Who's Bankrolling This?

This doesn't sound like a neighborhood group:

• Unrolling a 10-foot-long petition with more than 1,300 signatures, parents Wednesday demanded that a neighborhood high school be placed inside half-empty Carver Military Academy.

  Activists from the Altgeld Gardens public-housing development went to the Chicago School Board's monthly meeting with a name for the proposed school -- the Hazel Johnson School for Environmental Justice -- and a flashy 38-page color brochure outlining its goals.

A 38-page color brochure? Hmmm:

• Activists demanded the board hold an "emergency meeting" so the proposed school could open before the start of the second semester.

  "Will you schedule an emergency meeting in Altgeld, or do you want the blood of another child on your hands?" asked University of Illinois at Chicago Professor Rico Gutstein.

Aha, it suddenly becomes a bit clearer.

Here's a hint - maybe it isn't the schools, the police and the teachers that are the sticky wicket here. Maybe it's what is being sent to the schools that is the problem? And those who exploit the situation for their own ends.