Rahm Offers Chicago Teachers a 7% Pay Cut

18 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

1. Jon Awbrey says:

   May 8, 2015 at 8:04 am

   Good Faith Is For Peons …

   LikeLike

   Reply
   • Michael Fiorillo says:

     May 8, 2015 at 9:21 am

     … and chumps, which is what the so-called reformers are convinced teachers, especially career teachers, are.

     LikeLike

     Reply
2. Chi-Town Res says:

   May 8, 2015 at 8:17 am

   I think Rahmbo is celebrating the fact that this is also Charter School Week. Any denigration of unionized teachers is a gift to privatizers / colonisers.

   LikeLike

   Reply
3. waltduro says:

   May 8, 2015 at 8:20 am

   Looks like Chicago Public School Teachers had no choice at all this past Mayoral Election – Obama’s BFF or Daley Machine Crony. Funny that the first time around, Leftists could barely contain themselves upon the election of Emanuel. Now, they mad because they been had. Chicago has Democrat Emanuel. Michigan has Republican Snyder. Perhaps, one of Diane’s readers can explain the critical difference between Snyder and Emanuel. Walter has yet to find one.

   LikeLike

   Reply
   • Chi-Town Res says:

     May 8, 2015 at 8:33 am

     There is very little difference, if any, which is why Rahm Emanuel is BFFs with Illinois’ billionaire GOP governor, Bruce Rauner.

     LikeLike

     Reply
     • Chiara says:

       May 8, 2015 at 9:01 am

       I think the good cop/bad cop thing they’re doing is laughable, and insulting to voters.

       Rauner leads with “bankruptcy!” and the Rahm follows with “I will rescue you from that draconian threat we just invented!”

       When negotiations start at “bankruptcy” everything Rahm does is a huge win compared to that. It’s incredibly manipulative and purely political. They set the bar for the mayor so incredibly low anyone could meet it. As long as the schools are OPEN he’s doing a great job.

       This is the stuff that makes people incredibly cynical and distrustful of politicians. Unfortunately they’ll probably respond by dropping out and not voting, which is maybe what these guys want anyway.

       LikeLike

   • Daniel Spaniel says:

     May 8, 2015 at 9:03 am

     Zero difference. A Chicago Democrat is a 1970s Republican. And I am not sure how many true leftists celebrated Emmanuel’s election the first time around.

     LikeLike

     Reply
   • Dienne says:

     May 8, 2015 at 10:05 am

     Which “leftists” were celebrating the election of Emanuel?

     LikeLike

     Reply
4. Jack says:

   May 8, 2015 at 9:16 am

   For the bigger picture on Rahm’s privatization mania, read this article by Rick Perlstein
   (there’s a nice pictograph illustrating the various areas of privatization with illustrations of “who loses” and “who profits”) :

   http://inthesetimes.com/article/17533/how_to_sell_off_a_city

   There’s so much here, but let’s just focus on Chicago Public Schools School Board Member Deborah H. Quazzo—the un-elected board member appointed by Rahm Emanuel. As usual, Rahm appointed her even though she had ZERO previous experience in education as a teacher, administrator, etc. Perhaps part of the reason for Rahm’s demand that teachers take a pay cut is because of the tens of millions of dollars that go to vendors controlled by Mrs. Quazzo and others… and from which she personally profits.

   ———————————————————————–
   RICK PERLSTEIN: (CAPS are mine, JACK)

   “In June of 2013, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel made a new appointment to the city’s seven-member school board to replace billionaire heiress Penny Pritzker, who’d decamped to run President Barack Obama’s Department of Commerce. The appointee, Deborah H. Quazzo, is a FOUNDER of an investment firm called ‘GSV Advisors,’ A BUSINESS WHOSE GOAL—her co-founder has been paraphrased by Reuters as saying—is to drum up venture capital for ‘AN EDUCATION REVOLUTION IN WHICH PUBLIC SCHOOLS OUTSOURCE TO PRIVATE VENDORS SUCH CRITICAL TASKS AS TEACHING MATH, EDUCATING DISABLED STUDENTS, EVEN WRITING REPORT CARDS.’

   “GSV Advisors has a sister firm, GSV Capital, that holds ownership stakes in education technology companies like ‘Knewton,’ which SELLS SOFTWARE THAT REPLACES THE FUNCTIONS OF FLESH-AND-BLOOD TEACHERS. the functions of flesh-and-blood teachers. Since joining the school board, QUAZZO HAS INVESTED HER OWN MONEY IN COMPANIES THAT SELL CURRICULAR MATERIALS TO PUBLIC SCHOOL IN 11 STATES ON A SUBSCRIPTION BASIS.

   “In other words, A KEY DECISION-MAKER FOR CHICAGO’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS MAKES MONEY WHEN SCHOOL BOARDS DECIDE TO SELL OFF THE FUNCTIONS OF SCHOOLS.

   “She’s not alone. For over a decade now, Chicago has been the epicenter of the fashionable trend of ‘privatization’—the transfer of the ownership or operation of resources that belong to all of us, like schools, roads and government services, to companies that use them to turn a profit….

   “…”

   “Propagandists vaunt privatization as a brave new world beyond the icky quid pro quos of old-school municipal politics. Tell that to Deborah Quazzo—who might just laugh all the way to the bank.

   “A year ago, when I first started researching this article, I sent Quazzo an email posing two simple questions:

   ” ‘Given the work her firm does in education, did she anticipate recusing herself from school board decisions that presented a conflict of interest?’

   ” ‘And did she anticipate putting investments in a blind trust during her tenure? I never heard back.’

   “Then, this past December, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that companies in which she invested have reaped $2.9 million in business from Chicago Public Schools—compared to only $930,000 in the three-and-a-half years prior to her appointment.

   “She told the paper she saw no conflict of interest:

   ” ‘It’s my belief that I need to invest in companies and philanthropic organizations who improve outcomes for children’—

   “—and that she wasn’t involved in the DEALS or aware THAT HER COMPANIES’ TAKE HAD TRIPLED SINCE SHE’D BEEN IN OFFICE. Which would make her either a pretty inattentive school board member or a pretty inattentive executive: Some of her companies that had pre-existing contracts with CPS cut their prices after Quazzo joined the school board so their bills would fall under the threshold that would require review by district bureaucrats. One of those bills came to precisely $24,999. The threshold for review? $25,000, naturally.

   “Privatization is building a new Chicago machine in many respects more offensive than the machine of old.”

   LikeLike

   Reply
5. Elizabeth Hanson says:

   May 8, 2015 at 9:39 am

   Rahm has a money machine behind him and won’t stop until every public school and union is destroyed. I have a website and book on ed-reform… here’s our article on billionaires buying elections in order to destroy education- http://weaponsofmassdeception.org/7-billionaire-controlled-corrupt-government/7-1-how-billionaires-buy-elections

   LikeLike

   Reply
   • Ellen Lubic says:

     May 9, 2015 at 10:56 pm

     Great link Elizabeth…thanks.

     LikeLike

     Reply
6. drext727 says:

   May 8, 2015 at 9:39 am

   Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.

   LikeLike

   Reply
7. Chiara says:

   May 8, 2015 at 9:41 am

   “The U.S. Department of Education doesn’t even bother to keep a public record of which charter schools get money from more than a half-dozen federal programs, said Lisa Graves, director of the Center for Media and Democracy. Her organization had to review thousands of pages of documents obtained through Freedom of Information Law requests before it could coming up with an initial tally of federal charter school spending.”

   Ugh, And the Obama Administration asked Congress to almost double the funding, and charter funding increases fly thru Congress, unlike anything benefiting public schools.

   http://linkis.com/twitthat.com/nBofg

   LikeLike

   Reply
   • Laura H. Chapman says:

     May 9, 2015 at 7:38 am

     Reminds me of sink holes in Florida and how the military spending is distributed
     It takes a lot of time and cash to follow the money.

     LikeLike

     Reply
8. drext727 says:

   May 8, 2015 at 9:55 am

   I feel the love….What a piece of work!!!

   LikeLike

   Reply
9. Gordon Wilder says:

   May 8, 2015 at 1:33 pm

   How VERY considerate of Rahm.

   LikeLike

   Reply
10. Steve Magruders says:

    May 9, 2015 at 2:39 pm

    The teachers’ union should counter-offer with a 7% increase and say that’s their bottom line.

    LikeLike

    Reply
11. Steve Magruder says:

    May 9, 2015 at 2:40 pm

    The teachers’ union should counter-offer with a 7% raise and say that’s the bottom line because the financial crisis is phony.

    LikeLike

    Reply