Chicago school boycott -- Who's against it?

One of the first articles carried on the new local Chicago Huffington site has schools CEO Arne Duncan opposing the student boycott on opening day.

I am very grateful for the attention [Meeks] has brought to this issue," Duncan said. "But I think we can fight this battle and win this battle without doing anything that puts students on a course of behavior that is self-destructive."

Did you get that? He's grateful to Meeks for calling attention to the issue, but he opposes what Meeks has done to call attention to the issue. Hmmm.

Duncan also never explains why students organizing to protest inequities in the system, is “self-destructive.”

School reformer says no to Meeks' boycott

PURE's Julie Woestehoff, has a letter in today's Trib. After reading it, I'm not clear why PURE is opposing the one-day boycott and protest. Julie points to PURE's long history of struggle against the funding inequities in the system, calls for "targeted" direct action, and says, "our sentiments are closely aligned with Rev. Meeks." But...

Finn attacks the boycott, Sharpton, and “noxious causes”

There's no confusion about where he stands. He's not "grateful" to Meeks. Nor are his "sentiments closely aligned" with Meeks. Rather, Fordham wing-nut Checker Finn is breathing fire. I haven’t seen him this angry since his pet Reading First project was unmasked for the swindle it was.

This time Finn is pissed that Chicago’s black community is finally doing something about the current funding crisis in inner-city schools. His target of course is Meeks and the 50 other black ministers who are leading a one-day boycott to dramatize the funding inequities—more specifically, the growing gap between city and wealthy white suburbs and schools. But interestingly, he saves his real venom for another black civil rights leader who sits 1,000 miles away—Rev. Al Sharpton:

The Reverend Meeks, a politician who leads a church on Chicago's South Side, has received support for his plan from the Reverend Al Sharpton, a wannabe politician who leads all sorts of noxious causes and whose association with this one makes laughable
his recent "commitment" to improve the academic achievement of minority and low-income pupils.

“Noxious causes?” Finn, of course is referring to the Civil Rights Movement--not to the Klein/Sharpton/McCain EEP coalition.