This is copied from Norm Scott’s Ed Notes Online.
Norm writes:
Reports all day coming in from Substance on this open warfare by the ed deformer/neo-liberals on the community. You can follow events on the Substance web site.
Two years ago at our last meetings in Chicago we went to La Casita for a few hours to talk to people – George Schmidt gave us a tour. I will hunt down that video and post it tomorrow.
We are at war. It has been declared on us. We are in middle of a field without cover (of our union especially) and they are using every weapon they can throw at us and somehow the real reformers are still standing – and fighting back with pea shooters (and Ravitch) against drones, tanks, mortars, cluster bombs, etc.
Here are links to reports in reverse order.
THEY TORE IT DOWN BEFORE OUR EYES!’ CPS contractor begins to destroy La Casita despite library treasures and supposed ‘asbestos danger’
By Kati Gilson – August 17th, 2013 | 2 comments
LA CASITA IS NO MORE. By a little after ten o’clock in the morning, Board of Education contractors had leveled the library that had been created by the demands of a community that did not . . .
La Casita protests continue through the night of August 16 – August 17, 2013 after police arrest three people… Chicago Public Schools blocked trying to demolish iconic ‘La Casita’ community center
By Kati Gilson – August 17th, 2013 | 1 comment
It all started when a 6:45 dance class at La Casita was about to start. At 6:30, a community meeting was being held within the building called “La Casita,” the “Little House” adjacent to Whittier . . .
By John Kugler – August 17th, 2013 | 1 comment
In a brazen move reminiscent of the midnight destruction of Meigs Field by his predecessor, Richard M. Daley, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his handpicked schools “Chief Executive Officer” Barbara Byrd Bennett dispatched the Chicago . . .
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Posted By ed notes online to Ed Notes Online at 8/17/2013 03:58:00 PM
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Have a good day
Norm Scott
normsco@gmail.com
917-992-3734
On Twitter: @normscott1
Education Notes Online
ednotesonline.blogspot.com/
GEM, Grassroots Education Movement
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The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman – Now Online
Education Editor, The Wave
Norms’s Robotics blog
http://normsrobotics.blogspot.com/
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’ve rarely been so proud as I have been all day today as our brothers and sisters covered the destruction of La Casita by the Emanuel administration and as that destruction was being orchestrated exposed one lie after another. That building, as Norm Scott notes, housed a library for kids! That library was created from donations from around the USA and established by volunteer librarians and children after the first time we blocked the destruction of the “Little House” (La Casita) nearly three years ago, when Ron Huberman was “CEO” of CPS.
This time around, CPS orchestrated a military operation against La Casita, and the entire operation was complete — and the building a pile of rubble — between nine p.m. on August 16 and noon on August 17, 2013. Just about every lie that could be told was repeated in the process of this attack. Supposedly, as our reporters exposed, the building was “toxic” with asbestos. Supposedly, as our reporters exposed, the roof of the building was “unstable.” Blah. Blah. Blah.
As we all know here, when the corruption of power arrays against the poor and the facts, the facts often don’t matter. Thanks to John Kugler, Kati Gildon, Kristine Mayle, Adam Heenan, Alix Guevara and dozens of others, La Casita didn’t go down without one last fight.
But the people who have just destroyed 49 of the city’s real public schools weren’t going to allow one people’s library to remain, exposing the fact that while they prattle about “STEM” and “Wall to Wall IB” Chicago, the nation’s third largest school system, still in 2013 had more than 150 public schools without libraries for the children.
Sorry…
Make that now 151. La Casita has been destroyed.
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Devastating. Rahm-bo Emanuel is quite the posterboy for wrecking the communities of the poor and people of color. Is there some nice big development project looming on the horizon?
If there was asbestos and toxins, did they remediate first, or just blast the poisons into the air?
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No precautions were taken for asbestos. The dust was flying everywhere, parents, children, teachers, construction workers, everyone was exposed although they made a half hearted attempt to spray it with water to keep the dust down. They say it’s for playground improvements for the children but Cristel Del Rey, a private high school, really wants a soccer field. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
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OMG…Rahm is a true rat. Wonder who the people who are giving him money to do this and why? You know this is financially backed.
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Don’t insult rats.
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You wonder who gives Rahm his $? The same people who buy our elected officials. Recognize any Chicago billionaires involved in the following preschool public/private partnership?
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/08/07/37preschool_ep.h32.html?cmp=ENL-CM-MOSTPOP
“This fall, Goldman Sachs and the investor J.B. Pritzker will pay for the expansion of an early-childhood program in the 67,000-student Granite district through a social-impact bond, also known as a pay-for-success loan. Social-impact bonds are loans that seek to achieve a positive social outcome, and reduce future costs, by investing in prevention and intervention programs in the public sector.”
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His predecessor tore up Meigs Field in the middle of the night and half the city thought he was a hero for it. I’m sure the same spin will be put on this incident – in fact, it already has been – liar-in-chief Becky Carroll said it was necessary to tear down the building before school started because the building was structurally unsound and it just had to come down for the safety of the community. Notice that Rahm himself couldn’t issue such a statement because he was – purely coincidentally, I’m sure, out of town.
I’m just sick. He’s declared war on the city and half the city is cheering him on.
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BTW, this may be a dumb question, but were the books destroyed too? Or did someone manage to rescue them before demolition? Anyone know?
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They removed the books last night put in a storage container.
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Just like Occupy Wall Street. The police threw the OWS library of 5,000 catalogued books into a dumpster. They got wet and ruined. Fahrenheit 451 indeed.
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They, meaning the police (i.e., the books were destroyed)? Or they, meaning the Whittier parents and teachers?
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What is happening to the Chicago Public Schools is absolutely disgusting but this is not a new phenomena. This has been planned for many many years. During the seventies when I was a CPS special education teacher, this group of anti-public school supporters were implementing some actions that they slipped through with very little protesting occurring. I believe that the so called education reformers have awaken a sleeping giant that in time will defeat them.
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It was devastating to watch this morning’s events unfold. Children and parents were crying. The kids wanted to know why they took their library. Having been involved in the protests in the past I’ve gotten to know some of the folks quite well. It just cut a knife in my heart. Even more so when everyone formed a circle and prayed then vowed to continue the fight to make them replace what they had destroyed. I felt terrible taking some of the pictures but did so because history must not be brushed under the rug. I both look forward to and dread going through all the pictures.
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Yes, I agree with you. On 60 Minutes a while back, the brother of Rahm was interviewed. He said (in so many words) that Rahm always gets his way and so the opposition might as well give in. Well, I’m betting on the opposition. Just give it time.
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Unfortunately, NYC is next on the list. The officials there want to declare that librarians are optional and up to the principal’s discretion.
In place, they want to put “equivalent library services” which has been described by some as a non-cataloged classroom library – otherwise known as a pile of books in the corner.
We can’t give students adequate choices in reading material based on every teacher independently selecting a dozen books or 2 each year (and many of which will disappear) and by removing librarians, you remove people to teach children digital citizenship skills (usually in favor of computer databases that do) and you remove people who are the ones who help teachers design college level research projects and to scaffold the multitude of skills they need to get through a research project.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324769704579006604137520932.html
http://epochtim.es/jGGH
They want to declare that the problem of their repeated lack of compliance with state law, is to try to declare that the law is invalid and should be waived for them. Unfortunately, I’m afraid if it’s up to John King, he’ll give them whatever they want.
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For the past thirty years or more, school librarians in NYSE have been lobbying our government to mandate certified librarians at the elementary level. Middle (grades 7 and 8) and High School librarians are mandated, but not the lower grade levels. This is despite the fact that research indicates a strong library program with a certified librarian can be the single factor in improving reading scores in a school.
It doesn’t make sense to me why you would eliminate or reduce the school librarian to part time, especially in schools with low literacy rates. Yet that is what is happening across the state.
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I meant New York State, not NYSE.
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The destruction of La Casita seems metaphorical, and of a piece with Chicago’s two-fisted approach (close 54 public schools & clear the field for charter schools so we can make a few bucks; corollary: lay off scores of local teachers, bring in a couple hundred TFA outsiders). The method for dealing with difficulties seems clear: neighborhoods poverty-stricken, rundown, preyed on by gangs? We won’t help you fix them, been there done that & so finished with pouring good $ after bad. Destroy them. Neighborhoods are just places where the poor can join forces and demand rights. Make sure they get the message: demolish that symbolic library they built with their own hands in a moment of hope.
Chicago, never a place to instill hope in democracy, gives itself another black eye..
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Despite having military bases all over the globe, the US imperium is in rapid decline, largely as a result of its Overclass’ uncontrolled outsourcing, wealth extraction and looting of the nation’s economic patrimony.
Ecuador and Venezuala’s offer of asylum to Edward Snowden is symbolic of this process.
Fear not for the US Overclass, however. It is using its political brokers, formerly known as elected officials, combined with militarized law enforcement, to take over, control and loot the Commons and public sector of The Homeland. All of this is taking place under the guises of federal, state and local fiscal crises, education and entitlement reform.
Once ignored as necessary bitter medicine for profligate Third World countries, IMF-style Structural Adjustment Policies of deregulation and privatization are now being imposed at the point of a gun upon Americans, as we are seeing in Chicago at this very moment.
It’s as if Rahm-bo and his ilk have all read The Shock Doctrine, and are using it as a how-to manual, rather than as a tool of descriptive analysis.
Rejected and receding elsewhere, US imperialism comes home to roost.
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Aux barricades, mon vieux!
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Shock Doctrine, indeed. I am so sad, heartsick and confused. What are we doing to this country?
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