Jersey Jazzman points out in an illuminating post that Jonah Edelman was hired by the plutocrats to make sure teachers would never be able to strike again.
So Jonah Edelman and his deceptively-named group Stand for Children drafted legislation, bought up most of the high-priced lobbyists, and pushed through a bill to make the hedge fund managers happy. Now, said Jonah, the teachers will never be able to get enough member votes to strike again. This is what it means today to bear the mantle of “civil rights leader.” A civil rights leader in these days wants to crush unions and promote privatization.
But it didn’t work! Only months after the passage of Edelman’s historic anti-union legislation, the Chicago Teachers Union authorized a strike. Jonah had predicted it would never get the support of 75% of its members. It got the support of 90% (and 98% of all who cast a ballot).
And now strikes have broken out in other districts in Illinois. Some may have been inspired by the CTU strike.
Those Chicago equity investors picked a losing cause. They seem to have energized the teachers unions.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here is the very lame Edelman apology on the Klonsky blog. Great comments…a must read during Hurricane Sandy:
Fred Klonsky blog readers:
After watching the fourteen minute excerpt and then viewing the whole video of the hour-long session, I want to very sincerely apologize.
My shorthand explanation in the excerpt of what brought about the passage of Senate Bill 7 had a slant and tone that doesn’t reflect the more complex and reality of what went into this legislation, nor does it reflect my heart and point of view in several ways:
–It left children mostly out of the equation when helping children succeed is my mission in life, as I know it is yours,
–It was very unfair to colleagues leading Illinois teachers’ unions, and,
–It could cause viewers to wrongly conclude that I’m against unions (Note: I said later in the session – not in the “juicy part” — that I do not view teachers’ unions as the problem. If that were true, I said, schools in states whose unions are less powerful would be among the nation’s best rather than some of the nation’s lowest performing.)
Stand for Children and I share a common commitment with teachers and teachers’ union leaders to ensuring the most qualified individuals choose the teaching profession, that teachers have the preparation, tools, support, and school climate they need to do their best work, that teachers should be compensated at a level that reflects the high skill and intense effort required by the teaching profession, and that evaluations of teachers need to become more meaningful and useful. We share a common commitment to ensuring adequate resources for schools and early childhood education. And we share a common commitment to ensure school districts and schools have effective administrators that create healthy work cultures within which teachers are respected and can be creative and innovative.
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Fred Klonsky wrote about Edelman more than 15 months ago.
Here’s a link to Edelman’s video: http://www.aspenideas.org/session/if-it-can-happen-there-it-can-happen-anywhere-transformational-education-legislation
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For me the biggest mystery is how the Speaker of the Illinois House, Michael Madigan, avoided indictment for what is patently pay-to-play legislation. The FBI would have had to conduct an Abscam-style sting operation to get the confession that Jonah Edelman committed to video at Aspen. Video that was later removed, by the way— calling into question the entire ethical commitment of the AIF management, if you ask me.
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I could see that coming. But it only works if the district is so big that they cannot replace all the teachers. The fat lady has not sung yet. Remember, Chicago had a signed contract and the raise was refused. We shall see.
Clearly government has reversed it’s position of hiring the best and now will take warm bodies for the classroom.
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In California, former Senator Gloria Romero, who carried the flawed and cynical parent trigger bill is now stumping for the anti-union Prop 32 which would end paycheck deductions. As director of DFER California, she has put Democrats for Education Reform in a tough place. Why? The funders of the Yes on 32 campaign have also pumped millions into defeating Governor Brown’s Prop 30 school funding bill. If Prop 30 fails, Romero’s backers will succeed in devastating damage to public education, K-16, in California.
If DFER want to preserve a morsel of public education credibility,they need to distance themselves from Romero quickly and thoroughly. Or carry on showing their true colors.
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DFER represents Wall Street hedge fund managers. They picked Romero to have a local face on their campaign to replace public education with charters. Why would they distance themselves from her? She is doing their bidding.
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The only thing I would add to the post is to name names. Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin and his wife of the Citadel fund in Chicago are big patrons. They already have Rahm Emmanuel in their pocket and they are courting politicians in Springfield and Washington. Ken Griffin told the Chicago Tribune last spring that the “ultrawealthy” have an “insufficient influence” in the political process.
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