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I voted for Brandon Johnson [1]

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Date: 2023-04-05  

I just feel he'd put money first on the right side in this picture...

So one of the big issues in Chicago this election was crime, another was education. For me, being an educator, I feel there has to be some positive ratio for every dollar you put in education you get a certain amount that actually helps crime as well. Basically, if you give kids enough support and direction on how to take advantage of post-secondary (what educators call, stuff-after-High-School) opportunities like college, or trade schools, internships, apprenticeships etc. Give kids a decent chance to start earning a living wage in a career they want to partake in, you can eliminate a lot of the need for people to try to start committing crimes in the first place.

Illinois cost for imprisoning one inmate for one year: $38,268 Chicago Public Schools cost for educating one student one year $20,485 (instructional, and district operating costs).

That is just a very small part of costs to consider. Take in the fact that criminals crime as opposed to young educated people who are able to work, add to the economy, and PAY taxes. Criminals cause damage to a community, steal, drive up retail prices, threaten/cause violence, cause mental trauma, don’t pay taxes, require security/police to be hired, increase ER costs, and are statistically far more likely to commit more crimes in the following years. If education can just create one less criminal and one more working taxpaying citizen you get TONS, maybe even lifetimes, of bang for your buck there. Even fiscal conservatives should be able to figure this out.

Not to mention less actual crime. Schools are more than schools. Counselors, who get a bad rap as “too woke” are the most fiscally aware and helpful people in the school I know. I listen to our counselor talk to students about planning for applying to colleges kids can get into and afford, suggesting programs and ways to pay for things as if she were a financial advisor. All the scholarship information they have, job internships, job fairs, practice set-up for mock interviews, resume building etc. Who should get paid more someone PRO-ACTIVELY helping people find jobs and futures all day or a cop looking around to REACT to a crime after it is already committed. Mind you, you NEED both, but who’s job is more “valuable” in society as a whole?

Teachers should get some anti-crime credit IMO. If you can’t read, if you are so ignorant you don’t know the basics of math or history, or science… you are probably gonna crime. I mean, look at Trump.

Vallas was going to just get more cops and push more charter school type situations and close schools, whatever he ended up calling his policies. Conservatives have a beautiful strategy, wreck public schools, create more crime, complain about crime, wreck more schools, blame teacher unions, hire more cops, and give people money to put their kids in schools that conservatives can control, like religious schools paid for by vouchers that don’t allow unions.

By the way, I met Vallas when he was in charge of CPS during the late Mayor Daley’s Renaissance charter initiative. I wasn’t impressed. Seemed like an empty suit, parroting talking points and not really answering questions I and other teachers had with sincerity. So, I’m taking a chance on Johnson, and I’m hopeful we can do better as a city.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/story/2023/4/5/2162229/-I-voted-for-Brandon-Johnson

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