Fred Klonsky reports on emails sent from Governor Bruce Rauner, when he was a private citizen, to Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel fought in court to keep the emails under lock and key, but was eventually forced to release them by court order.
Citizen Rauner expressed his unedited views of educators in Chicago:
Gov. Bruce Rauner once told some of Chicago’s wealthiest and most influential civic leaders that half of the Chicago Public Schools teachers “are virtually illiterate” and half of the city’s principals are “incompetent,” according to emails Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration released Thursday under a court order.
Rauner made the assertion five years ago when he was a wealthy private equity executive and an active participant in Chicago school reform. His emails were part of a discussion with affluent education reform activists connected to the Chicago Public Education Fund, including Penny Pritzker, now U.S. commerce secretary; billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin; Chicago investment executive Mellody Hobson; and Helen Zell, the wife of billionaire real estate magnate Sam Zell.
“Teacher evaluation is critically important, but in a massive bureaucracy with a hostile union, where 50% of principals are managerially incompetent and half of teachers are virtually illiterate, a complete multi-dimensional evaluation system with huge subjectivity in it will be attacked, manipulated and marginalized – the status quo will prevail,” Rauner wrote in a December 2011 email arguing for a strong system of teacher and principal evaluations in the district. “It’s much more critical that we develop a consistent, rigorous, objective, understandable measure and reporting system for student growth upon which all further evaluation of performance will depend.”
We know that Governor Rauner loves charter schools, especially those that do not have unions, where the teachers are young college graduates with little or no experience.
Now we have a clue about why he has been unwilling to fund Chicago public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The best part is he announced the results before they put the new assessment system in.
VERY data-based. Scientific! Exactly 50%.
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Rauner recently said that most of Chicago’s schools were “crumbling prisons.”
When asked, he said he based this on his own personal visits to such schools.
However, at a press conference, a reporter kept asking him to name any school that he’s visited — “crumbling prison” or otherwise — and he was momentarily stunned and speechless, before blathering non-answers as this video shows.
Again, when asked to name even one of those schools, he went blank:
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/06/08/gov-rauner-cant-name-one-crumbling-cps-school-hes-visited/#.V1i9FfUZVv8.twitter
REPORTER: “Can you name one of those schools?”
As the video shows, he pauses interminably as searches his mind for a way to respond without answering the question.
RAUNER: “I’ve worked for decades to try and and improve Chicago public schools. I care very deeply about Chicago’s students and teachers.”
——
Yeah, he says he really care about teachers, but in private emails, he claims that “50% of Chicago’s teachers are illiterate.”
Governor Rauner, promoting privatization as the alternative,
referred to Chicago’s traditional public schools as “crumbling
prisons” that are failing miserably in education children.
Heidi Stevens, an op-ed writer and public school parent let him
have it:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/stevens/ct-rauner-cps-crumbling-prisons-balancing-0607-20160606-column.html
——————————-
HEIDI STEVENS: “A skeptic might argue the governor is using such loaded language not to shine a light on the conditions of the chronically underfunded district, but to make the nation’s third-largest school system seem beyond repair and in dire need of privatization.
“Several people, in fact, argued just that.
“@GovRauner face it, all you want are charter schools to put more money in your friend’s pockets. You don’t care about us,” tweeted one such skeptic.
Wendy Katten, director of Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education, shared a similar sentiment on Facebook:
“Governor Rauner and his elite buddies like to make these kinds of comments about CPS so they can justify slashing our budgets instead of investing in our schools, so as to not impact their own wallets,” Katten wrote. “So disgusting. Everyone should invite him to their school so he can see what’s really going on instead of perpetuating this nonsense.”
Ald. Howard B. Brookins shared his thoughts on Facebook as well, writing,
“If the Governor wanted to respect our students, teachers and principals, he would start funding all our schools equitably, instead of punishing poor students throughout the state of Illinois.”
————————————-
Regarding Rauner’s “crumbling” claim, this may have some truth to it as it pertains to many schools’ physical conditions. The failure to repair or renovate Chicago’s existing public schools, however, was not the fault of the teachers working in them.
So who is responsible?
Go back to Rahm Emanuel’s equally asinine quote saying that “25% of students are never going to amount to anything. And I’m not going to throw resources at them”, which also means throwing funds at their schools to provide any renovations and repairs.
Lewis told the Chicago Sun-Times she was “stunned’’ when Emanuel told her, over dinner, that “25 percent of these kids are never going to be anything. They are never going to amount to anything. And I’m not going to throw resources at them.’’
The comments came at her first private meeting with Emanuel before his May inauguration, Lewis said.
Emanuel “did not say that,’’ mayoral spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton countered Tuesday. “Nor does he believe that, which is evident in his actions to improve our schools for all children.’’
Lewis said that “evidence’’ that the mayor’s comments were true came months later, when his handpicked CPS Chief Administrative Officer, Tim Cawley, told reporters that CPS would not put repair dollars into a school with “a chance’’ of closure in five or 10 years.
But Cawley said CPS likes the “bang” for the “capital buck” when “physical building improvements coincide with academic turnarounds or other fresh academic starts” … i.e. after the public schools are closed, their teachers fired, and the physical campus is turned over to unaccountable private sector charter school operators.
In short, while those school sites house traditional public schools, close the spigot for repair funding, and let those school properties all rot.
However, after a privatized charter corporation, seizes the property, well then … let the facilities funding flow.
Local School Council members this month cited Cawley’s comments in a lawsuit seeking to block the latest batch of school turnarounds, closings and phaseouts.
“Tim [Cawley] never intended those comments to be construed as they were,’’ CPS spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler said Tuesday. “We are clearly committed to investing in all of our schools regardless of their performance levels to support the academic success of our students.”
Cawley did not return phone calls Tuesday seeking further clarification.
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From an anonymous poem in St. Nicholas Magazine
“The Pot calling the kettle Black”
“Oho!” said the pot to the kettle;
“You are dirty and ugly and black!
Sure no one would think you were metal,
Except when you’re given a crack.”
“Not so! not so!” kettle said to the pot;
“‘Tis your own dirty image you see;
For I am so clean – without blemish or blot –
That your blackness is mirrored in me.”
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“including Penny Pritzker, now U.S. commerce secretary; ”
Who apparently didn’t contradict her fellow billionaire.
She’s appearing somewhere today in a photo op wearing a hard hat mingling with the little people but she’s thinking “what a bunch of dopes these people are” 🙂
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Good for this to see the light of day.
Better for these pompous mismanaging hypocritical twits to actually see the light.
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Where have I heard that figure before? Oh yeah, Eli Broad wants 50% of Los Angeles schools. Michael Bloomberg also said he wanted to get rid of 50% of NYC teachers. Is that the magic number? Critical mass? The tipping point? If 50% of public educators’ lives are unjustifiably ruined, will it collapse the system?
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They’re saying the average is crap, in troglodyte speak. It actually involves the eating of half a worm to fully get it across to another knuckle-dragger.
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Rauner thinks half of Chicago’s teachers are Illiterate and that the other three fourths are innumerate.
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🙂
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So, do any of these gazillionaires have kids? Do any, or did any, of their kids attend public schools.
And last I checked, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s children attend the prestigious University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, whose tuition is $28,000/year and up, depending upon the grade.
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I can categorically say that 100 per cent of Chicago’s politicians can be bought and are absolute idiots on most every subject, hence, lobbyists influence.
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Paula, virtually all politicians, from anywhere, can be bought. It doesn’t stop at the borders of Chicago.
There may be a few outliers, but most of them depend upon donations and money from PACS, and you are correct, the lobbyists have way too much influence.
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I can send you a few from Jersey in case you need any extra moronic politicians. By the way, can someone out there check Rauner’s reading level?
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Only half? That’s better than I would have expected.
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Sent this to Lee Camp, host/writer on Redacted Tonight (& if you don’t have cable, you can easily watch it on YouTube!), esp. due to the redactions (!) & the figure (“half”–really?) pulled out of thin air.
BTW, Redacted is the best news show ever (if you like The Onion, you’ll love Redacted!)
So brilliant watching hurts my eyes.
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I would appreciate the help of anyone in this website, who can prove that Bruce Rauner makes money on Teachers’ pension fund and becomes billionaire.
Well, it is your money that Hedge Fund con-artist cheats on and becomes rich. You MUST BE illiterate in money investment concept.
Now, if all educators prove to be educated and cultivated,BUT why then you are still confused in selecting BETWEEN the real potential and skillful politician and the disastrous lip service in a con artist and in a bullying liar/businessman?
Instead of to whine, and to be sarcastic, please devise a meaningful strategy that can interact and counteract any danger that is looming over Public Education, and your 30+ years of contribution in TEACHERS’ PENSION FUND, if EDUCATORS think that they are well educated. Back2basic
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What Rauner means by half the teachers are virtually illiterate is defined by his obvious animosity and hate of public education, teachers’s unions, and public school teachers.
By saying half of the teachers are virtually illiterate, he means they don’t think like him and anyone that doesn’t is stupid. To win his praise they have to blindly believe what he wants them to think, and that is the propaganda being pumped out by corrupt frauds like him.
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I’m re-posting a long post related to Rauner: (if it’s too long, skip it, JACK)
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 overestimate their children’s real academic progress, and are just too emotional to face facts that they’re kids suck academically, because their teachers & schools suck… and that Common Core curriculum and testing will at last wake them up to this, and also that after being thus woken up, the solution is to wipe out traditional public schools where their kids currently attend, and replace them with privately run charter schools.
Another corporate reformer that engages in this is Governor Bruce Rauner of Illinois. Two years before he became governor, 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.
(UPDATE FOR TODAY, 7/22/16 — Right, so here you see that, on TV or elsewhere in public, Rauner claims to be “supporter and huge advocate” of teachers, but when those same teachers as well as the public can’t hear him … i.e. in private emails to his crony Rahm Emanuel … he makes the totally unfounded and derogatory accusation that “half of (Chicago’s 30,000 public school teachers) are illiterate.”
Rauner’s claim is so patently absurd it boggles the mind.
Chicago’s teachers all are required to have not one, but two college degrees, and must pass a strenuous credentialing test, student teaching, interviews, etc. … but someone, after all that, hoards of “illiterates” —- 50% of all Chicago teachers, approximately 15,000 mind you — managed to slip through this CPS Human Resources filter.
Sweet Jesus!)
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.
But here’s where it gets good, REALLY good.
My hat’s off to 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 — public, private, whatever — 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 this “divide-and-conquer-first-destroy-the-teachers-then-the-rest-after” strategy, 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 both public and private union worker voters, non-union union-supporters, and middle class voters into voting for him in two years.
Like Walker, Rauner successfully ran a stealth, non-controversial campaign, keeping his strident crush-all-unions beliefs safely hidden, all to trick union workers into voting for him, then afterwards, he has tried without much success, to do the same union-busting as Walker.
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
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——————-
( 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…
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.
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