Rahm won’t close schools early — despite losing funding lawsuit

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Chicago Public Schools will not close three weeks early, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Friday, even though the nearly bankrupt school district lost its bid for a court order mandating a change in what it calls a discriminatory school funding formula.

“The kids of the city of Chicago will be in school until the end of the year because that’s where they belong,” Emanuel said at a late afternoon news conference.

The mayor did not outline how he plans to keep CPS in session — or what source he may have found for a “bridge loan” needed to keep the doors open past June 1.

“We will be here working to find the resources,” he said.

He said only that he will not tolerate a premature end to the vaunted longer school year that he was able to achieve only after enduring a teachers strike in 2012.

Hours earlier, the Chicago Board of Education was dealt a big blow in its bid to immediately win more money for the city’s public school system, with a Cook County judge rejecting its argument that the state maintains “two separate and demonstrably unequal systems” for funding public education.

The great moments of Blue America!