Vol. 72/No. 37      September 22, 2008

A day earlier more than 1,000 Chicago public school students boycotted the first day of school and traveled to New Trier Township High School in Northfield, a North Shore suburb, to register for school there (see article above).

Chicago public schools, with a student population close to 47 percent African American and 40 percent Latino, have a graduation rate of about 70 percent, compared to 99 percent in North Shore schools. At New Trier High $17,000 is spent per student compared with $10,000 per student in Chicago.

One woman, who brought her two grandchildren to take part in the protest, asked Calero to give her a copy of the SWP campaign brochure. “I saw her copy,” she said, pointing to her friend. “In the speeches at the Democratic convention it was as if working people don’t exist. This is different.”

Later that day Calero spoke to a class on “American Government” and another on “Black Politics” at Chicago State University, a majority Black college also on Chicago’s South Side.

A lively discussion broke out in the Black Politics class when one student said she disagreed with students missing school September 2. Another student said not only had she supported the protest but she had also participated along with her three children. “Just seeing the difference in the facilities at New Trier was an education that day,” she said, adding she was proud to join her kids in protesting the unequal education Black students in Chicago receive.

Calero responded that the resegregation of schools is taking place not only in Chicago, but across the country. “Major battles were fought by Black workers and youth in the 1960s and 1970s to desegregate the schools, but since then the rulers’ assault on workers has deepened the class divisions, and workers who are Black bear the brunt of this offensive,” he said. “The fight for equal education and against discrimination is a central question facing the working class and our unions.”

Another student asked what the socialist candidate would do about the rising cost of health care and insurance. Calero explained that both John McCain and Barack Obama want to shift the responsibility for health care more onto the individual, McCain through his proposal for a tax credit of $5,000 per family to buy health insurance and Obama through his proposed legislation making it mandatory for parents to buy health insurance for their children.

“We say workers should fight for a federal government guarantee of lifetime medical care and retirement pensions for all. Health care should be a right—part of Social Security from cradle to grave,” he continued.

Calero also spent a day at Benito Juarez High School in the predominantly Mexican Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, where he spoke to nearly 125 students.

He was asked how he came to the United States from Nicaragua, and why he is running for U.S. president since he isn’t U.S.-born. He responded that one of the first things he and his running mate Alyson Kennedy will do when elected is to change that, along with the laws that prevent immigrants and former prisoners from voting. “Laws can be changed,” he explained. “Jim Crow segregation used to be the law of the land. But that was changed through struggle.”

Betsy Farley and Ilona Gersh contributed to this article.
 
 
Related articles:
Chicago students protest unequal school funding
With Vermont, SWP ticket is on the ballot in 10 states
SWP presidential campaign tour schedule
Ballot status chart  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home