Good idea. There is almost no chance of corruption.

The child of that alderman/representative/senators was awarded a scholarship after a fair and unbiased review of his situation.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

In addition to the obvious issues (church/state separation, draining money from public schools, etc), in the long run this will not help families because private schools will raise tuition in response to the additional money available. Same thing happened to college tuitions with government-subsidized loans. It was ultimately a windfall for colleges, and didn't help students.

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Sometimes people in a rush to do good cannot foresee the real outcomes. Good intentions notwithstanding.

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Elections have consequences.

This sounds like a really dumb idea. Put any money in public schools.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

You wanna take some shots at Chance the Rapper and his donations?

This is actually the best thing to happen for low income families in the State of IL in a long time. One of the main ways to get out of poverty is through education, and so far the public schools have not done a very good job at this. You always here the argument that we need more money for the schools, but the state and more so the City of Chicago spends more on its students than most other states. These Scholarships are based on poverty level. A family of 4 cannot make more than around $80,000 to qualify. This rules out the highly connected people that have been mentioned. Doing the same thing year after year is not gonna lead to better results just the same bad ones.

This is Illinois. Zero chance this doesn't benefit the connected. They will find a way around it.

My guess is most of the money at high school level goes to athletes.

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...and a further decline in public schools. The state should not be encouraging private school for anyone. All it does it help facilitate further decline for the unlucky who don't get "saved".

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

If he thinks handing money over to CPS will make a difference, then he should have done this in a different way. If that's a shot, oh well.

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My understanding is that the $ is earmarked for specific programs and that he made his ability to review the $$ a key factor in his donation.

As for this new "scholarship" fund, count me in on both the skeptical camp and the group with philosophical problems with state funding of private schools.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

The Schools are not losing any money. They get funds based off of the kids in the school. The amount of the scholarship will be based off of the average spent per student in the state. So if you have less students you do not need as much money in your budget. It will help out minority students more than anything, and I don't blame people for being pessimistic about it. This is a state run by some of the most evil people in politics. One other thing if Karen Lewis is against the program that means it is good for the students.

The state is not funding the program. All the money is from donations. You get a tax credit of 75% per dollar donated.

It's not about losing or gaining money. It's about the importance of the public school in the area. Every student that goes to a private school makes it less likely that people care if they are failing. The state should not be encouraging it.

It can be good for certain individuals but it is bad for the population as a whole.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Just kicking Rick while he's down. Im skeptical about the money too.

The donations result in less tax revenue for the state, some of which goes to the schools. It's not a voucher program, but it's close.

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I am kind of surprised some of you have so much faith int he people that run the government and the public schools. They have done such a wonderful job so far.

Yup. People love government. They can't imagine life with less of it.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

things are working so well as is, not sure why they have to go and make changes.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

It has nothing to do with that. It's that the government has a responsibility to all students who want to attend public school to do what is best for them and this program is not good for them. They should want as many people as possible in public school. Shifting any government funds to private schools hurts public schools and this does it indirectly. Let the private schools find their own ways to attract students. Don't help them undercut the responsibility of government.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

If they only had more money, things would be better. We need higher property taxes because we still lag NJ in being the highest property tax state. We also need more sales tax revenue because the 12% I paid for lunch in the Mecca today is not enough. And thank goodness we have a flat tax in this state so everyone can experience the fun thing that is remitting a large portion of your income to the well oiled government machine.

No changes needed but more money.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Yeah, and this program further undercuts the importance of public school and the funding of the state.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Please explain how the public schools will get better? Have any great ideas? The private schools are only taking money that go with the students. This allows the individual to decide how they want to spend the money allocated for their child. I do understand that some people believe in the state more than the person. I also understand that historically that does not work in the long run. Once again it comes down to give the poor a chance.

It's hard to tell how much of this article is tongue-in-cheek, but it raises some interesting thoughts.

Maybe the answer is abolishing private schools;
Or prohibiting parents from reading to their kids;
Or doing away with families altogether!

http://www.inquisitr.com/3136835/parent ... dam-swift/

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I haven't weighed in on the program. I don't really care about it one way or another (pebble in the ocean). Your answer is to put more resources into a failed system. What is CPS graduating these days, 60% of its students? Oh snap, it's 54%. They just need more money!!!

http://www.cps.edu/Performance/Documents/DataFiles/FiveYearGraduationFactSheet.pdf

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Hawaii (fuck) You

How it gets better doesn't matter. As long as the concept of public school exists then the government should be doing what it can to make public school as good as possible. This actively harms public schools in terms of student counts and funding through indirect tax breaks.

One of the major reasons that CPS is failing is because a lot of students go to private school instead and therefore many don't care what happens to them because it doesn't effect them or their family members or their neighbors. Now, the concept of private school should be allowed and I'm not blaming the parents who make that decision but it also shouldn't be made easier by the government when they are in charge of operating the schools.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

If you don't care about this program then what are you doing in this thread?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I work in Catholic schools. We had a kid years back from a rich family who would have required a one on one aide due to his propensity for outburst. They were even willing to pay for the aide out of pocket. All three private schools in our area told the parents no thanks. If we were a public school we would have been forced to accept him and pay for an aide.

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You don't have to worry about Rick. He doesn't live here. I don't even think he has school aged children. He knows all about stuff that doesn't really impact him because he knows people in Chicago (Illini fans to boot) and knows schools (he went to them).

It's easy to sit back on his perch and be such a skeptic. Folks that are paying Illinois taxes and trying to do what's best for their children have to worry about these things. He'll tell you how dumb you are to drive to avoid County County soda taxes. He has that luxury. The Colonel Jesup and us, do not. Well maybe Jesup has the luxury in this instance.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Responding to things I do care about like the size and effectiveness of government. And to counter your ongoing BS.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Giving money to private schools increases the size of government.

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