Republican leaders are exploring a plan for a state takeover of Chicago public schools that would cancel the union contracts. This article in Crain’s Chicago Business Report has greater detail than previous linked headline.
“The Republican leaders of the Illinois House and Senate are stepping into the financial crisis at Chicago Public Schools, and it sounds like they’re proposing a solution that City Hall will not like.
“In a press conference scheduled for Wednesday morning, Senate GOP Leader Christine Radogno and her House counterpart, Jim Durkin, will propose legislation that would allow the state to take control CPS and potentially push it into bankruptcy, according to knowledgeable sources.
“The latter move — forcing the school system to reorganize, and in the process dumping its union contracts — has been strongly pushed by Gov. Bruce Rauner, but resisted by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. But the Radogno-Durkin proposal comes at a very sensitive time for Emanuel. CPS has been pleading for state help to fill a $480-million budget hole even as Emanuel’s own power has been restricted by fallout from the Laquan McDonald police shooting.
“I’ve also confirmed that the bankruptcy clause would apply to the city itself, which has its own financial problems, and result in electing members of the Board of Education, who now are selected by the mayor. That measure could appeal to some, even some Springfield Democrats, who have grown disaffected with Emanuel’s leadership and handling of the school board.
“Specifically, I’m told, the package offered by the two top Republicans would extend to Chicago a measure authored by Sen. Heather Steans that allows the state to intervene in and effectively run troubled downstate and suburban districts. Such a move would be initiated by an independent review panel appointed by the State Board of Education.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
BREAKING: National Book Award winner and MacArthur grant recipient Ta-Nehisi Coates delivers blistering critique of Bernie Sanders’s platform for race relations and improving prospects for people of color: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/bernie-sanders-reparations/424602/
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Good, he can vote for the woman whose husband brought the black community three strikes laws and welfare “reform”. That’ll teach Bernie.
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Oh, and I’m sure that Hillary is working on her reparations plan as we speak. I’m sure she’ll be announcing it any minute now. 40 acres and a mule plus interest, I believe. I’m holding my breath.
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By the way most former slaves even got cheated out of 40 acres and a mule. Dienne, I totally agree with you. If he thinks Hillary will provide reparations, good luck with that. I would be happy if the DOJ would do its job to prosecute cases of obvious inequity. Certainly the disenfranchisement of so many incarcerated black men would be high on my list. How about the charter movement, “the big bogus civil rights issue?” Why is it that mostly minority communities are being usurped by corporate education, and the community has no say in the process while the advocates of “choice” are giving black communities no options other than the corporate one?
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Yes, it must be quite a pleasure to attack Sanders (but not Clinton?) over reparations, while living in Paris and enjoying your MacArthur grant, given for so reliably focusing on race, and ignoring class issues.
And also to be expected that Tim, like his charter school compatriots (if not employers), use race to divide and pursue a revanchist agenda.
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Hillary’s plan is “40 acres and a Bill” which solves two problems (keeping Bill busy and out of her hair)
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“Bankruptcy in Chicago”
Some bankrupt plans
Are all we see
To cover Rahm’s
Indecency
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This could be a pro and a con. Taking the city and school district out of Rahm’s hands is a big pro. Reorganizing so that CPS has an elected school board is good. Equalization of funding ang districts could happen. Dissolving all union contracts does not have to happen but some negotiation could take place. The con, traditionally, as with charter schools, the state does no better and in many cases worst than the local management. If the state did take over, it should be for a finite time and then local control reinstated. That’s if this ever happens. Who knows.
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If you think Rauner would not pursue union busting, I have a bridge in Death Valley to sell you. Rauner is so anti-union he reeks.
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An entire school district going bankrupt —
in this case, the 3rd largest district in the
country — is a school privatizer’s wet dream.
Remember that corporate reform panel where Andy
Smarick and the rest were yukking it up with glee
at the prospect of “blowing up” school districts
with bankruptcy? One of them Rebecca Sibilia
even argued that an entire school district
going bankrupt is “not a problem for children
it’s only a problem for adults” —-
i.e. tens of thousands of unionized teachers
losing their pension that they contributed to in
an Enron-style apocalypse & and other
horros —
Here’s coverage of that HERE:
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The “Bougie” Sensibility of Ta Nehesi Coates: Race Without Class
Paul Street
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/20/race-without-class-the-bougie-sensibility-of-ta-nehesi-coates/
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Got that, everyone? Since Ta-Nehisi Coates is wealthy and since there are poor hopeless whites in southern rural Illinois and eastern Tennessee (which are all-white because blacks were lynched and otherwise intimidated into leaving), you should toss aside the documented history of institutionalized racism and ignore the inarguable statistical disparities between outcomes for blacks and whites–poverty, educational attainment, net worth, incarceration rates, etc.
Hell, blacks even have it better than whites these days, thanks to all the blacks who have gotten poor rural whites hooked on heroin.
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Tim, I am having trouble following your logic.
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Thanks for this. I’ll bust this out the next time I need to argue that reparations for slavery is unfair because it ignores that the “white working class majority” has already paid for racism and has been short-changed on the wages of their whiteness.
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That’s what you got out of that article, Tim? I mean, I know complexity and nuance aren’t things that rephormer-types are fond of, but, sheesh. Try a close reading. And then try a close reading of Du Bois, Baldwin and a few others, and then throw out close reading and put it all together.
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Your straw man falls apart in the slightest breeze, Tim, and your non sequiturs lead to a dead end, as usual.
Leave it to the so-called reformers to use the language of civil rights and social justice to market policies that further embed racial and class oppression.
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Yes, that’s all I got out of it. Anyone who is still peddling the “it’s class, not race” message has failed to take even a cursory glance at the history of post-1964 America and its current socioeconomic state (or perhaps they have a good reason to ignore these things).
Telling people of color why they are wrong to send their kids to charters and wrong to have no trust in Bernie Sanders whatsoever–that is some seriously heavy lifting. Good luck to you!
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You know, Michael, maybe if your comrades in the various unions gave blacks a better shake today and in the second half of the 20th century, they would be a lot more receptive to the “class warfare” message and to Bernie Sanders. Alas.
Still waiting for that meaningful, actionable plan to de-segregate zoned schools. Maybe that should be the point of the very next internet comment that you direct to me rather than this other stuff.
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“Still waiting for that meaningful, actionable plan to de-segregate zoned schools.”
Hillary’s working on that too. Right after she’s finished with her reparations plan.
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The only thing Hillary is interested in repairing is her reputation.
“Hillareparations”
Reparations
In reputations:
Hillarylations
In Libyanations
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“but resisted by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.”
I flat-out don’t believe that. I would need to some proof that Rahm Emanuel actually opposes this. A private correspondence, something. Not his public statements- I know what he’ll say.
It feels fake to me- like Rauner is the designated bad guy and Emanuel will lodge ineffective, weak “opposition” for political cover. Those two are as thick as thieves- I bet they agree on 99% of policy.
Emanuel never had any intention of “improving” those public schools. He can’t get rid of them (and the union) fast enough.
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Fred Klonsky’s take: https://preaprez.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/rahms-100-against-a-state-takeover-thats-spells-trouble/
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He definitely does not want the state taking over Chicago. Having the Republican governor take over what has been a Democratic stronghold forever will not give Rahm any political cover. Beyond Rahm, how we are supposed to believe that a hedgefund manager will save the city is laughable. He is all for how to create private wealth. Somehow there never seems to be a clear plan of how that is going to translate into a public good.
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“Specifically, I’m told, the package offered by the two top Republicans would extend to Chicago a measure authored by Sen. Heather Steans that allows the state to intervene in and effectively run troubled downstate and suburban districts. Such a move would be initiated by an independent review panel appointed by the State Board of Education.”
So a recovery school district plan?
I’d love to know who actually authored this “recovery school district” plan they plunk down in every state. What is the genesis of it? Which national lobbyist or expert invented it?
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“Mayor Rahm says he is “100% against it.”
That could very well mean he has already agreed to it in a private meeting with Rauner over a couple of glasses of expensive wine.”
I would literally bet 50 dollars on that. File the FOIA request for correspondence now, to save time.
I hope they hold those fake “public input sessions”, like they did with the massive school closure. Those are always good to keep any opposition tamped down.
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As British journalist Claude Cockburn said many years ago, “Don’t believe anything until you hear the official denial.”
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Methinks Rahm dost protest too much!
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I grew up in Chicago. Attended public schools. Then Evanston Township High School. I cannot believe how low the State of Illinois has fallen and Chicago’s fate now. Discouraging. Actually disgusting.
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Has Rahm Emanuel actually IMPROVED a single Chicago public school?
Shouldn’t that be a requirement before continuing to follow his vision?
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I am not from Chicago, but this news sickens me. If a great city like Chicago can fall into bankruptcy, we are all in trouble. We have been in a positive economic climate for the last several years. The economic crisis is not the result of Chicago’s “hard times.” it is the result of collusion of the mayor and governor manipulating the flow of tax dollars to make the city fail. Then, they can work to unload some of their pension liabilities and renegotiate deals with weakened unions. These are hedge fund tactics, and we have seen this before. Only this time, they are using it against a city that really should not be under crushing debt. How they can get away with it is beyond me?
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Chicago didn’t fall. It was pushed.
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Like many others this is a “strategic bankruptcy,” intended to pursue long-term goals – union busting and privatization – and has little to do with actual state income and budgets.
Money can always be coughed up for “economic development” (aka corporate welfare), charter schools, prisons, militarization of the police, presidential library boondoggles that devour public parks, etc. Contractually required pension contributions and adequately-funded public schools, however, are discretionary.
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Get rid of Rahm he is the culprit here and he devised this Chicago bankruptcy bull shit. How sad that our country has come to this whereby stupid politicians such as Rahm have the ability to destroy the lives of so many hard working Americans. We now have officially become a third world country with people like Rahm controlling cities, barack obama and lets let the entire world come into our house and take over, mikey bloomberg spending millions of dollars in super pacs trying to put his preferred politicians in place…..bill gates telling us all how to run our schools – (meanwhile microsoft piece of shit software)..all this at the expense of hard working people. Sad sad sad that a great city like the windy city is at the middle of this hypocrisy but it is no surprise here. MIchelle Obama and pres obama are from the south side of chicago right? Need I say anything more?
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Why the heck not, it worked out so well for Detroit…didn’t it?
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Considering the success of State intervention in Flint, MI. IL republicans beware!
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Before Rahm and Rauner privatize hundreds of schools, they might want to a take a field trip to Tennessee:
“A pair of state lawmakers — a Memphis Democrat and a Knoxville area Republican — filed a bill Tuesday to abolish the state’s Achievement School District at the end of the current school year.
The ASD was created by the legislature in 2010 as an arm of the state Department of Education to take over schools whose students rank in the lowest 5 percent statewide in terms of academic achievement and ultimately to move them into the top 25 percent. The ASD currently runs 29 schools — 27 of which are in Shelby County — through charter school management companies under contract with the ASD.”
They could go together!
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/government/state/bill-filed-to-abolish-states-achievement-school-district-29b9fefa-28de-436d-e053-0100007f8534-365847821.html
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There is one basic item that many have forgotten. Rauner has been in office for 1 year and he has yet to pass a budget for Illinois.
Yeah – Illinois does not have a budget since July 1, 2015, has not paid its bills, state universities will close soon because of no state money. Heck, lotto winners had to sue to get their winnings.
So the guy who does not have a working budget for the state and doesn’t pay his bills wants to take over CPS and the City of Chicago.
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his godawful video … where the corporate reformers gleefully talk about taking away the pensions owed to educators who worked for decades to educate our children… is right HERE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ylURYg0wuI
… is the educational equivalent of the January 1942 Wannsee Conference.
For those not familiar with the latter, here’s a six-minutes of highlights of this other planning meeting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3up5SZBZdY
Like the EdBuild panel, the participants love joking as they craft the “Final Solution” to their respective problems.
EXAMPLE
————————–
Nazi #1: “There are no Jews is Estonia.”
Nazi #2: “That’s best thing I’ve ever heard about Estonia.”
— laughter ensues
(By the way, that’s from the actual transcript of the conference, not some screenwriter’s invention… like the rest of the script.)
——————————
EXAMPLE:
DERRELL BRADFORD: “I love disaster movies…”
— laughter ensues
DERRELL BRADFORD: “What’s gonna happen when the school districts go bankrupt?”
REBECCA SIBILIA: “Call Andy Smarick.”
— laughter ensues
—————————
After criticism of this video of the EdBuild broke out, panelist and EdBuild officer Rebecca Sibilia emailed the writer of one of the critical pieces, PR Watch’s Jonas Persson’s. She claimed that she was slandered by what Perssons wrote..
Here’s the Persson’s piece that prompted Sibilia:
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/09/12932/bankruptcy-huge-opportunity-privatize-schools-says-edbuild
Here’s Ms. Sibilia’s response to it:
http://edbuild.org/blog/2015/misleading-attacks
(By the way, Sibilia doesn’t even link to Persson’s piece. She’s just telling everyone, “What was written about our EdBuild panel—and my comments in particular—is really icky. Right? So… like… don’t even read it for yourself. Just … like… just trust me that it’s really icky, and just leave it at that. Right?”)
Ms. Sibilia claims that Persson misrepresented what she said, and took it out of context. She even challenges his transcription, and advises people to watch the whole thing.
REBECCA SIBILIA: “I encourage everyone to actually watch the whole panel and see what I had to say.”
Well, Peter Greene at Curmudgucation took her up on that challenge, and found that, no… Persson was dead on in his description. The context in now way absolves Sibilia. (Go the link at the end of this.)
Sibilia denies being cold or callous about the disastrous turmoil and chaos that would accompany an entire school district going bankrkupt, saying …
REBECCA SIBILIA: “Bankruptcy isn’t something that’s sought after (by EdBuild or by Sibilia) … we (Sibilia and EdBuild) aren’t excited about prospect of any school district going through bankruptcy…”
What a bunch o baloney! The problem with Sibilia claiming this is that the video shows otherwise. (I know EdBuild is going to take this down the way that Nashville Prep took down “6 Minutes with Ms. McDonald”…
Should that occur, I’ve saved it to be re-posted again… and again… and again.)
Really, Rebecca? You’re “not excited” by bankruptcy? School districts going through bankruptcy is “not sought after?”
Watch Moderator Derrell Bradford and Panelist Rebecca Sibilia (and the off-screen panelists as well) as they are salivating and positively orgasming at the prospect of school district bankruptcy and the opportunities to privatize the schools … a la New Orleans.
(27:12)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ylURYg0wuI
(27:12)
————————————-
DERRELL BRADFORD: “I wanna … I’m kinda wanted to save it up, but I love disaster movies, so I”m going to hit it with you now.”
— (SIBILIA smiles wantonly as she anticipates Bradford is about to talk about Detroit’s and other major city school systems possibly going bankrupt.)
DERRELL BRADFORD: “Detroit is about to go belly up. I would argue that most school districts can’t even afford to stay open NOW, and that they’re largely on borrowed time… uhhm…
(something about banks)…
(anyone who doubts my analysis, try freeze-framing Sibilia at 27:19, or her lip-licking, from 27:23 – 27:26, as she involuntarily betrays her unconscious mind at work. Sibilia’s reactions are rapturous.)
DERRELL BRADFORD: “What are these guys gonna do when they go belly up? What’s happens when Chicago can’t meet its pension obligations anymore, and they can’t afford to do what it wants to do? What are your thoughts on that?”
REBECCA SIBILIA: “Hopefully, they call Andy Smarick.”
— laughter ensues.
REBECCA SIBILIA: “I mean… No, look.. When you think about bankruptcy- ”
DERRELL BRADFORD: “Do I have to put Jamie between you two?”
(WTF? Is he inferring that she will sexually maul Smarick, who’s sitting next too her?)
REBECCA SIBILIA: “This is a huge opportunity for school districts, and… this is something that EdBuild is going to focus on. Bankruptcy is not a problem for kids. Bankruptcy is a problem for the people governing the system. Right?
“So when a school district goes bankrupt, all of their legacy debt… can be eliminated. And when you’re answering questions that Andy and Mike put forward, like:
” ‘How are we going to pay for the buildings?’
” ‘How are we going to bring in new operators where there’s pension debt?’
“Like, if we can eliminate that in an entire urban system, then we can throw all the cards up in the air, and redistribute everything with all new models.” (“redistribute” being euphemism for privatize)
(—orgasming is the best way to describe how Sibilia sells her this next part.)
(28:41 – 28:50 )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ylURYg0wuI
(28:41 – 28:50 )
REBECCA SIBILIA: “And so… you’ve heard it here first! Bankruptcy may be… like… THEE THING that leads to an education revolution!”
————————————
Really Rebecca? You actually claim … bankruptcy is “not sought after…” by EdBuild and by yourself?
That EdBuild and Siblia are “not excited about prospect of any school district going through bankruptcy.”?
Let’s watch it again:
————————–
(28:41 – 28:50 )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ylURYg0wuI
(28:41 – 28:50 )
REBECCA SIBILIA: “And so… you’ve heard it here first! Bankruptcy may be… like… THEE THING that leads to an education revolution!”
—————-
As the sounds and images emanate from my computer screen and speakers, I feel the need for a Silkwood-style shower and scrubbing…
Indeed, here’s a whole bunch of crazy and stupid in Sibilia’s remarks.
Would she also argue…
“Divorce is not a problem for the kids in a family. It’s only a problem for the adults.”
“The house burning down where there’s no homeowner’s insurance is not a problem for the kids in a family. It’s only a problem for the adults.” ?
Also, Sibilia’s euphemism “eliminating legacy debt” thru bankruptcy means that tens of thousands of retired teachers who devoted their lives (decades some of them) to teaching—and contributed part of every paycheck to that pension system—will no longer receive a penny in pension money, and then would have no way to pay their bills and feed themselves.
Is that something to be excited about?
From EdBuild’s ideology and point-of-view, if that also means that unions can be busted, and schools can then be turned into profit centers… err… excuse me… charter schools… run by money-motivated profiteers… then yeah, it is something to be excited about… I guess.
As they dwell in their ivory tower, these EdBuild ideologues are as cold-blooded and sociopathic and devoid of compassion as anyone at the Wannasee Conference.
Here’s a homework assigmment… watch the two videos—Wannsee Conference, and the EdBuild panel—- back to back…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3up5SZBZdY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ylURYg0wuI
… to see if this isn’t true.
I’ll let Peter “CURMUDGUCATION” Greene get the last word in here in his description of the segment above:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/10/what-happens-after-you-blow-it-all-up.html
PETER GREENE: “Bradford sets up her next bit by observing that some school districts are in trouble, and he would argue most can’t afford to stay open, and that would be awesome, and I say, you know what would help with that? What would help is to stop allowing charters to suck the blood out of the public system.
“And all that brings us to the quote that has circulated, where she envisions bankruptcy as a great way to blow up a district, specifically getting rid of all its ‘legacy debt’ so that they no longer have to pay for like buildings and pensions, which is totally cool because having a school district go bankrupt is no problem for students, just the adults. Which is just– I mean, I imagine that students would notice that their district is collapsing financially and cutting programs and teachers and resources with a chainsaw.
” ‘Bankruptcy is not a problem for kids,’ is a statement that, in the best of contexts, is still grossly tone-deaf and reality-impaired. In the context of Sibilia’s discussion of how to blow up public schools so we can have charters, it’s even more tone-deaf and reality-impaired.
“And while the tone of the whole panel is, as I said, disturbingly light and happy, Sibilia is just so thoroughly gleeful about the prospect of districts becoming bankrupt, their pensions zeroed out and their teaching staff scrubbed. I have seen people less excited about getting engaged to the eprson of their dreams.”
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