Who is hurting the kids? Reverend Jesse Jackson knows.
A lot of pious preaching came from reformers who opposed the Chicago teachers’ strike. They said, “You are hurting the children by keeping them out of school.”
We never hear them say that the Mayor and the school board are hurting the children by denying them small classes, decent facilities, a good curriculum, social workers, the arts, and well-maintained facilities.
The money’s all gone, the reformers say, but there’s always enough to give subsidies to developers and big corporations. The only time the till is empty is when the topic is public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Exactly right, Diane. The money is “not gone.” Wall St. Banks and major corporations are right now sitting on $2TRILLION in cash which they refuse to spend on new hires, on raising wages, on expansion for new investment, on paying their fair share of taxes. Big cities like Chicago and NYC refuse to tax their billionaires and their real estate developers, providing them subsidies instead from tax levies, as did Mayor Bloomberg in financing the $1.8bil new Yankee Stadium. We are not broke, we are very wealth, the wealth is in the wrong hands, Chicago and every other city can afford to give all kids a high quality public education rich in history, arts, field trips, small classes, with nurses and psychologists and librarians in all schools–shame on all the politicians refusing to do so.