State Journal-Register: Expanding for Education (Beardstown)

[Tweed]

http://www.sj-r.com/Sections/News/Stories/44819.asp

BEARDSTOWN - A new $22 million middle and high school opened last week to students, some of whom were helping their teachers unpack.

Whitney Howell, 18, and classmates organized cupboards Friday in the new physics lab........."

later in the article:

"Beardstown voters approved their share of the cost with a referendum in 2000. The state paid 75 percent, the district's superintendent, Jim Lewis, said.

The growing enrollment in Beardstown schools reflects the growth of the city's population from immigrants seeking jobs at the Cargill Meat Solutions meatpacking plant. Many of the immigrants are of Mexican origin."

The state paid for 75 percent of the school? Is that high compared to new city high schools? Now granted, Beardstown is a smaller community with less of a tax base, but it just seems unfair to me that a school got that much money when the schools of Chicago are so poor off. I'm not sure what the numbers were for Walter Payton, but I doubt it was 75% of state funding.

Granted also that Beardstown is a small Illinois town that has seen a HUGE influx of Hispanic people in relation to its population size. These mainly Mexican immigrants are poor to being with and have tough factory jobs at the plant mentioned above. It's great that their getting a good school, but let's share the wealth.

Not that I want to see a ton of more Walter Payton like high schools. Yes, they keep middle class residents living in the city, but I think we need more funding on the south side for new schools. It's interesting how something in Beardstown can get such a high amount of funding, but Chicago would never get that IMO.