Mike Klonsky updates readers on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s ongoing efforts to destroy public education in Chicago.
There is plenty of money for “network leaders,” who oversee principals. There is plenty of money for charter school expansion.
But the Mayor and his hand-picked board have ordered layoffs of 1,000 public school staff, including nearly 500 teachers, many of them tenured.
Last week, we learned that CPS chief Forrest Claypool was funneling big contracts to his Jenner & Block law firm pals.
On Wednesday, CPS announced it was maintaining and expanding it’s network of high-paid, mid-level regional managers called network chiefs. They’re the enforcers who give school principals marching orders and ride herd over clusters of neighborhood schools.
On Thursday, we learned that more privately run charter schools will be opening, including a new $27 million charter that’s part of the development around the newly-planned Obama Library in Kenwood. The goal is to give a boost to the real estate market and promote gentrification on the city’s south side.
Today, Rahm/Claypool pulled the trigger on nearly 1,000 CPS teachers and staff. That includes 494 teachers — including 256 tenured teachers. The layoffs broke down this way: 302 high school teachers and 192 elementary school teachers for a total of 494; and 352 high school support personnel and 140 elementary school support personnel, for a total of 492.
Obviously, charter schools are NOT public schools. Only teachers in public schools were laid off.
What a disgrace!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Is Rahm still allowed to be Mayor? How did that happen?! That man does not have the composure or judgment to hold office. Don’t let him get his hands on public education. Certainly don’t let him get his hands on the nuclear codes. I’m surprised he hasn’t committed aggravated assault, or battery while in office, yet.
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He was legally re-elected by the very people whose schools he closed just about two years before his re-election. The only wards that voted for his opponent (Chuy Garcia) were the Latino wards. There is no recall in Chicago and he hasn’t done anything impeachable, at least nothing he’s been indicted for, so Chicago is stuck with him. Elections have consequences. And I’d bet a paycheck that by his next re-election bid (2019), people will once again have forgotten everything he’s done and will re-elect him.
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Dienne,
I bet he is pulling every string he has to get a job in the Clinton administration. Since the police video was released showing the deliberate shooting death of an unarmed black teen, Rahm is anathema in the black community. He kept the video under wraps until after the election. The black community won’t forget. I predict he will get out of Chicago before the next election. He’s a scoundrel. Hope he becomes Ambassador to Micronesia. Someplace where he can’t do harm to others.
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Aside from this being an education issue it is also a labor issue. American workers post Reagan/PATCO have become too risk averse. Public workers in particular have never been forced to endure the sacrifices that propelled the labor movement forward. They were for the most part organized in the hay day of organized labor. I have said to other non public workers, there is hardly anyone alive who endured the sacrifices that propelled the labor movement forward. .
Most of the sacrifices were prior to the new deal . So until working Americans are prepared to endure personal sacrifice, I am afraid that we will rely on Union Leaders negotiating the slow and steady decline of the working class. While trying to court favor with the lesser of two evils choices we are given in the political arena. Want the explanation for the NEA/AFT early endorsement of Hillary whose husband fathered Rahm. There it is. It has been a model of the labor movement in general even prior to Reagan the goal has been maintaining what they had rather than advancing thus holding their own personal positions.
The interests of Chicago’s Teachers are the interests of Chicago’s
students and parents. Efforts have been made by the CTA to unite with the community in this battle . As the Verizon strike indicated workers are not helpless, they have to be willing to put it on the line. There was no guarantee that those IBEW/CWA workers would ever see employment again when they walked off in March. They were replaced with contract labor and management . Their courage yielded results against a corporate giant. Is there a fundamental difference between outsourcing and charters .
There is little in the assault on public education that differs from the assault on America’s working class, yup your not professionals , I think you are,they don’t . The cast of characters in this assault is pretty much the same . Is Campbell Brown’s assault with the backing of Paul Singer one of the largest right wing money handlers a concern for public education or an assault on Union teachers.
The Walton’s could do more than anyone else in the nation to improve the results achieved in our public schools not by seeking vouchers and charters, but by paying their employees a living wage with benefits. That would lift their employees out of poverty . Doing so would allow other employers to do the same. Education nor profit off of education is their goal.
What is there in David Coleman’s background that propelled him to be the front person for the Common Core , starting with Elizabeth and McKinsey & Company . Why is McKinsey & Company the most influential and despicable Global management firm in concert with the Business RoundTable the most influential corporate lobby ,so prominent in the assault on public education? Certainly not to enrich a few relatively small diverse players. Go to the roots of the BRT for that one.
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I’d like to believe the black community won’t forget, but it was their schools he closed and yet they re-elected him. I don’t know, maybe the shooting and the cover-up will do it, but I’m not holding my breath. Three more years people have to remember that.
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I watched the movie, Spotlight, this evening. There are times in history when evil thrives.
There’s a quote, in our newspaper today, from Ohio’s Senate Minority Leader. He described the state’s ed reform, “It’s unbelievable. Instead of using taxpayer money to make investments in students, they’re spending money on advertising, lobbyists, and filing lawsuits” (aimed at avoiding transparency and the travesty it will reflect).
Legalized theft of taxpayers and communities and, robbing kids of their present and future, is believable. It occurs when evil thrives.
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It’s ludicrous that the state can’t get records from publicly-funded schools.
They all look like fools.
Who hands out that much money without retaining ANY control over how it’s spent? I can’t believe they’re still negotiating with this contractor they hired, begging them to turn over records.
Where is the attorney general in all this, by the way? Do citizens have to hire private counsel to find out what ECOT did with all this money? Why? That’s what we’re paying them for.
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I’ve often wondered how much of our city’s public tax money has been spent in school district court cases.
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The citizens are paying for both sides so, it’s probably become a cottage industry for lawyers who specialize.
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Chiara,
Off topic- Hillary’s Ohio campaign manager- both parents venture capitalists, live in wealthiest Cincy suburb. Chris Wyant attended Cincy’s most expensive private school and Yale. He and his wife worked on Obama’s campaigns, then got chief of staff positions in U.S. Trade and Development Agency and Commerce, respectively.
Meritocracy in America. Ain’t it grand? Party of the people.
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This is what education reform looks like in Ohio:
“Speaking of online schools, Ohio’s largest such school was on Monday given a court-ordered deadline of 5:00 pm Tuesday to turn over student log-in information the state has requested in order to complete an attendance audit. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 8/1/16) The school did not meet that deadline and instead will submit the requested docs – and thousands more besides – on Friday. (Columbus Dispatch, 8/3/16) But lest you think from that Dispatch piece that this was a one-sided process, here is Gongwer to disabuse you. In fact, the impending Friday info-dump was agreed to by both the school and the state, as was the notion of the state dropping its pending lawsuit against the school – the suit from which much of the current legal to-ing and fro-ing sprung. (Gongwer Ohio, 8/2/16)”
The state is “negotiating” with the school to turn over records. This has been going on for 6 months. This is supposedly a “public” school.
When the state audited Columbus Public Schools attendance they sent in armed law enforcement to gather records.
Must be nice to be in the state’s preferred charter “sector”. They literally have no idea how many children actually attend these schools because the operator simply refuses to tell them. The state’s response to that? Comply with the charter operator’s demands.
Utterly and completely captured. The idea that they’re “regulating” these schools is laughable.
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The worst part of ECOT isn’t even ECOT. The worst part is Ohio lobbyists and lawmakers are energetically pushing “online learning” into every Ohio public school.
It’s not bad enough that they created a giant low performing school. They now want to ruin existing public schools by pushing this cheap model into EVERY school.
We won’t have any choice. We’ll get this garbage whether we like it or not once they finish replacing our teachers with “distance learning”.
Honestly, no public school should listen to them at this point. They have lousy ideas. It’s that simple.
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I live in Ohio as well, and you and others are spot on. It is blatantly criminal that these alleged “schools” even pretend to exist. Another case of follow the money……The governor is into charters deeply. How do citizens fall for this??
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SEK,
No one voted for these wasteful, inefficient private-profit schools. You must organize to defeat the legislators who are in their pocket. And governor.
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sek1949,
Ohio’s Sen. Sherrod Brown didn’t find the charter school corruption problem until this summer. Don’t know if Portman has found it yet. Brown still wants the U.S. Dept, of Ed. to spend $71 mil. of taxpayer money to expand charter schools in Ohio and, I’m confident that Portman wants the same thing.
A huge part of the Ohio’s problem is Cliff Rosenberger, Speaker of the Ohio House, elected by the citizens of Wilmington.
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“Disgrace” is absolutely the right word.
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Looking at the bigger picture, does anyone else see this as an overall attempt nationwide to simply break up unions and keep the money in the hands of business? This feels too much like the late 1800- early 1900s.
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I’m sure that’s one of their objectives. If we leave it up to the Establishment and their hedge fund masters, the only union left standing will be the police unions.
The Establishment prefers repression over enlightenment. Hence, the attack on teachers, the praise for the increasingly militarized force of “men in blue.”
The police will serve their masters and obey orders without question; the teachers threaten that order.
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You’re right. A video of a Buffalo, New York school board meeting shows a plutocratic board member/reformer, summoning the police to evict a citizen, treating the officer as if he was a waiter.
Considering the fact that the plutocrats have driven down police wages and tried to deny them their pensions, police should have a vested interest in being on the side of the citizens. When rich white-collar criminals are arrested, they should get a rough, ride while in transport. If the white-collar criminal doesn’t make it, no loss to society.
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Kathy and Eleanor ,Linda
Consider this a like button . The assault on Education is primarily an assault on labor and a “public good”.
The police used to be private and often used as a means of controlling labor . When they were insufficient for the task the military.
Was brought in . If the National Guard was not up to the task it was the US military . We have had the bloodiest labor history in the western world . Seldom did labor initiate or win those battles.
The militarized police force and surveillance state may pose a far greater danger than it does to our urban poor.
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Agree. Industrial and other public sector unions should be making more of an effort to align state and local police with the public that pays their salaries and supports their right to the pensions that they earn.
A while back, I protested at a local Walmart store. I made a point to tell the police the message that the oligarchs are a financial threat to them and, to their children’s public school education.
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Great read. I thought you would think this is interesting since you lived in Chicago.
Amy the whole agenda is to starve ( under fund) public school to show that public school is not working any more and the better alternative is charter ( for profit) schools.
It’s happening all over the country. What I think is different in Ok is that teachers and admin are fighting back by running for state office.
Love ya AA
~~ Anita ~~
>
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I work in a charter school in the city and we actually lost over 55 of our members. 55 doesn’t seem like a lot but when you only have 500 members that is a lot. We are a public charter school. When cps cuts funding for us it is difficult. We are working with no contract.
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What is a “member”?
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It’s not a “public” charter school. Charters have too much in common with govn’t contractors to be labeled “public”. The FTC should be investing the false advertising.
In Ohio, the assets bought by taxpayers, are owned by the charter operators, that’s not “public”.
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One we are not in Ohio. We are a charter network that receives funding from CPS which makes us a public charter school.
Member is a teacher staff support staff as you may.
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Pissed off teacher,
Whenever charters operators are sued for anything, they say “we are private contractors, not state actors” I.e., NOT public schools
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