Fri Mar 27, 2009 at 6:10 PMBy: looks like a charter Ren 10 operation Citywide Parent Summit & Survey The groups involved in the survey seem very odd. The fact that there were only 1,400 people surveyed seems also odd. Why is AUSL the only education organization asked to comment on the findings in the PR release? What about PURE or similar groups?

What role did Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago play in all of this? If Robin Steans is involved you can be sure it is some sort of pro-charter school grouping.

What were the questions that led to the conclusion that parents: Lack of knowledge about charter schools, including how they are funded, and who can attend them.

Fri Mar 27, 2009 at 8:50 PMBy: no one at LSC meetings Citywide Parent Summit & Survey No one shows up tp LSC meetings at Kinzie school. Half of the school does not even know LSC exists.

Fri Mar 27, 2009 at 9:08 PMBy: 1.04 Citywide Parent Summit & Survey 45 to 0

That sounds like a blowout football score. However
It is the actual vote count of one LSC members winning total
from the last LSC election. Not sure if this person was the Community
Rep or Parent Rep. But when one realizes, either way, the pool of potential
Voters was over 4,000 and it becomes obvious something is very wrong
with the whole idea. Our parents seem to have lost interest.

Fri Mar 27, 2009 at 11:36 PMBy: Police picket information...Join us??? Citywide Parent Summit & Survey http://www.chicagofop.org/Updates/2009/attachments/picket.pdf

Sat Mar 28, 2009 at 3:33 AMBy: George N. Schmidt Citywide Parent Summit & Survey "A CITYWIDE EDUCATION SUMMIT TO FOSTER DEBATE
The Campaign's report was released today at an invitation-only Citywide Education Summitheld at the Ukrainian Cultural Center on the Near Northwest Side of Chicago before an audience of 400 education, civic, and foundation leaders, parents, and students... Summit participants included Advance Illinois President Robin Steans, Target Area DevCorp Executive Director and PRISE Reform Convener Rev. Patricia Watkins, Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago Executive Vice-President Dea Meyer, Grow Your Own Illinois Executive Director Anne Hallett, Enlace Chicago President Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, Academy for Urban School Leadership Leadership Coach Audrey Donaldson, Action Now Lead Organizer Madeline Talbott,and Inner-city Muslim Action Network (IMAN) Executive Director Rami Nashashibi... The Campaign and member organizations hope that today's findings and discussion will serve to advance debate and foster a citywide consensus regarding solutions to local public-education challenges with multiple civic, business, philanthropic, and governmental partners..." (from the press release by ThinkInc).

"Invitation Only" does not include the Chicago Teachers Union, most legitimate (i.e., not corporate front and funded) community groups (PURE, Designs, Pilsen Alliance, Blocks Together, etc., etc., etc.) , and even, think about this -- Operation PUSH.

Who made up the "invitation" list, anyway? The Civic Committee, their publicist (see below), or a central committee of the "stakeholders" from Chicago's so-called "philantropic community"?

In other words, this was an event for the corporate front groups funded with corporate millions to spout the corporate Party Line on corporate eduction "reform" in Chicago. Shades of 1953 (Guatemal; Iran) and 1973 (Chile): corporate USA buys "community" organizations to push corporate attacks on public schools.

It is definitely not the case that the people organizing and doing this thing were ignorant of the existence of the Chicago Teachers Union, CORE, PURE, Designs for Change, PUSH, Pilsen Alliance, or the other truly grass roots groups they deliberately excluded from their "invitation only" event.

After all, even if they weren't paying attention for the past decade, they could have asked their "publicist", ThinkInc and Laurie Glen Gista.

For those with short memories, Laurie Glen Gista first surfaced in "Education Reform" in Chicago as the publicist for Deborah Lynch during Debbie's 2001 (successful, because of CTU circumstances, the hard work of PACT, and Substance -- least of all because of a "publicist") run for the Presidency of the Chicago Teachers Union.

Glen Gista then went on to collect tens of thousands of dollars from CTU between 2001 and 2003 for doing public relations work. That work included trying to steer CTU in support of "Renaissance 2010" (and its early incarnation against Williams, Dodge and Terrell in conjunction with the hoax creations of AUSL) via Glen Gista's buddy Eden Martin of the Civic Committee.

When CTU rejected both Eden Martin's overtures (and, finally, Glen Gista's "vision" for education reform), everything hit all the fans.

Remember when the Chicago Board of Education met in schools so that the people of Chicago could attend the meetings without being locked on their buses in the Loop or forced to spend $29 to park at some Daley administration privatized parking lot for a day?

The last time that was true was in April 2002, and Michael Scott will remember because the meeting was chaired by Michael Scott and took place at one of the many West Side schools Scott has variously claimed he "attended" (Herzl on Douglas Blvd).

During the April 2002 Chicago Board of Education meeting, even before Glan Gista was ousted, Eden Martin was cowering behind a phalanx of security at the last meeting of the Board of Education held outside the Loop (April 2002, at Herzl Elementary School in Douglas Park). That was when Michael Scott and Arne Duncan proclaimed the need to begin a "renaissance" by closing Williams, Dodge, and Terrell elementary schools. In other words, the birthplace of the Dodge "Renaissance" myth that has now gotten as far as the mythologies of the President of the United States, Barack Obama and The New York Times (page one, December 16, 2008, photo of Obama, Duncan, and Joe Biden sitting primly at Dodge enhancing the corporate lies).

But back to the origins of these hoaxes, the Board meeting of April 2002 at Herzl.

It rained on their party. We (CTU) brought 1,000 people to challenge their teacher bashing anti-public education spin. By then, Glen Gista was trying to broker between her corporate buddies and the CTU leadership.

And Eden Martin, Arne Duncan, and Michael Scott decided it was safer if the Chicago Board of Education began meeting exclusively at 125 S. Clark St. behind a wall of security (formal -- metal detectors, cops all over the lobby -- and informal -- elevators that blocked citizens from getting off on the floor where the Board was meeting).

It's like meetings of the Chicago Board of Education are also "by invitation only". Last Wednesday certainly was. Very corporate, charter and "new schools" cheerleader got in, while hundreds of people were turned away or stalled until Michael Scott (seven years after his Herzl teacher bashing debut at "renaissance" ringmaster) ended "public participation."

Glen Gista was finally ousted from CTU after massively messing up on the 2003 contract publicity, replaced by Marilyn Katz and others. It's nice to see that corporate Chicago isn't giving up just because tens of thousands of people have been protesting against "new schools," "Renaissance 2010", and their other lies.

Sat Mar 28, 2009 at 9:11 AMBy: Institutional Memory Citywide Parent Summit & Survey Thanks to George for keeping it real. I read this study and now know why it smelled so bad. One way to conter it--though the press and Rossi will not, is that schools have a parent survey every year at APril's report card pickup. Right there is the plain truth about the school-- from the parents --That is why the parent survey is called My Voice. Take that Target Area DevCorp. The funders of this survey here WASTED their money---or is the Consortiums use of My Voice now suspect? CPS pays big bucks for that survey too! (And I hate to say it, but some of the questions-the way they are worded- on that survey are confusing to our parents. The Mensas at the Consortium need to find someone who can write understandable questions for their target audience.)

Sat Mar 28, 2009 at 10:15 AMBy: Marricat Citywide Parent Summit & Survey I wonder if many schools disregard negative comments from the parents. In one school, the teachers only give them to parents who they know will give positive comments (probably at the direction of the principal). I know one year I asked about the survey and was told that they were just given randomly to parents and that I wasn't in that group (the teacher was supposively out of surveys).

Sat Mar 28, 2009 at 1:35 PMBy: Another Daley Machine Trick!!! Citywide Parent Summit & Survey This seems to be a page out of the Daley Machine Politics Bible. When community organizations cannot be bought out or turned, you create your own. Unknown community groups pop out of the blue to give the idea the community is engaged. Nice try!
Daley and CPS do not engage either parents but also NOT the professionals in the classroom. I wonder why there is no assessment and evaluation of the folks running CPS!!! There must be an organizational evaluation tool for leaders of an organization. Know of any?

Sat Mar 28, 2009 at 3:58 PMBy: Survey's at Report Card Pick-up Citywide Parent Summit & Survey Some schools aren't having a reeport card pick-up in April because they had them the first two quarters because of that new schedule which gave them the day before Thanksgiving off. My children attend two different schools. One school gave the survey out at a parent event and who knows when my other child'd school will get around to it. I think that principal has a lot to hide and would not want word to get out that parents are VERY dissatisfied with her performance.

Sat Mar 28, 2009 at 9:20 PMBy: For What It's Worth Citywide Parent Summit & Survey We were given a survey yesterday at school to assess our sense of the school and how well it's being run. Love to see the final data!

Mon Mar 30, 2009 at 12:04 PMBy: Whose truth Citywide Parent Summit & Survey Huberman told John Calloway that the best part of the monthly board meetings is getting to hear all the testimony from parents and community members. He said he heard over 3 hours of testimony at the last meeting. What about all those who weren't able to sit in the board chambers because all the seats were reserved for CPS employees. Who is he hearing from?

Tue Mar 31, 2009 at 8:37 AMBy: Gale Citywide Parent Summit & Survey George-
I read somewhere, I think in Substance, that the Bd of Ed public participation speaker comments are NOT a part of the public record in that they are not transcribed as part of the meeting minutes. Is that true? Last week was the first board meeting that I attended. I got into the main room with no problem, but I was there at 6:00a to get in line to register, and I had to juggle things at home just to get to and from the meeting and still pick up my son from school.

I have to say that I was quite underwhelmed with the whole experience. Lots of discussion with the group in favor of the new charter school (air force academy I think?), but little time for other issues to be presented.