DENVER (WBBM) -- We might know more later today whether there will or won’t be a boycott of the first couple of days of classes next week when the Chicago Public Schools are expected to begin their new school year.
The leader of the planned boycott Rev. and State Senator James Meeks says he came to Denver yesterday with the promise that he Governor Blagojevich and the leaders of the Illinois House and Senate would get together sometime today to bang out an agreement for more money for public schools.
"Hopefully with President Jones and Speaker Madigan in the room that’s the only way I will accept any kind of agreement is that the three sign on to an agreement and then fix a date that General Assembly will go to Springfield in September and vote on it," Meeks said.
Meeks is talking $120 million over three years, but there’s a question whether there’s enough money in the state budget.
When asked to give odds a planned boycott will be called off…..Rev. Meeks says….50-50.
Meeks said the governor has told him he may have a way to fund the three-year pilot program Meeks wants to create, at a cost of $40 million a year. But there was no word on what that funding looks like.
Blagojevich may have more to say on the matter after he speaks Wednesday morning to the state delegation.
President Obama in his weekly address, says a blueprint for changing achievement standards in the nation's public schools will be sent to Congress on Monday.
Oral arguments are set for Monday in a case dealing with the enforcement of a long-debated Illinois law requiring a teenage girl's parents be notified before she has an abortion.
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