Chicago City Wire

Norwood Park Township Committeeperson Anthony Beckman thinks Gov. J.B. Pritzker acted like little more than a dictator by prematurely closing schools for the rest of the academic year.

“It’s not right that Gov. Pritzker is predicting what the state of Illinois is going to look like in one month from now, especially with the way things are going right now,” Beckman told Chicago City Wire.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued the executive order ending in-school instruction for the academic year on April 17. School systems, closed since March 13, had already been told to switch to remote learning after the initial closure order went into effect.

“I’ve said time and time again, our decisions are hard ones, but they follow the science — and the science says our students can’t go back to their normal routine,” Pritzker posted on his Facebook page.

Beckman, a candidate for the 10th District state senate seat, agreed it was necessary to close schools and nonessential businesses for a short time.

“But I believe this is not about the safety of adults or children anymore, but a political stunt by governors that want to act like dictators,” he said.

Beckman said Pritzker should have waited another month and opened schools on May 18, especially if few to no new cases of COVID-19 were reported. Beckman wanted to extend the school year by two more weeks to make up for a little bit of the lost educational days.

The governor made an even bigger mistake blanketing private schools in his closure order, he said.

“I have a child that goes to a private school, and the state of Illinois doesn’t give taxpayer funded money for my son’s education, I pay for his schooling with my hard-earned money,” Beckman said.

He said the Archdiocese of Chicago should have made that decision for Catholic schools—not Pritzker.

The country has gone through a lot with the coronavirus, affecting people physically, emotionally and financially, Beckman shared. Kids feel the effects in a serious way, too. They’ve been forced out of school, sporting events and extracurricular activities.

Beckman believes students who lagged behind this academic year needed the final quarter to help them advance to the next grade.

“These kids will most likely just be passed on to the next grade and fall behind going into the next fiscal school year. This will not only affect that specific student, but other students in the class and the teachers,” he said.

"President Trump and his COVID-19 task force said we’re past the peak of this virus," Beckman said. “And with the numbers we see, a lot of governors and mainstream media outlets made this seem worse than what it was for either political purposes or their own agenda."