Mayor Daley backs school closings

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Half-empty schools are “unacceptable” because they don’t serve their students or the communities they’re supposed to anchor, Mayor Daley said today, setting the stage for the biggest wave of school closings in decades.

Records show that 147 of 417 neighborhood elementary schools are from half to more than two-thirds empty because enrollment has declined by 41,000 students over the last seven years.

Most of the underused schools are on the South and West Sides, and in lakefront neighborhoods that include Lincoln Park, Lake View, Uptown and North Center.

The financially strapped Chicago Public Schools could save more than $100 million a year by closing 10 to 15 schools.

That emotionally wrenching process is expected to begin at a Jan. 23 board meeting, when schools on the hit list are disclosed.

Today, Daley weighed in on the controversy for the first time — and left little doubt where he stands.

“You have to have a school that’s fully occupied. It can’t be 30, 40, 50 percent occupied. It’s unacceptable,” the mayor told a news conference at Jenner Academy of the Arts, 1119 N. Cleveland.

That is serious money.We are glad to see Mayor Daley admitting population decline.