Tax the Rich or Burden Working Families? The Choice Is Clear.

I am a teacher on the West Side of Chicago. The Friday before Thanksgiving, my principal, myself, and a community partner at our school, BUILD inc, made sure that every student in our building went home with dinner.

Let me be clear: We sent hundreds of children home from school with a meal because if we didn’t, they may not have had anything to eat.

I teach at Nash Fine and Performing Arts Elementary in the Austin neighborhood, and I am a long-time educator in Chicago Public Schools. I have two grandchildren in CPS. I thought I had seen it all in my years, but as we sent our students home with meals that afternoon, I didn’t know whether to break down in tears or laugh at the absurdity of it all. 

In the city of Chicago, one of the world’s richest economies, teachers are the last line of defense against child hunger. 

Cities across America face a choice, and Chicago is no exception: Do we demand some of the richest people in our communities pay their fair share? Or do we force working families like the ones at my school to sacrifice even more than they already have?

Do we raise grocery bills, rent, and garbage fees on families who are already sending their children to school hungry?

There are children experiencing hunger at home every single night all across Austin, the West Side, and throughout our city. And we have elected officials in Chicago, the “Corporate Caucus” of the Chicago City Council, looking at all this and putting the burden on people who are working two or three jobs, choosing between rent and groceries, and sending their children to school hungry. 

My school will lose $660,000 if the people of Chicago don’t get a budget that asks those who can most afford it to pay their fair share. That’s nine jobs. Nine teachers and staff who feed and teach children. 

Nine schools on the West Side of Chicago, home to some of the poorest communities in our nation, would lose more than $12 million. That’s nearly 200 jobs and more than 6,000 students who would bear the consequences of aldermen protecting corporations instead of classrooms. Multiply what’s happening in this community across the city, and you see what some elected officials are actively choosing: sacrifice thousands of educators, tens of thousands of students, and entire communities rather than ask billionaires who won’t even notice the difference to contribute.

They are choosing to protect the people who need protection the least.

But we have a different choice. We have a budget proposal that asks the wealthiest among us to contribute and invest in working families. We have a Black Student Success Plan that makes sure our schools have what our communities need – not just what students and teachers need, but what the whole community needs. We have Sustainable Community Schools that can feed hungry children on Friday nights. We have a budget to protect people instead of profits.

When my principal and I sent nearly 300 children home with dinner, we made a choice. We chose to care for our community and say that in a city with a history of abandoning Black and brown communities, there are still people who will fight for a different vision. We chose love over abandonment.

My two grandsons attend Nash with me. Every day, I see the stakes of this budget fight in their faces and in the faces of their classmates. Nash is the only elementary fine and performing arts school on Chicago’s West Side. When budget cuts threaten to eliminate arts programs, physical education, and support staff, communities like ours lose more than positions on a spreadsheet. We lose the very things that make school a place where children want to be.

Over these past few months, Trump’s troops have terrorized our communities, and our students come to school with fears that no child should ever bear. We’ve embraced our immigrant students and their families into our school community because we understand that when one family is under threat, we all are. We’re not looking at Black and Brown. We’re looking at family.

Children need stability in their lives right now, and the mayor’s budget recognizes this reality. A billion dollars for our schools, parks, and libraries is unheard of. Without this budget, schools across Chicago lose staff and teachers. Summer jobs disappear. Programs that keep children safe and engaged vanish. 

All of the things that allow us to send students home with dinner on Friday nights, like people and resources, are at risk of going away.

Politicians need to make a choice. And we need to remember what they chose.

If they choose to protect billionaires instead of our children, we need to remember that when it’s time to vote. My students and my grandsons deserve better than anyone who asks working families to sacrifice everything while asking the wealthiest to sacrifice nothing.

The choice is that simple. And the consequences should be too.