ProPublica Illinois non-profit news organization think they’ve done nothing illegal, and probably think they’re the ones who are being harassed for trying to ensure that their children will have the opportunity to obtain a higher education – thereby giving them a chance to succeed in life.

They may also think that it’s not their fault they figured out a way to qualify for more financial assistance.

What the news organization, whose reports are being picked up by newspapers everywhere, has found is that there are instances where parents deliberately turning their teenaged children over to legal guardians.

WHO THEN ACKNOWLEDGE they’re doing nothing to provide for the 16- to 17-year-olds financial well-being. Which means that when the students fill out forms seeking financial aid, they can claim to be indigent and in need of help in terms of covering the entire cost of tuition.

Putting them in a much higher-priority financial aid status than they’d be able to claim if they had to admit their parents were still supporting their living expenses. Which isn’t technically illegal – although University of Illinois admissions officials called a “scam” because it alters the perception of who is indigent and who is not.

But I have to admit to sympathizing with anyone who’s trying to deal with the cost of a college education in today’s day and age. Personally, I don’t know how I’d be able to afford the cost if I were having to deal with it now.

Is this the real problem?

Heck, it seemed excessive some three decades ago when I actually was in college.

SO IT WILL be intriguing to see just how this issue plays out in the arena of public perception. Will these parents become some sort of equivalent to the actress Lori Loughlin – who now faces criminal charges for allegedly paying bribes to college admissions officials in order to get her children into the University of Southern California?

With several wealthier parents facing such charges, but prosecutors seeming to focus their attention on Loughlin because of her so-called celebrity status.

Or will this become a case of college costs having grown far out of control – to the point where perhaps we need a serious review of just what an education ought to cost and what it is worth.

Because maybe people wouldn’t be eager to “give up” their children (theoretically, that is) if tuition hadn’t skyrocketed so high that it’s a wonder anybody seriously thinks anyone is capable of paying a tuition bill without some financial help.

WHICH, OF COURSE, then gets us into a conversation into just what kind of help ought to be available. With some people touting the ideologue argument that college isn’t for everybody – and that some ought to set lower goals in life.

LOUGHLIN: No longer into noble causes

That wouldn’t be such a cheesy argument to make EXCEPT that it reeks too much of certain people arguing that the purpose of colleges ought to be to weed out certain elements of our society from trying to advance their lots in life through higher education.

An attitude that we need to advance beyond for the good of our society.

Unless you’re of the sort who thinks there’s some truth to the old gag about people who can’t get their way through college by saying, “Somebody’s got to deliver pizzas.”

  -30-

Great debate over merits of ‘gym’ class

It was with some interest that I read a Chicago Tribune report about several school districts across the state that are hoping to take advantage of new laws allowing them to reduce the amount of physical education class time they require of their students.

Will future generations not climb the ropes?

It’s meant to be a potential cost-saving device if they don’t have to maintain proper facilities to offer gym class to every student on a regular basis. It’s also seen by some as a way of allowing local school officials to set their own priorities.

ALL I KNOW is that it would seem my memories of spending an hour per day in high school in gym class, engaging in whatever athletic activity the teachers/coaches felt was timely are a part of the distant past.

Modern-day kids aren’t engaging in such activity. Which may be for the best.

Since my own memories of gym class usually bring to mind spending some 45 minutes or so ambling our way through some game that nobody seriously cared about.

And for some, were anxious to ignore at all costs.

MY OWN PERSONAL horror story was a time when we were supposed to play badminton, and the person I was partnered with was something of a klutz. Not that I was ever one to excel athletically. But that day, I was the “elite” player, which wasn’t saying much.

It was also the day I was trying to hit the so-called bird and my “partner” flailed away with his racket – smacking me in the back of the head in the process.

Yes, we lost that game. I was dazed for a few seconds. I’m not sure anybody’s physical fitness was improved with such activity. Gym class always added “C’s” to my report card, just because I didn’t care.

Which supposedly was the purpose of having daily gym class – to get us engaged in a little bit of physical activity that might actually improve our overall fitness. It’s a nice ideal, but I’m sure the way that gym class was handled back in the day usually meant the only people who benefitted were the ones who had their academic struggles in all their other classes.

MEANING GYM CLASS was the one bit of the day where they weren’t aimlessly flailing about. Unless, by chance, they were also clumsy. In which case, the entire educational experience they endured was something of a loss for them.

I’m also sure that the people who went through school thinking “gym class” was their favorite part of the day are the ones who grew up to become individuals who bad-mouthed former first lady Michelle Obama and her own efforts to focus attention on physical fitness.

They probably wanted to think that gym was all about the actual ballgames played in class, and are probably among the people who are going onto the Internet to bad-mouth the current Illinois policies as somehow “sissifying” physical education and our society, in the process.

I do wonder at times if that time I spent in gym class could have been put to more productive use. Although I’ll also admit I mostly remember gym class as something of a break in the day. My own horrid memories of the experience come from the one year in which physical education was my first activity of the high school day.

TO SHOW UP at high school about 7 a.m. and have people immediately expect me to be active was a little cruel. Although I remember having high school newspaper activity scheduled at the end of my school day always seemed like a pleasant way to end – regardless of the nonsense that had occurred in the hours leading up to it.

Remembering high school gym and the hour devoted to class does bring back one memory that I must admit repulses me if I think too much about it. Remember I said it was 45 minutes of activity? The rest of the time was devoted to getting dressed for gym, then changing back into regular clothes for classes.

My own memory is that I rarely showered after gym class. Very few people did. I’m sure there were times I was sweaty and smelly as a result of gym class activity.

It must have been a funky experience – one whose aroma I’m pleased to confess I seem to have suppressed.

  -30-

Getting an education becoming such a hassle, what w/ all the politicking

There’s one advantage these days to being a 50-year-old whose formal education process is a thing of the past – I don’t have to put up with the nonsense that contemporary college kids have to endure.

Tuition these days is so ridiculously sky-high, I don’t think I could be able to afford it.

AND THAT’S TAKING into account that I was willing to take on some debt in the form of student loans that put me through college – and took me some six years to pay off. Nowadays, those loans would be so costly that I don’t think I’d ever be able to pay them off.

But the more serious problem these days is the fact that the political gamesmanship taking place these days between Gov. Bruce Rauner on behalf of Republicans and the Democratic legislative caucus led by Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, is interfering with the education process.

For the budgets of the state’s publicly-funded colleges are NOT among the state agencies and programs whose activities must continue even though the state is now in month eight of the fiscal year without a balanced budget in place.

There also are the private colleges being impacted, since many of their students rely on financial aid to meet those costly tuition payments and those are government programs that provide the aid.

THE COLLEGES WENT forth with this academic year back in September making the best of the bad situation, while also hoping that the political people would come to their senses within a month or two.

Instead, the political people seem determined to hold out. They’re not going to concede a thing. They’re willing to make Fiscal ’16 the year that no budget was ever approved – and show no willingness to make Fiscal ’17, ’18 or ’19 any different.

The situation at Chicago State University, which admittedly always faces slightly more dire circumstances that most other colleges, is actually talking about having to shut down.

Other colleges might have to do mid-year layoffs that would affect their academic departments. Now we see why the one thing Rauner did was to approve the portion of the state budget for elementary education – just think how ugly it would be if all schools across Illinois were threatened with closure?

COLLEGE KIDS IN Illinois these days literally face the possibility of having their studies interrupted because of the politicking going on. Considering that these young people are supposed to be our future that relies heavily on the success of their academic efforts, what kind of long-term damage is being caused?

Those Chicago State students literally were picketing in the streets of downtown on Monday – figuring they’d get more public attention there than they would down at 95^th Street and King Drive.

Although I also noticed reports about a student rally held at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, where the local Republican state legislators it seems were upset they were not permitted to speak during the event.

Organizers said the rally was meant to be a student forum, not for the general public. Although you have to admit, it would have been interesting to hear those legislators try to justify themselves and their support for Rauner’s political actions.

IT ALSO WOULD have been downright ridiculous if one of those legislators had managed to make a verbal gaffe that would have had statewide repercussions. Which, considering the ineloquence of many political people, was too likely to happen.

Those legislators were saved from themselves; they committed the primary rule of public speaking – they avoided saying something stupid!

This uncertainty is headache-inducing for all. But particularly those students who perceive their education beyond the upcoming weekend’s kegger.

Because what happens to all our society if it turns out years from now that the young people who spent their late-teenage years inhaling bongs accomplished more than those whose efforts at self-improvement were thwarted because Rauner wants to undermine organized labor’s influence within government?

  -30-

Do I owe my “A” to the Super Bowl?

I have to make a confession – one that I’m sure will shock the standards of many people who think they know what a true Chicagoan is.

Are we really on 'L' already?

Back 30 years ago Tuesday when the Chicago Bears reached the pinnacle of winning a Super Bowl – beating the New England Patriots 46-10, I didn’t actually watch the game on television.

I DIDN’T PERCH myself in front of a television set that day to see the moment that many people (except for young punk kids who are too young to know better) think of as a glory day for all of Chicago.

Not that I wasn’t aware of the game, or the hype, or the fact that Chicago got extra stupid in the way it worshipped the gridiron back in that autumn of 1985 that led into the Super Bowl XX that came early in 1986.

And yes, all football championships need to have roman numerals attached as though they are battles of the gladiators of old – just as comedian George Carlin once told us that all football matches are played in places with names like Soldier Field or War Memorial Coliseum.

I actually have a vivid memory of that day – which was part of the time in which I was out of Chicago and off at college; Bloomington, Ill., to be exact.

BECAUSE IT WAS an example of me at one of my laziest moments.

I was taking a course that January in which the totality of my grade was a lengthy paper that I had to write detailing what it was I had learned.

Do you still own a turntable to play this on?

There was nothing else to take into account. The paper was it. A bad paper would mean a poor grade. And yes, I had barely started on it that Sunday.

Which is why that particular afternoon, I was holed up in my room banging away at a typewriter producing what turned out to be something close to 40 pages of copy.

FORTUNATELY FOR ME, I actually had a good comprehension of the subject matter. I actually had been paying attention and had learned some things.

So while it was a lengthy paper and quite detailed, it was actually rather easy to write. It flowed well, and by about 6 p.m., I was done.

A Chicago history 'moment'

Of course, back then the Super Bowl was still played in January and wasn’t meant to be a prime time spectacle. The game was played in the afternoon. At the same time that was prime work time for me to deal with this paper!

For me, that meant tuning in my stereo to the AM radio dial. For because it was the Chicago Bears, WGN radio had managed to get the rights to carry a live broadcast of the NFL’s prize program.

MEANING I WAS the guy who spent the afternoon grinding out a college paper while also trying to keep track of how the Bears were doing. Yes, I remember the Patriots scoring first and feeling a moment of “How typical” – as in a Chicago sports team getting all worked up before blowing it in the end.

I say typical because back then, it had been 22 years since the Bears had last won a championship, 24 years since the Blackhawks did so, 26 years since the White Sox had an American League title and 40 years since the Cubs did so in the National League.

While in this pre-Jordan era, the Chicago Bulls had NEVER won anything of note.

But as the Bears began piling on the points and racking up a huge lead (it was 46-3 at one point before New England came up with a token touchdown to save face), perhaps I got a jolt as well. I do remember how well that copy flowed – in a way I have rarely, if ever, felt since.

I REMEMBER MY roommate came back home to Chicago because he wanted to watch the game locally, and I remember the amount of grief he gave me afterward for not perching in front of a television.



Is there a ring for passing a class?

That is, until he found the artistic guys (as in drama majors) who lived down the hall who hadn’t even been aware there was a game that day.

I always wondered to what degree that game being on the radio provided motivation to my writing that day. Because I still remember the grade I received for that cranked-out-in-four-hours college paper I wrote at nearly the last possible minute.

It was an “A.”

  -30-

How times change, while some try to keep things the same no matter what

Thinking back to my own years in high school just over three decades ago, I can’t help but wonder how different the reaction would have been had anybody brought up the idea of transgender students.

District engaged in confusion over transgender issue

I suspect that back then, the knuckleheads of the class would have thought they were doing all of us some sort of service by taking such a student and sticking his/her head in a toilet. If not just administering a beating.

THE SAD THING is that the school’s administration likely would have taken their side, and figured that the transgendered student already going through enough confusion in life brought all the abuse upon themselves!

So learning about the situation in Township High School District 211 in suburban Palatine makes me wonder just how far have we as a society progressed?

For it seems there is a transgender student who wants to be able to use the locker room facilities of the gender that the student identifies with – rather than the one the student was actually born to.

I could envision officials of the past wanting to think that student a trouble-maker and trying to find an excuse to suspect the student. It seems as though this high school wanted to try to cooperate.

ALTHOUGH THEIR LEVEL of cooperation comes in so low that it seems to be insufficient. Making it highly likely that federal authorities will wind up having to resolve this situation.

For that student already had filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s civil rights office, seeking the right to use the locker rooms at the high school. The school had suggested the student could use that locker room, but only if that student changed clothes and showered in private.

Locker rooms are now more than just a smelly place to change

The Chicago Tribune reported Monday that federal officials notified the school district their solution is inadequate. Supposedly, a written, more-detailed explanation will be forthcoming.

Although the district said in its own statement that the federal government hinted that their proposed solution is “inadequate and discriminatory.”

PERSONALLY, I’D BE inclined to say it’s just convoluted – because the idea of banishing this particular student to use of the locker room in private probably would do nothing more than reinforce the sentiment of some who want to think this particular person is some sort of freak who needs to be kept in isolation.

It even brings to mind the old “separate, but equal” status that used to be used to justify separate restroom facilities for non-white people.

I’ll be the first to admit this is an issue that confuses many people. It’s not one that I particularly identify with – since I have never had any real confusion about my own gender or any desire to be opposite of what I was born with.

But my own personal sentiment of thinking that people have a right to mind their own business – and not have other people mind it for them – makes me think we ought to sympathize with such people.

ALTHOUGH THIS ISSUE gets confused by the fact that most of the law concerning the rights of transgender people is geared toward adults. Someday, this person will have the law on their side.

Until then, they’re going to be stuck with suffering even more than the typical teenager does. Which is a real shame.

A ;major league' fossil?

Particularly since there are those who will want to interfere and “turn back the clock” so to speak. Take the attitude of former Houston Astros ballplayer Lance Berkman, who is opposed to an equal rights ordinance that Houston is contemplating, calling it a “bathroom ordinance” that would, “allow troubled men to enter public bathrooms, showers and locker rooms.”

Maybe he would think the Palatine high school district is justified, perhaps not even tough enough. Although he strikes me as someone who thinks he’s still in high school – and that the way of thinking from some two decades ago still applies.

  -30-

Will we want to hear what former Bear Clark thinks about his kid’s schooling?

The way we want to think of Desmond

I find the circumstances of former Chicago Bears tight end Desmond Clark to be intriguing.

Clark went to his son’s high school in suburban Vernon Hills to confront officials about what he thinks is unjust treatment, and HE winds up facing criminal charges. School officials say they felt intimidated by Clark’s demeanor.

ACTUALLY BY BOTH Clark and his wife, Maria. He is charged with disorderly conduct, while she is charged with assault. Both are free on $2,500 bond.

The two got arrested for an incident on Aug. 29 at the high school that was supposed to be a discussion about the fact that their son says he’s being harassed on racial grounds.

They wanted to see what, if anything, the school was prepared to do about it. The fact that the high school appeared to be interested in doing nothing about it angered the Clarks – which is totally understandable.

Even though the high school wants to believe they’re the victim in this saga – and I’m sure there are enough people out there who get all squeamish whenever racial issues come up that they’ll be willing to believe that the former ballplayer ought to just shut up about it!

THIS MAY BE the one “cardinal sin” a former professional athlete can commit. Many bad things would be forgiven because of the fact that Clark was once athletic enough to wear the uniform of the Chicago Bears.

But bring up racial issues? That’s very bad, in some eyes.

Most of the news accounts I have read about this incident have been rather vague. Which is why I find it ridiculous that the high school district felt compelled on Monday to say it thinks the incident has been taken out of context.

I’d argue the reports have not put the problem in any true context. We really don’t know what happened, or what the behavior is that the son has had to endure that had the parents so upset.

EXCEPT FOR A WBBM-TV news report where Clark opened up to a little more detail, saying his son has been harassed on racial grounds ever since he started at the school in 2012. Such as being called assorted racial slurs and being told his parents hang from trees in the front yard.

Usually, they'd be proud to have former Bear amongst parents

Totally believable in light of the fact that there are people with their own racial hang-ups, and at that age they’re stupid enough to think their nonsense actually means something.

But the current outburst is related to the fact that Clark’s son was being disciplined by the school for being seen intoxicated while at a rally celebrating the Chicago Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup victory earlier this year.

Because of that, school officials said he was prohibited from participating in a lip-synch contest being held at the high school. When the son tried challenging that decision, a school administrator is alleged to have said, “If he wants to act like a criminal, he can get out.”

A COMMENT THAT infuriated Clark to the point where he and his wife went to meet with school officials, and tempers were lost to the point where the school called the police – and Clark is now banned from the high school campus.

A move that strikes me as being motivated more by trying to make Clark look bad when the criminal case eventually goes to trial – or winds up getting settled with some sort of plea deal.

Admittedly, Clark’s account makes it seem like an open-and-shut acquittal for him, particularly since the school is refusing to say much of anything – usually a sign of someone covering up. But I don’t doubt that there are those who wish Clark would just pipe down so we can go back to just thinking of him in terms of those former Sunday afternoons when he took to the gridiron at Soldier Field.

Although if we want to be honest, those people who can’t view ballplayers as human beings and don’t want to address such racial outbursts most often are the real problem our society faces.

  -30-

Come back, grads! Come back to Chi

I found it amusing to learn that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is going about these days urging high school graduates not to give up on Chicago.

The Chicago Tribune reported about Emanuel speaking at three commencement ceremonies on Saturday, giving essentially the same message.

WHEN THOSE STUDENTS finish their education elsewhere, they ought to make sure to make a return trip to Chicago. Apply that education here. Make something of themselves in the Second City.

“You are our future,” Emanuel told one group of students, according to the newspaper. “We have a great future as long as you make Chicago home.”

What next? Will he be calling out for “Shane” to, “Come back!”

Although my guess is that Emanuel is far from the only political person who worries about the potential for brain drain causing problems for the future. I have heard too many instances of Michigan residents who, upon completing college, make a beehive right for Chicago.

THOSE WITH AN education and some special skills seem to think our metro area is a finer place to have a life than Detroit, or anywhere else in Michigan – a place many Chicagoans with some financial means use as a place for the summer cottage, of sorts.

Maybe Emanuel figures that Chicagoans with the same spirit of wanting to move up will make the same beehive for New York (except for those geeks who studied political science who will rush for the District of Columbia instead).

Although I just stumbled across New York Times story about the added cost of living in New York – to the point where many people who wish to live there just can’t swing it. Particularly if they also have significant financial debt that put themselves through college in the first place.

So where do lifelong New Yorkers with greater aspirations in life make a beehive to? Are they the ones who decide that they just have to live in Paris (if their education included any foreign language training) or London (if it didn’t)?

OR DO THE most sensible of those people realize how much nicer Chicago is in terms of being a place to actually live a life. Primarily for the fact that New York costs of living really do make Chicago out to be a financial bargain (unless you’re one of those people who thinks that slumming it is living anywhere outside of a penthouse apartment in the Trump Tower that sits on top of the foundation of the Sun-Times Building of old).

 

Am I alone in looking at Trump Tower and longing for what used to be?

Personally, I don’t think Emanuel has much to worry about. I believe many of those younger people who leave Chicago for a four- or five-year stretch (depending on how studious they are) will wind up returning.

I know I did. The only area college I applied to (Columbia College on Michigan Avenue) was purely my backup, and I quit thinking about the place once I learned I had options to experience life elsewhere for a few years.

Which was a smart move on my part. I got exposed to other people I never would have encountered here. While also having summer breaks to roam about the city and soak it in to the point where I couldn’t get in the car and drive back up Interstate 55 fast enough the day I graduated some 27 years ago.

EVEN WHEN I took work elsewhere (including a seven-year stretch in Springfield), I always have managed to come back to Chicago. The city just has a lure to bring people back.

And as for those who just aren’t latched by that lure? The ones who somehow decide that some place like Southern California is more attractive?

As far as I’m concerned, they can live in fear that the big earthquake will come along, and they will drop into the Pacific – a long way away from here where we'll enjoy the shores and beaches of Lake Michigan.

  -30-

Does Chicago need military school?

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has plans to turn a public school in the Logan Square neighborhood into a military-themed academy.

EMANUEL: Developing an "army?"

Students in uniform, marching in formation. Learning some semblance of discipline that supposedly will make them better people in life.

I DON’T DOUBT that some people could better their lot in life through some form of regimentation. Although I’m skeptical that having people march about is necessarily going to accomplish much – unless the resources are put into the school to make it a worthy educational facility.

And that could just as easily be done without the military theme.

The key to comprehending this idea for a revamped school (currently, it is the Ames Middle School up on North Hamlin Avenue) is that it is NOT a military academy.

Its students won’t have any military obligation upon graduation. The kinds of activities offered at the school are, theoretically, the same as at any other high school.

OR AT LEAST any other high school that is underfunded and is in a community that is borderline struggling!

Under Emanuel’s plan, the Ames School would be expanded to make it into a full-fledged high school (not just the 7^th and 8^th grades anymore). Supposedly, there is about $7 million available through funds from tax increment finance districts that could pay for the cost of the transition.

The Chicago Sun-Times this week reported on the fact that some parents in Logan Square are upset about the change. They think it was just sprung on them. They would have liked some input into the decision.

Although being a “take charge” kind of guy is the image that Emanuel likes to portray of himself. Not exactly the kind of person who wants to spend time sitting in committees with parents who want to start micro-managing the number of stripes that will be worn on students’ uniforms.

IT SEEMS THEY have the support of the Chicago Teachers Union. Although the fact that union President Karen Lewis would be critical of Emanuel is so non-surprising.

The only real question is why didn’t she take the lead of this particular crusade?

In making his argument, Emanuel has officials who say that many parents in Chicago want the military school option. The Sun-Times reported there has been a 237-percent increase since 2005 in the number of Chicago Public Schools students who try to get themselves into a military-themed academy.

I don’t doubt that is true. The reality is that there are many mediocre- to poor-performing schools in the Chicago Public Schools system. The number of worthy students is larger than the number of slots in the school facilities that really do offer high-quality programs.

THERE PROBABLY ARE parents who will send their children anywhere except the neighborhood school that suffers the same problems as its surrounding community.

Even if it means putting on a uniform that is more detailed than khaki-colored pants and a button-up shirt.

Perhaps it is the image too many of us have received from years of watching television programs where a kid who misbehaves is threatened with the “punishment” of being shipped off to military school. Remember the episode of “The Sopranos” where actor Robert Iler’s “A.J.” character hears the school commandant go on and on about the marching and the drill and the lack of television time?

I’m just not convinced that it makes THAT much of a difference for the students who wind up at such schools.

IF ANYTHING, THERE are students who might need more discipline (and by that, I don’t mean being smacked around) in their daily ritual. Although I think that is something that best should come from the parent(s); not from the school.

If Emanuel thinks he’s about to revamp our future by having more school children marching about, I’d say he overestimates conditions. About all he’s likely to get is a batch of future parades where the military veterans watch these kids and say, “They can’t march worth squat!”

  -30-

Did CPS drive students away from school? What can keep them in class?

When the Chicago Public Schools closed several of its inner-city facilities as part of a measure to control costs, much was made of the complaints from some parents that they didn’t want their children to attend the schools that had been picked for them as alternatives.

In many cases, it seems that the walk to the new school would cause kids to have to enter, or pass through, neighborhoods that were not deemed safe.

IN SOME CASES, street gang alliances were not being taken into account, and parents feared their children might get caught up in the middle of that layer of nonsense that afflicts our city’s neighborhoods.

So it was with some interest that I read the Chicago Tribune report published Tuesday that said almost half of the kids who had their old school closed were not transferring to the schools that CPS officials intended for them to go to.

Which means the roughly $233 million in renovations and other improvements that were meant to help the “new” schools accommodate the extra student load may not have been spent in the most practical of manners.

The Tribune has reporters who found parents who decided that rather than have their kids go to school at the place the Chicago Public Schools thought was practical, they were making arrangements to send their kids elsewhere.

EVEN THOUGH IN many cases, it means an even longer commute and more of a hassle for the parents – all because they REALLY, REALLY don’t want their kids in school environments where they fear the urban violence factor will overcome any learning benefits their kids might get.

The Tribune found the Metcalfe Elementary School near the Pullman neighborhood that has 77 new students due to the school closings of earlier this year – even though that school wasn’t supposed to get newcomers, has limited access that creates problems for students with disabilities, and a lack of funds to fix the problem.

All in all, it sounds like a mess – school closings that weren’t thought out thoroughly enough.

Now I’m not about to start ranting (again) about the flaws in the school closings. To briefly summarize my past stance, it was that while I realize the fact that many of the closed schools were aging facilities that needed replacement, the whole issue put many parents in a position where they were forced to fight to keep flawed schools open!

BECAUSE SCHOOL OFFICIALS didn’t quite think the issue through to the end.

It seems that the parental concerns about the places where Chicago Public Schools officials wanted to shift students are more intense than the potential for financial savings that were incurred by the closings.

I’m wondering when the novelty of a longer school commute wears off and it becomes just a hassle, how many kids are going to wind up finding “excuses” to miss more and more school.

A mind may be a terrible thing to waste – or so goes the old United Negro College Fund tag-line. But some people may be put in positions where they will feel it is just beyond their means to fulfill a quality education.

WHICH IS A terrible way to view the situation. But it is something that some people are likely to do.

In fact, I’m wondering if some students wind up being lost along the way. They’ll just decide that transferring anywhere is a hassle.

I’d like to think this is a situation that can be resolved by some serious thought and a willingness of public officials to view the issue more from the perspective of what is good for the children and less of what benefits the interests of the public officials.

Because the cost of continuing to mismanage this situation is way too high on our society for us to be able to afford it in future years!

  -30-

School nutrition: Some things change. Then again, some others don’t

I recall high school, particularly the scene in the cafeteria where there were a pair of lines for food service.


School cafeteria pizza? Some things don't change!

One line was for students interested in purchasing a full meal (for about $1, if my memory is correct – it has been 30 years), which tried to make some concept of a balanced meal with side dishes.

THE OTHER LINE was an a la carte line meant to serve individual items.

As I recall, that line was usually the more popular. I even recall some people who would mock anyone who thought to get into the line seeking a full meal. As though the idea of nutrition was something bad.

Because I remember the types of items that were the most popular purchases – slices of pizza, French fries and some sort of fruit juice (although no soda pop).

The very thought of it makes me want to wretch, particularly since we’re not talking about any kind of edible quality to the food. It was the equivalent of the cheaper items one finds in the frozen foods aisle of the supermarket.

BUT I’M SURE it provided the kinds of starches and sugars that made us feel filled (bloated might be more accurate) as we worked our way through the second half of a school day.

What makes me recall this experience from the era back when we called Ronald Reagan president? Oddly enough, it was a Chicago Tribune story previewing first lady Michelle Obama’s visit to Chicago.

OBAMA: 'Mom' telling us to eat vegetables?

She has tried to take childhood obesity on as her pet issue, and she brought various people with her to make herself look like a success.

Yet Tribune reporter-type people worked their way into the schools in Chicago to find that many efforts to put healthier items on the school lunch menus are not working.

MAKE HEALTHIER FOODS available to the student body, and they may wind up pitching them straight into the trash.

One student told the Tribune, “We just like chips with our food.” While another wouldn’t eat the broccoli being served because, “Ain’t no cheese on it.”

This was at an inner-city school of the 21^st Century.

Yet it sounds so much like what my counterparts would have spewed forth all those decades ago – had anyone tried to put healthy foods before them on a regular basis.

NOW I KNOW the conservative ideologues of our society like to claim this is some sort of issue involving personal freedom. Michelle Obama trying to push nutrition is somehow an issue of her being a meddling witch (they use much harsher terms) to butt into a person’s right to eat whatever they want.

Which just strikes me as a stupid way to view this issue. It sounds more like they’re not concerned about the health and welfare of those individuals in our society who aren’t exactly like themselves.

Perhaps they think the “different” people will eat enough junk, die off and leave the planet for themselves! That’s a bit harsh. But then again, so are many of the “critics” of nutrition.

It amused me to learn from the Tribune that some teachers working in the cafeterias on “lunch” duty now wear plastic gloves so they can help younger students handle their food – particularly when it comes to peeling fresh fruit and other items that aren’t in their regular menus at home.

BUT MY REAL point in bringing this up is to acknowledge how much of a struggle it will be to persuade certain individuals to behave in ways that are to their benefit – particularly if there are elements in their life that are in opposition.

COLEMAN: A premature crusade?

It actually reminds me of an old episode of that ‘80’s era sit-come “Diff’rent Strokes” – the one in which actor Gary Coleman’s “Arnold” character winds up provoking a change in the vending machines at his school.

Instead of serving sugary donuts and candy, they now will be refrigerated and will offer fresh fruit. The students’ reaction?

They pelted Arnold with trash! A childish reaction, to be sure. But to listen to the ideologues, we ought to give in to our child mode, rather than act like adults – who are supposed to be the ones who set the example for how our children are supposed to behave.

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Are rigidly-secure schools really safer?

It never fails to amaze me just what has become of our school facilities these days.

The layers of security that are in place to ensure that all movement in the building is monitored and that no one who doesn’t have to be there is in there for any longer than necessary creates such an oppressive atmosphere.

IT REALLY MAKES me thankful that I don’t have to go to school any longer (I’m coming up on 30 years since high school come May). Because I wonder how current students manage to cope with the nonsense.

Except that they’re all so young they don’t know anything different. They probably presume that this is the way things are supposed to be. It all makes me wonder what view of life we’re giving them!

Just this week (in my duties for one of the suburban daily newspapers) I had to visit a high school, where I managed to create a minor security scare.

For a school board session that was scheduled to have the doors open at 6 p.m., I arrived at 5:50 p.m. I asked one security officer exactly which building on the campus the session was being held in, and when I went there, I found one unlocked door (out of six).

SO I WENT in.

But it seems that another security guard (it was a private security firm hired by that high school district) wasn’t aware that the one door was unlocked.

So I wound up having to explain myself, and ultimately had to go back outside for a few minutes UNTIL the hour of 6 O’Clock (as they’d say in the Illinois Legislature) actually arrived according to that guard’s watch.

I have been in enough school buildings to know the “check-in” procedures – which usually involve letting the principal’s staff know you’re there. Although sometimes, schools want to make it a little tougher to conduct business with them on their grounds.

I KNOW THE two high schools I attended (I transferred when my family moved after my first year) have all these checkpoints for outside visitors. One literally has to keep following the path of security people in order to get to where one needs to go.

It’s almost enough to make me detest school buildings in a way that I never did when I was actually a student. Perhaps all this is meant to make me more thankful that portion of my life is complete.

Now I know some people are going to argue with me that all this is somehow essential – and perhaps should have been in place when I was a student some four decades ago – in order to ensure safety.

They’re going to cite the sporadic incidents where someone manages to get a weapon (or a few) into a school building and manages to inflict significant amounts of bodily harm.

ALTHOUGH THOSE INCIDENTS usually turn into events where flaws in other laws manage to come out into the open. Whether it is too-easy access to the firearms or too-loose monitoring of people with potential mental health problems, the idea of a school building as a fortress is usually a secondary (if not irrelevant) factor.

It would almost be like saying that the Chicago White Sox failed as an organization on the field because the quality of the pizza they serve at concessions stands is mediocre-to-lousy. True enough, but not the reason they played so badly the last month of the season.

Although having stated that, I must recall one moment from when I was in high school.

It was my final year and I was in the “newsroom” of the student newspaper along with other “staffers” when an adult male showed up, sat down at a desk and refused to say much of anything – except to tell us to mind our own business.

SOMEONE MANAGED TO call for security, and a guard did come to take him away – only for him to return shortly with a pass from the principal allowing him to be with us. The image I have of a guy with hair in a mullet and disco-like clothes – about six years after they were stylish – ought to be enough to give anybody the creeps.

It took about an hour for us to find out what he wanted – to place advertising in the paper for his “product,” a hollowed-out tube meant to look like a pen. The theory was that you could hide your “crib notes” in the tube while cheating on tests.

When we wouldn’t take his money (if I recall correctly, the ad would have cost about $10), he got huffy, but left without further incident.

An awkward moment, to be sure. But I’m really not sure that having all the modern-day checkpoints would have prevented it from happening, or made me any safer on a daily basis back then.

  -30-