Back to School season aka The Education Games!
To be clear -- it's not your momma's back to school (well, that being true were your momma of my age and were she thinking about returning back to school back in the day when I did -- in the eighties). Back then, we (me and your momma) would start to think about heading to Hills to get a new first day o' school outfit (suddenly, me or your momma is Irish?), and we'd be counting the days left until the week AFTER Labor Day when we'd return.
That's not how Chicago does it. Chicago does it with a parade (the annual Bud Billiken parade was yesterday), because it thinks it's citizens might have forgotten that they needed to return to school each fall. Chicago also does it with pink slips and school closures (there's a pretty big deficit with which the leaders are dealing). Finally, Chicago does it with safe passage plans, because gang warfare in the poor parts of town is such that little kiddies walking to school are acceptable collateral damage. Yep -- Chicago does all that in just TWO weeks!
Thoughts and prayers go out to all those city kids who have to navigate so many obstacles just to get an education -- and to those educators who have just as many obstacles to overcome whilst providing one.
Let the Education Games begin! (May be the odds be ever in your favor!)
JUST IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T HEARD OF THE BUD B PARADE:
http://www.budbillikenparade.co/History.html
ROUTES RELEASED JUST IN TIME FOR WEEKEND VIOLENCE:
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/2-Shot-1-Fatally-Along-CPS-Safe-Passage-Route-219169831.html
8.26.13 BEGINS THE EDUCATION GAMES/MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR:
http://www.cps.edu/pages/backtoschool.aspx
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