Mike Klonsky describes the parallel paths of Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in their ambition to rid their states of public sector unions.
Rauner refuses to pass the state budget unless the Democratic legislature bows to his demands.
Klonsky remembers how former Governor Pat Quinn (D) folded when Stand for Children and DFER (Democrats for Education Reform) insisted on anti-union, anti-teacher legislation.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is planning to fire as many as 5,000 teachers, disrupting the lives of teachers and students.
Klonsky says that Rauner can lose if the Dems stand their ground. Will they?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here’s a great interview with Rauner — before running for governor — from three years back.
My hat’s off to CHICAGO TONIGHT’s moderator Carol Marin for provoking the riveting exchange in the transcript below. Finally, somebody from the media is doing their freakin’ job!
First, a little background:
Keep in mind that Chicago is a huge union town… from the private sector unions of pipe fitters and electricians to the public sector unions of police, nurses, firefighters, etc. … and that even non-union folks vigorously and overwhelmingly support unions and their members. Further keep in mind that Rauner’s a plutocrat who embraces an extreme right-wing ideology, and thus, hates all unions, and everyone of their members.
Of course, Rauner and his ilk (i.e. Scott Walker) wants them all crushed—public and private. Just like Walker, Rauner’s plan is to go after teachers first, then the rest of public and private union members after. To quote Walker, “You just divide and conquer.” See that quote from Walker here as he blabs this strategy to a female Wisconsin billionaire supporter:
Any-hoo, back to Rauner in 2012.
However, Rauner can’t dare SAY or ADMIT TO any of that, as he was planning his run for governor at the time, and he needs to hide his hatred of the working and middle classes, and thus, trick all these union worker voters, non-union union-supporters, and middle class voters into voting for him in two years.
In that context, Carol then asks if he feels the same antagonism towards ALL unions, and Rauner runs from the question.
What then ensues is truly a FROST-NIXON or 60 MINUTES-ish exchange that must be seen again and again. Unlike Rauner, Marin keeps her cool, them calmy but firmly refuses to let Rauner (her then-boss at the Sun-Times) get away:
http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2012/09/19/mayors-adviser-attacks-ctu
—————————————————————–
——————-
( approximately … 05:00 – 7:00 )
BRUCE RAUNER: (finishes an anti-teacher union diatribe) ” … and we’ve got to fight them hard.”
CAROL MARIN: “Is this your view on ALL unions, or JUST the teachers’ union?”
BRUCE RAUNER: (uncomfortable) “Tonight, this is focused about the schools, and making our schools the best in the nation.”
CAROL MARIN: “No, I understand ‘tonight’, but in general, IS that your view of unions?”
BRUCE RAUNER: (more uncomfortable) “That’s a different subject.”
CAROL MARIN: “It is, but it IS the question.”
BRUCE RAUNER: (slightly angry) “But it’s not the subject of tonight.”
CAROL MARIN: “It is, but the question is: globally, is this the problem of collective bargaining being a problem systemically in our society?”
(What follows is TOTAL DUCKING OF THE QUESTION… Rauner just regurgitates more anti-teacher talking points that he had memorized for the show, and that have no bearing on the question asked of him)
BRUCE RAUNER: “The teachers’ union is engaged in a conflict of interests… (then goes into a stock diatribe against teachers’ unions specifically, effectively ducking the global question about his opinions of unions in general… because he can’t share that and get elected governor)
CAROL MARIN: (gives up on RAUNER, then turns to JESSE SHARKEY): “Mr. Sharkey, your point of view on this I gather would be different.”
JESSE SHARKEY: “If I could, Mr. Rauner isn’t answering the question, because he’s ideologically committed to a right-wing program that basically sees unions as an impediment to, frankly, privatizing public schools. In New York, private equity fund managers like himself have been involved in a scheme where they buy up under-utilized or unused school buildings on the cheap, and then lease those schools back to charter schools for profit. And I understand that Mr. Rauner himself is trying to do the exactly the same kind of scheme in Chicago.
“The teachers’ union is one of the organizations is this city is advocating for public schools… (then goes into detail about how the charterization of Chicago schools has been a total failure) ”
——————————–
Marin then asks if the conflict between unions and corporate reformers like Rauner is “personal,” and Jesse gives a great comeback that I’m too busy to transcribe, but he goes into detail about how the highest-performing school districts have the strongest unions, and the strongest job protections… and on and on…
LikeLike
Here’s the infamous “divide and conquer” quote from Walker, that is reference above:
LikeLike
CONTINUED FROM ABOVE:
http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2012/09/19/mayors-adviser-attacks-ctu
Marin then asks if the conflict between unions and corporate reformers like is “personal,” and Jesse gives a great comeback that I’m too busy to transcribe, but he goes into detail about how the highest-performing school districts have the strongest unions, and the strongest job protections… and on and on…
Marin then poses a question to Rauner about how the “jury is in,” and all the studies show charters perform no better than public schools. (She could have added that, given charters ability to cherry pick and kick out kids, it’s not a level playing field, so they should be doing better… but oh well… ) Rauner denies this of course, then paints his wet dream of wiping out all public schools, and replacing the entire Chicago School District with groups of charter chains own by him and others of the 1%.
In response, Sharkey later says that he is horrified that billionaires like Rauner have usurped the people’s democratic control of schools, merely because they have a lot of money, and that no citizens or teachers have the personal acccess and influence that billionaires like Rauner have with Mayor Emanuel and other politicians.
Finally, Marin asks if the two sides have any “common ground”. Rauner says no, he has “no common ground” with teachers’ unions, or with Mr. Sharkey (or, he might add, with ALL unions and their members… SEE ABOVE for his ducking of that question).
However, he allows that he DOES have “common ground with the teachers” in Chicago’s teacher unions—you know, the very same ones—the vast majority—whom he constantly calls greedy, corrupt, incompetent union thugs, and on whom he has just declared “war.”
That’s probably not a good way to reach out to folks with whom you claim to have common ground.
Read the COMMENTS. They’re great, so I’ll finish with one:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“Sue • 3 years ago
“Just watching this guy (Rauner) is like being in the middle of some 1950’s sci-fi horror flick. The world is being taken over by peapod people or zombies or space aliens, and you keep waiting to wake up. You try repeating, ‘It’s only a movie, it’s only a movie,’ but then you discover that it’s for real. This is the guy who’s calling the shots for our schools, our teachers, and our children? Frightening.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Sue, little did you know that, in just two years, he’d be governor.
LikeLike
The attempts to drive a wedge between teachers on one side, and parents/students on the other is one of the linchpins of corporate reform. Arne Duncan’s “white suburban moms” quote was about getting parents to start blaming and hating both their kids’ teachers and their kids’ schools Arne was saying that parents simply think too much of the children academic progress, and are just too emotional to face facts that they’re kids suck academically, because their teachers/schools suck… and Common Core and testing will at last wake them up to this, and also that the solution is to wipe out traditional public schools, and replace them with privately run charter schools.
Another corporate reformer that engages in this is Governor Bruce Rauner of Illinois. I did a long post about a TV appearance he made, where he basically says parents are just too gullible and stupid, and too easily manipulated by their children’s teachers… and that’s why 75% of Chicago citizens over all, and an even higher percentage of parents with kids in public schools backed teachers in the 2012 teacher strike, and were opposed the corporate reform Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Here’s that post. It’s from an old 2012 interview back when Rauner was merely Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s “advisor” :
In the 2012 video below, a pre-governorship Rauner blathers about the “tragedy” in Chicago that “hundreds of thousands of students” have been having their “futures damaged” simply because they are not yet attending privatized, non-union charter schools, instead of those traditional public schools filled with corrupt incompetent union thug teachers.
CLASSIC, MUST-BE-SEEN VIDEO … trust me on this, folks. (long post, but you’ll enjoy it)
http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2012/09/19/mayors-adviser-attacks-ctu
It’s from an incendiary 2012 TV forum back when Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner was merely Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s “advisor”, (though back then he was hinting at his eventual run for governor in 2014).
He’s appearing with Chicago Teachers Union Vice-President Jesse Sharkey, pinch-hitting for CTU President Karen Lewis (perhaps Rauner didn’t want to share the same news desk with Karen… who knows?).
It’s from Chicago’s PBS affiliate’s show “CHICAGO TONIGHT,” moderated by Chicago TV news veteran Carol Marin, who was awesome. At the time, she was indirectly employed by Rauner at the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, where Marin also worked, and of which Rauner was part owner. Rauner did not happy getting grilled by one of his underlings like that.
http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2012/09/19/mayors-adviser-attacks-ctu
When asked why he thinks that 75% of Chicagoans supported CTU in the recent strike, Rauner basically implies the parents and general public are simply too stupid or at least too gullible, so they got taken in by union “misinformation”, and cannot realize how evil teachers’ unions are.
———————————
( 02:26 – 03:00 )
CAROL MARIN: “And yet, there were parents standing with teachers on the picket lines. What meaning do you take from that?”
BRUCE RAUNER: “That the union has been… uhh… aggressively marketing and running a huge PR campaign of misinformation. Many parents don’t really understand what’s going on inside their schools As long as their child feels safe, and their… their teacher is a pleasant person, they think things are all right. The tragedy… the tragedy is … uhh… hundreds of thousands of children in the Chicago Public Schools are receiving an inadequate education, and their futures are being damaged because of it.”
———————————-
Really, Bruce? “A tragedy” for “hundreds of thousands of children” who are having “their futures damaged”? Exaggerate much? And your claim that the parents are too gullible or too obtuse to see through, or resist manipulation at the hands of their kids’ teachers? You basically just called all those parents idiots.
Bruce, those parents are the folks who talk to their kids every ding-dong day about what’s going on in their kids’ schools… at the breakfast table… at the dinner table… in the car rides to and from school… or whenever. Those parents whose mental faculties you deride are the same folks who regularly meet with teachers in conferences, monitor their kids’ education. review their report cars, etc.. Some even volunteer as unpaid aides, or visit their schools in session, serve on and/or attend PTA meetings. These parents then talk among each other, share their opinion, compare notes on their kids’ teachers, administrators, etc…. and on and on…
Seriously, Bruce? You think that ALL those parents—hundreds of thousands of them–with all that information and first-hand experience and second-hand info from their kids and others, are just wrong, wrong, wrong… and that you and your corporate reform allies know better than them what’s good for their kids, that they need a right-wing consciousness raising so they can face the “tragedy” that their kids’ teachers are all scum, as are their schools?
Am I hearing your right?
Wow… is all I have to say to that one.
Jesse then lays him out:
( 03:05 – 03:42)
JESSE SHARKEY: “I’m both a public school parent—I have two students in the schools— and am a twelve year teacher, and was publicly elected democratically by the members our union. It’s ironic that someone who is a billionaire, whose interests in the schools aren’t based on his long-standing work in that school system—talking about how what’s ruining the schools—in contrast to the very people who work in those schools every day, who pour their heart and soul into the public education and their students every day. Frankly, if you want to know what’s wrong the public education system, it’s been a series of efforts with corporate or top-down reform that don’t take the opinions of the actual educators into account.”
————————————
I don’t have time to transcribe all this, but the moderator Carol Marin then accuses Rauner of constantly using extreme and “inflammatory rhetoric” against teachers and their unions. She reads back and quotes from some of his indescribably vicious prior statements that damn the vast majority of Chicago’s teachers with a broad brush.
Rauner awkwardly responds by saying “This is a war with huge stakes,” but clarifies that, in contrast to the quotes just heard from himself and from Sharkey, that Rauner is actually “an advocate and supporter of teachers… a huge advocate…” and cites his philanthropic donations to schools as proof.
Really? “An advocate and supporter… a huge advocate…”? In your “hundreds of thousands of students being damaged” quote a little earlier show itself, you just implicitly accused the overwhelming majority of teachers of being greedy, dishonest, and incompetent union thugs… and then, on top of that, you just declared “war” on all of them… but yet, you still maintain that you’re “a huge advocate” of teachers?
The mind boggles.
LikeLike
Pots and kettles at work in Illinois. From a different perspective: the democrats trying to make the governor now to their demands is a clearer picture. Under two democratic governors education has suffered more than before. Both blagojovich and Quinn have cut school spending in totally irresponsible ways – same way two democrat governors did in Iowa, btw. The current secretary of education, a democrat under a democrat mayor, killed the Chicago public schools, and the little bit of life left is now being crushed by a democrat mayor.
Those are the facts of the past twelve years, so let’s keep those in mind! It’s easy to blame the current governor, who would be extremely irresponsible to approve a budget with about 10% more outgoing than incoming money! That hole has only gotten deeper. Someone had to stop that silliness.
There will not be ANY money left for ANY kind of education if the democrat majority gets its way.
LikeLike
Are the citizens of Illinois willing to pay taxes at a rate adequate to fund education? Of course they are.
But Republican tax-cutting ideology does not allow us to frame the question clearly. So a Republican governor creates a crisis.
This happens in every red state. Rauner is just bringing the joy to Illinois.
LikeLike
Once again, the different (FACTUAL) perspective. Education in Illinois had the greatest losses in funding under the two previous governors – both of whom were Democrats.
Promises were made by both Quinn and Blagojevich that were never funded. Districts built new real estate, made major changes based on those promises – and ended up in the hole.
Teachers made wage demands – and because of the lack of funding for previously made expenses, there was no money in local budgets for increases.
So calling the current governor an enemy of education is ignoring the facts leading up t the current situation!
Under the two previous governors, Illinois has become the worst funded public pension plans in the country.
So blaming the current governor is again ignoring facts.
The legislators handed the governor a budget that was billions short in funding. Never a good idea, to build a budget that does not have the money to pay for everything you promise to do.
It’s easy for a one-party controlled legislation to blame the minority (Whichever way it goes – Republicans do the same thing). But when governors inherit messes, hat will never be easy.
LikeLike
IMHO, it was the threat of action by the deformers that lead Quinn to pick Vallas for the Lt. Governor position. He knew they would be a big factor if he opposed their agenda in any way, up to and including not joyfully embracing it and them. Choosing Vallas was a savvy though unpalatable move that turns out to have been a rear guard action which didn’t prevent defeat.
Madigan has been in power far too long. His significant political skill resulted in a situation where the machine he built around himself is too deeply entwined in the state to be removed all at once, though getting rid of both him and Ruiner only could work if the rest of the fools don’t blindly rush in to stake a claim to the empty turf. There are few if any scenarios coming out of these times that result in Illinois not being well and truly screwed.
Right mow, Madigan, his machine and the Democrats are the only things preventing Ruiner from gutting the state and sending it into the same tailspin that Snott Walker did for Wisconsin, and that’s a sorry state of affairs.
LikeLike
And just look where “presidential candidate” Walker ended up. Honestly, we all can get a smile out of that! (Ahem, Illinoisians are waiting for an impeachable moment. Sure it will come.)
&, while certainly not a fan of the many DINOs (Democrats in Name Only) we have in the ILL-Annoy legislature, the ones I know are NOT “caving” nor are they making “demands”
(the gov. is the one w/the demands–either they pass his “turnaround” {i.e.,union-busting} agenda–or no budget.) The playground bully (see also the beaming man w/the #@$*-eating grin holding the “dead fish” he has purchased to send to Rahm–picture both in the Chicago Sun-Times & the Chicago Tribune).
LikeLike
Their attempts to pass the buck to Springfield and find solidarity in asking someone else for funny assumes we agree Springfield is the problem and the solution.
Hard conclusion to reach when stealing your pension. Money is a routine withdrawal along with opening schools that drain budgets while closing those other schools you just said you couldnt afford.
They wanted a crisis, they are gonna let it hurt thousands of families. Let them own it and start changing their actions and priorities first – their back isn’t against a walk – kinda like a bankrupt homeowner not wanting to give up the jet ski. You need your teachers, you don’t need fancy stadiums or to give so much cash back to companies.
LikeLike
Education in the Midwest has become an absolute cesspool.
Walker, Pence/Daniels, Rauner, Emmanuel, Kasich, Snyder…what a malevolent crew of despots this bunch is…
Add into the mix, this dominionist Bevin, that Kentucky just voted in….JHC…
The sky really IS falling.
The oblivious a-holes who are electing these ALEC-owned marionettes haven’t a clue of the damage that they are inflicting upon everyone.
LikeLike