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CHICAGO KIDS SKIP SCHOOL TO PROTEST UNEQUAL FUNDING: Boycott to continue throughout the week.
*The Associated Press is reporting that more than 1,000 Chicago public school students skipped the first day of classes Tuesday to protest unequal education funding.
Organizers said the boycott would continue through the week with help from retired teachers who will turn office lobbies into impromptu classrooms.
The students took church buses 30 miles north to the wealthy suburb of Northfield, where they filled out applications to enroll in the better-funded New Trier district. The move was largely symbolic because students must pay tuition to attend a school outside their home district.
The turnout fell short of the thousands organizers expected, and was a tiny fraction of the more than 400,000 students who attend Chicago public schools, but protesters and their parents said they're willing to keep the boycott going as long as it takes to persuade state officials to give their district more money.
"It's on us kids," said 14-year-old Tracey Stansberry, a student at Corliss High School. "If we don't, we'll be on the bottom."
Today, boycott organizers will attempt to set up impromptu classrooms at Chicago City Hall and the state's James R. Thompson Center, as well as in the lobbies of more than a dozen Chicago corporations, including Boeing Co. and Aon Corp., that support Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
"If we say we're a world-class city, then we shouldn't be content with having second-class schools," said state Sen. James Meeks, who is leading the boycott of the district and is urging Gov. Rod Blagojevich and state lawmakers agreed to address school funding disparities.
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