Quote:
Originally Posted by Rocket49
1) CPS needs to spend more money per student on the schools in Austin, Englewood, etc. than they spend per student on magnet schools or schools in wealthier neighborhoods. Many of the students in the poor neighborhoods need all the help they can get if they are to have a realistic chance of ending up as productive contributors to society. Give substantial bonuses so that the best and most experienced teachers will work in schools in the poor neighborhoods. Invest in quality after-school programs for the students.
2) Many of the families in those poor neighborhoods earn less than $20,000 per year. Which means they can afford about $500 per month for housing. Are there any decent apartments in the city you can rent for $500/month? I doubt it. These people need substantial subsidies in the forms of vouches or the like.
3) Until if/when crime is controlled in the worst neighborhoods, the city needs to shift even more cops to those neighborhoods.
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1. That would be great to give performance based pay to teachers, too bad that's the fundamental reason CTU went on strike a few years ago. They ended up partially conceding on pay, on school closings, on contributions to pensions and healthcare, but the one they could not and would not accept was performance based pay or accountability. As such all teaching positions in Chicago remain strictly seniority based where the biggest dinosaurs eat first.
2. I have whole buildings full of apartments like this. Anyone who tells you they don't exist is spouting bullshit. I bought eight buildings in Logan Square which were mostly 2 bedroom apartments that were averaging $600/mo. Of course I'm putting a stop to that because the only way you can rent out an apartment for that little over the long term is to do absolutely zero long term maintenance on the building, but these buildings exist in huge numbers in all areas of the city that are not south of Wilson and East of the Kennedy.
3. Crime will never be controlled until you eliminate concentrated poverty for a couple of generations and allow landlords to actually kick out deadbeat or criminal tenants. I've gotten to know multiple hardened criminals, drug dealers, gang kingpins, etc. because they were forced on me by our county's backwards eviction laws. When you are stuck with a gangbanger drug dealer for a year or more because the eviction process takes that long you actually often end up getting to know them quite well. I've seen how these people function and how they end up where they are. You can't just "get rid of the crime". I've become very good at getting these people to move without having to wait through the entire eviction process (it involves large sums of cash and a bit of cajoling, but they are all businessmen at the end of the day) and even when you achieve that, all you are doing is relocating the problem to another block. There is no "solving" it.
Have you ever rented a Uhaul truck and spent the day packing up a gangbanger and moving them to another neighborhood just to get them out of your hair? I have. Ever been shot at while collecting rent? I have. Ever had a boulder thrown through your car windshield (and every other car behind the building) by your tenant's rival gang? I have.
Quote:
Originally Posted by UPChicago
Trying to fix a symptom without diagnosing the disease is the problem.
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The disease is simple: concentrated poverty creates a poverty trap. Break up the concrentration and the trap will gradually disappate. Guess what is happening? The iceberg is crumbling and the previously massive concentrations of destitute poverty are mixing back in with other populations. Thats the only way this problem will every be solved, period. You could spend one hundred thousand dollars a student, but if they go home to a broken household with half their relatives in jail or felons and their Mom is a crackhead and their brothers are gang bangers, they are still going to end up in the same trap.