Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader for pointing my attention to this (PDF) settlement from last month's Board Report -- $320,000 and more to Laura Shimkus for seven years of back pay and then some.
Based on the one-page item, it looks like CPS tried to discharge Simkus and lost. This is the result. Pedro Martinez and Patrick Rocks signed off on it. here.There's a 2001 Board Report item about it here that says she was at Greeley.
Anyone know the whole story?
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Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 9:09 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Rumor has it that Mayor Daley is not happy with the amount of lawsuits against CPS and he has ordered the law department to make them go away! There are quite a few out there and they are making CPS look really bad since most have been filed by employees.
Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 9:37 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Does anyone know the annual number of special education due-process suits filed against CPS for each year between 2000 and 2007? (I'm assuming the number per year has consistently gone up.)
Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 5:17 AM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
"Rumor has it that Mayor Daley is not happy with the amount of lawsuits against CPS and has ordered the Law Department to go away..." (Joey. 9:00 p.m. yesterday).
Says who? This is one of the reasons why anonymous blogging has its limits. Daley is the dean of pouring money into garbage litigations to frighten away most people from challenging his imperial power, and the CPS Law Department, which is mostly staffed with pinstripe City Hall patronage people, is the poster child for that philosophy of law. Behind all the screens of legality, CPS Law is a lapdog and attack dog for Daley's power and policies, with not a shred of legal work going on in the public interest. Whenever power is lined up against decency, morality, or legality, CPS Law is firmly on the side of power.
Think about that recent litigation City Hall sustained for more than a decade to defend torturers and you can see the model. It's even more in place three blocks south of City Hall at 125 S. Clark St., where the lawyers are there to act as a Praetorian Guard on behalf of any illegality or dirty trick Arne Duncan and his myrmidons want to pull against the people.
Two examples should suffice, because they are microcosms of how CPS Law operates: the recent Greeley teacher case (which should have been over within a year, had CPS not spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to its own lawyers wastefully) and the ongoing Corey H. special education consent decree. In both cases CPS lawyers are in the forefront of wasting public money to defend Daley's power against the people.
As the Chicago Union Teacher (the union's newspaper) reports, the Greeley case was not originally a lawsuit. It was a successful grievance that CPS turned into a lawsuit. The teacher should have been reinstated within a year. CPS violated her rights. CPS fired the teacher illegally, the teacher won the grievance, and it should have been over six year ago.
What happened next -- at enormous expense -- has been typical of CPS Law since Daley took over the schools in 1995. CPS litigated the matter through the Illinois courts -- all the way up and down, with expensive depositions and convoluted legal arguments, equally expensive transcripts to make those arguments, and fees fees fees and salaries, salaries, salaries for its lawyers -- for five years, then six...
It was a CPS decision, start to finish, to drag the thing through the courts, over and over and over, at a cost for CPS legal costs in the hundreds of thousands (possbily a million dollars, but the CPS Law Department hasn't reported in public to the Chicago Board of Education on its costs and overruns since 1994, so teasing the facts out of the sludge of lies and coverups is difficult, time consuming, and enormously expensive for any member of the public).
Anyone who has watched a Chicago Board of Education meeting knows that the Board responds with glee every time someone warns about a possible lawsuit against the Board. Especially a poor person.
Why the glee? Because no matter how bad the CPS position may be -- as law, as fact, or most importantly as basic morality -- Patrick Rocks will roll out the legal guns and blast away on behalf of CPS. Rocks wears an eternal smirk because he knows that anyone who challenges CPS, no matter how just the challenge, will run into a phalanx of lawyers and a blizzard of paperwork. All paid for at our expense and accountable only to Richard M. Daley, Rocks's former direct boss.
The CPS Law Department, which fills the entire 7th floor at 125 S. Clark St., has doubled in size and quadrupled in cost since Richard M. Daley took over the Chicago Public Schools in 1995. It is there to serve Daley and Duncan power against the public, whether it comes in the form of defending CPS against the claims of disabled children (and poor families with children who are disabled) or against teachers. CPS does not care how much the legal costs are, because the people who are breaking the law, starting with Arne Duncan, are not paying for the lawyers who are helping them break the law.
Whether the matters are something as simple as complying with the Open Meetings Act or the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA requests now all go through another layer of bureaucracy in the Law Department before they are answered, so all of them have been stalled forever since that step was added to increase the evasions) or as complex as special education, the CPS lawyers are always on the front line of helping CPS break the law. It's why the majority of them are paid more than $100,000 per year and their number increases virtually every year while Arne Duncan proclaims that "administration" has been cut and we're "down to the bone" blather blather blather.
In the special education cases alone, they are reenforced by some of the most expensive lawyers in the USA (Dykema Gossett) from one of the most conservative law firms in the USA (Dykema Gossett) in violating the mandates of the Corey H consent decree.
Every person working in the CPS Law Department has been involved in some cynical service to the power of Richard M. Daley and his appointees at CPS. Not one of them is outside that cynical loop. The extent to which they have created bad law and been the enablers (in the 12-step sense) of bad policy will require a couple of books to summarize when the whole heap is finally cleaned up. From the framing of the forthcoming round of "hearings" on school closings to the monstrous (and enormously expensive effort) to successfully allow Chicago to begin segregating massively again, CPS Law has been in the forefront. For the past four years, CPS Law has been fighting -- expensively and somewhat successfully -- to help CPS escape any obligation under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Corey H. CPS lawyers have been in court demanding that CPS be freed from the Corey H decree, and at every turn CPS lawyers block any attempt to implement Corey H while CPS violates federal law regarding some of the world's most vulnerable children -- right down to those IEP programs that now keep you from recommending an individual aide for a severely disabled child with autism.
That's CPS Law. At City Hall, Chicago Law defends torturers at a cost of millions. At the Chicago Board of Education, CPS Law defends lesser kinds of torture every day at a cost of additional millions.
Watch how many lawyers are deployed during the next three weeks while the hearings are conducting on the largest round of school closings (and the greatest displacement of teachers and children) of any major city in the USA (outside of New Orleans). Every one of those events -- and the Board of Education meeting on February 27 that will rubber stamp them -- will have been facilitated by CPS Law.
Says who? This is one of the reasons why anonymous blogging has its limits. Daley is the dean of pouring money into garbage litigations to frighten away most people from challenging his imperial power, and the CPS Law Department, which is mostly staffed with pinstripe City Hall patronage people, is the poster child for that philosophy of law. Behind all the screens of legality, CPS Law is a lapdog and attack dog for Daley's power and policies, with not a shred of legal work going on in the public interest. Whenever power is lined up against decency, morality, or legality, CPS Law is firmly on the side of power.
Think about that recent litigation City Hall sustained for more than a decade to defend torturers and you can see the model. It's even more in place three blocks south of City Hall at 125 S. Clark St., where the lawyers are there to act as a Praetorian Guard on behalf of any illegality or dirty trick Arne Duncan and his myrmidons want to pull against the people.
Two examples should suffice, because they are microcosms of how CPS Law operates: the recent Greeley teacher case (which should have been over within a year, had CPS not spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to its own lawyers wastefully) and the ongoing Corey H. special education consent decree. In both cases CPS lawyers are in the forefront of wasting public money to defend Daley's power against the people.
As the Chicago Union Teacher (the union's newspaper) reports, the Greeley case was not originally a lawsuit. It was a successful grievance that CPS turned into a lawsuit. The teacher should have been reinstated within a year. CPS violated her rights. CPS fired the teacher illegally, the teacher won the grievance, and it should have been over six year ago.
What happened next -- at enormous expense -- has been typical of CPS Law since Daley took over the schools in 1995. CPS litigated the matter through the Illinois courts -- all the way up and down, with expensive depositions and convoluted legal arguments, equally expensive transcripts to make those arguments, and fees fees fees and salaries, salaries, salaries for its lawyers -- for five years, then six...
It was a CPS decision, start to finish, to drag the thing through the courts, over and over and over, at a cost for CPS legal costs in the hundreds of thousands (possbily a million dollars, but the CPS Law Department hasn't reported in public to the Chicago Board of Education on its costs and overruns since 1994, so teasing the facts out of the sludge of lies and coverups is difficult, time consuming, and enormously expensive for any member of the public).
Anyone who has watched a Chicago Board of Education meeting knows that the Board responds with glee every time someone warns about a possible lawsuit against the Board. Especially a poor person.
Why the glee? Because no matter how bad the CPS position may be -- as law, as fact, or most importantly as basic morality -- Patrick Rocks will roll out the legal guns and blast away on behalf of CPS. Rocks wears an eternal smirk because he knows that anyone who challenges CPS, no matter how just the challenge, will run into a phalanx of lawyers and a blizzard of paperwork. All paid for at our expense and accountable only to Richard M. Daley, Rocks's former direct boss.
The CPS Law Department, which fills the entire 7th floor at 125 S. Clark St., has doubled in size and quadrupled in cost since Richard M. Daley took over the Chicago Public Schools in 1995. It is there to serve Daley and Duncan power against the public, whether it comes in the form of defending CPS against the claims of disabled children (and poor families with children who are disabled) or against teachers. CPS does not care how much the legal costs are, because the people who are breaking the law, starting with Arne Duncan, are not paying for the lawyers who are helping them break the law.
Whether the matters are something as simple as complying with the Open Meetings Act or the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA requests now all go through another layer of bureaucracy in the Law Department before they are answered, so all of them have been stalled forever since that step was added to increase the evasions) or as complex as special education, the CPS lawyers are always on the front line of helping CPS break the law. It's why the majority of them are paid more than $100,000 per year and their number increases virtually every year while Arne Duncan proclaims that "administration" has been cut and we're "down to the bone" blather blather blather.
In the special education cases alone, they are reenforced by some of the most expensive lawyers in the USA (Dykema Gossett) from one of the most conservative law firms in the USA (Dykema Gossett) in violating the mandates of the Corey H consent decree.
Every person working in the CPS Law Department has been involved in some cynical service to the power of Richard M. Daley and his appointees at CPS. Not one of them is outside that cynical loop. The extent to which they have created bad law and been the enablers (in the 12-step sense) of bad policy will require a couple of books to summarize when the whole heap is finally cleaned up. From the framing of the forthcoming round of "hearings" on school closings to the monstrous (and enormously expensive effort) to successfully allow Chicago to begin segregating massively again, CPS Law has been in the forefront. For the past four years, CPS Law has been fighting -- expensively and somewhat successfully -- to help CPS escape any obligation under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Corey H. CPS lawyers have been in court demanding that CPS be freed from the Corey H decree, and at every turn CPS lawyers block any attempt to implement Corey H while CPS violates federal law regarding some of the world's most vulnerable children -- right down to those IEP programs that now keep you from recommending an individual aide for a severely disabled child with autism.
That's CPS Law. At City Hall, Chicago Law defends torturers at a cost of millions. At the Chicago Board of Education, CPS Law defends lesser kinds of torture every day at a cost of additional millions.
Watch how many lawyers are deployed during the next three weeks while the hearings are conducting on the largest round of school closings (and the greatest displacement of teachers and children) of any major city in the USA (outside of New Orleans). Every one of those events -- and the Board of Education meeting on February 27 that will rubber stamp them -- will have been facilitated by CPS Law.
Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 5:41 AM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
The provisions of Corey H. are violated in CPS everyday. Why isn't there a Whistleblower system? ISBE will act ONLY if the parent files due process. Where and how can non-tenured special education or non-certified teachers report special education abuse? The court monitors need to make unannounced visits to schools especially on the overcrowded southwest side. Thye also need to speak privately with special education teachers NOT with the case manager monitoring the conversation. We have classrooms without the correct amount of one on one aides and if there was ever a fire these children may be endangered due to lack of personnel.
Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 8:07 AM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
There is a whistleblower system.
It's called "Kill the whistleblowers" and its Chicago doctrine -- just like "negative research" and the other childishness that's been dominant in public life these past couple of decades.
You blow the whistle and you get fired. That's why CPS spend nearly a million dollars on lawyers to go after me (nearly half that on a "liberal" lawyer who received megabucks as their outside counsel). If you are expecting anything but raw nasty dictatorial power to be running things in this city right now, I'm very sorry -- although touched by your idealism. The same thing happened to my friend Frank Coconate in the city. All of us who've done it and paid the price have a larger circle of real friends than the people who've bid their services to the highest bidders with less shame than the Clark St. whores who used to flag down my cab when the cops were sweeping the street 35 years ago. At least they had their self respect and knew their profession.
Special education in Chicago is a very special case in its ugliness because the victims of this era of "data driven management" are truly the least of everyone's brethren, in the Gospel sense (and in the way in which those words were quoted in Rufus Williams's hypocritical face at a Board meeting three months ago).
Anyone who wants to share the massive violations of Corey H as the teachers from Blair Early Childhood Center did last year -- signing their own names -- will see print, at least in the pages of Substance. You can find those eloquent letters in print in our The most eloquent were published in November 2006 (including the Blair letters) and the following month (Matt Cohen's lawsuit on the Jahn school case). But don't expect anything but the rewards that go from doing the right thing, and protecting the "least of my brethren" in the process.
As I watch these things unfold, incident after incident, it's clear that they worry greatly about the fact that the truth is told, even in the smallest corner of their empire. But the truth alone isn't stopping either their lies or the cynical deployment of those lies -- at enormous expenses (and consequent profit to those who are being paid to spread the lies like manure over the fields).
This past week, I've been thinking of the brilliance of the portrayal of that Burt Lancaster character (the "liberal" lawyer) in "Judgment at Nuremburg." At the present time, in this city, there are hundreds of very well paid individuals, all armed with words, data, and the other scaffoldings of lies, playing that same role to the dictatorship here.
Blow the whistle, but don't expect some Hollywood Erin Brockovitch (sp) happy ending to your story. The truth deserves to be told, even at cost. The history of the past 200 years shows it, in the long run. That history also shows that the worst of the liars (from recent ones like George W. Bush and Enron's Kenneth Lay all the way back to the preachers across the South who defending slavery as God's will) will eventually be outed, as that one bland wordsmith is in the Nuremberg movie.
But please don't expect the facts and the truth alone to prevail. It will take more patience for that to happen. But at least you can look your kids in the eye and explain what you did in the face of all this evil. That's more than most of the top people in these systems will be able to do. And at that point, the judgment will be in the eyes of their own sons and daughters. It always has been.
It's called "Kill the whistleblowers" and its Chicago doctrine -- just like "negative research" and the other childishness that's been dominant in public life these past couple of decades.
You blow the whistle and you get fired. That's why CPS spend nearly a million dollars on lawyers to go after me (nearly half that on a "liberal" lawyer who received megabucks as their outside counsel). If you are expecting anything but raw nasty dictatorial power to be running things in this city right now, I'm very sorry -- although touched by your idealism. The same thing happened to my friend Frank Coconate in the city. All of us who've done it and paid the price have a larger circle of real friends than the people who've bid their services to the highest bidders with less shame than the Clark St. whores who used to flag down my cab when the cops were sweeping the street 35 years ago. At least they had their self respect and knew their profession.
Special education in Chicago is a very special case in its ugliness because the victims of this era of "data driven management" are truly the least of everyone's brethren, in the Gospel sense (and in the way in which those words were quoted in Rufus Williams's hypocritical face at a Board meeting three months ago).
Anyone who wants to share the massive violations of Corey H as the teachers from Blair Early Childhood Center did last year -- signing their own names -- will see print, at least in the pages of Substance. You can find those eloquent letters in print in our The most eloquent were published in November 2006 (including the Blair letters) and the following month (Matt Cohen's lawsuit on the Jahn school case). But don't expect anything but the rewards that go from doing the right thing, and protecting the "least of my brethren" in the process.
As I watch these things unfold, incident after incident, it's clear that they worry greatly about the fact that the truth is told, even in the smallest corner of their empire. But the truth alone isn't stopping either their lies or the cynical deployment of those lies -- at enormous expenses (and consequent profit to those who are being paid to spread the lies like manure over the fields).
This past week, I've been thinking of the brilliance of the portrayal of that Burt Lancaster character (the "liberal" lawyer) in "Judgment at Nuremburg." At the present time, in this city, there are hundreds of very well paid individuals, all armed with words, data, and the other scaffoldings of lies, playing that same role to the dictatorship here.
Blow the whistle, but don't expect some Hollywood Erin Brockovitch (sp) happy ending to your story. The truth deserves to be told, even at cost. The history of the past 200 years shows it, in the long run. That history also shows that the worst of the liars (from recent ones like George W. Bush and Enron's Kenneth Lay all the way back to the preachers across the South who defending slavery as God's will) will eventually be outed, as that one bland wordsmith is in the Nuremberg movie.
But please don't expect the facts and the truth alone to prevail. It will take more patience for that to happen. But at least you can look your kids in the eye and explain what you did in the face of all this evil. That's more than most of the top people in these systems will be able to do. And at that point, the judgment will be in the eyes of their own sons and daughters. It always has been.
Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 11:34 AM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
How do you contact the Corey H. monitors?
Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 11:44 AM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Do you actually think Marilyn, who hires as her publicist someone whose husband was convicted of racketeering, going to do something for the union members.
It is under her watch now that the most schools hence members have been lost in the history of the union.
She is a cancer that is killing the CTU.
She must be stopped!
NOW!
I wonder how much she makes?
Anyone know what Stewart's salary is?
It is under her watch now that the most schools hence members have been lost in the history of the union.
She is a cancer that is killing the CTU.
She must be stopped!
NOW!
I wonder how much she makes?
Anyone know what Stewart's salary is?
Sat Feb 2, 2008 at 3:04 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Read tomorrow's Sun-Times about a whistleblower principal. No, it is not an oxymoron-a principal with ethics. Read how the CPS law department treated him. Read about his LSC.
I am at a school with a new principal who has ethics and our LSC is also villifying him because he refuses to compromise his integrity. Keep hiring principals with ethics-it gives veteran teachers like me, hope.
Please hire someone with ethics to overhaul our special education department.
I am at a school with a new principal who has ethics and our LSC is also villifying him because he refuses to compromise his integrity. Keep hiring principals with ethics-it gives veteran teachers like me, hope.
Please hire someone with ethics to overhaul our special education department.
Sat Feb 2, 2008 at 3:15 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
"Please hire someone with ethics to overhaul our special education department."
To do that, we'll have to start at the top of CPS and BOE, with everyone who control them, and with the OSS, on down to each school. Next step?
To do that, we'll have to start at the top of CPS and BOE, with everyone who control them, and with the OSS, on down to each school. Next step?
Sat Feb 2, 2008 at 3:24 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Sec. 1: Any member whose acts allegedly bring the Union into disrepute, or allegedly do the Union and the cause of union labor definite harm, may be tried on appropriate charges by the Executive Board sitting as the Trial Board, and, if found guilty, may be penalized by it, subject to appeal as hereinafter provided. The procedures of accusation and judgment shall be as follows:
a. Charges may be made against a member of the Union only by the other members. These charges must be made in writing and signed
by the accusers. The charges must specify the overt act or acts and the time and place of their occurance . They must also be filed
with the Recording Secretary, who shall at his/her earliest convenience, give to the President a verbatim copy of the charges, including the signatures.
disrepute - the state of being held in low esteem; "your actions will bring discredit to your name"; "because of the scandal the school has fallen into disrepute"
1. Internal union matters communicated to management.
2. In Solidarity with management.
3. No action against members loosing jobs.
a. Charges may be made against a member of the Union only by the other members. These charges must be made in writing and signed
by the accusers. The charges must specify the overt act or acts and the time and place of their occurance . They must also be filed
with the Recording Secretary, who shall at his/her earliest convenience, give to the President a verbatim copy of the charges, including the signatures.
disrepute - the state of being held in low esteem; "your actions will bring discredit to your name"; "because of the scandal the school has fallen into disrepute"
1. Internal union matters communicated to management.
2. In Solidarity with management.
3. No action against members loosing jobs.
Sat Feb 2, 2008 at 3:36 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Restore parents' real access to due process under IDEA 2004. Check this out:
http://www.copaa.net/news/IDEA_fairness.html. It details a Federal bill that would restore parents' rights to expert witness fees --- and we all know that due process is a battle of the "experts." The bill is called IDEA Fairness Restoration Act Introduced.
The link will take you to The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, Inc. (COPAA). COPAA is an independent, nonprofit organization of attorneys, special education advocates and parents. Its mission is to be a national voice for special education rights and to promote excellence in advocacy. Its primary goal is to secure high quality educational services for children with disabilities.
If you really want real access to due process, you should fax a letter to your congressional reps on the Hill and tell them to support the bill. Make a point of finding out how the candidates stand on the bill, too.
Act now, if you want to help disabled children and their families who are being denied their rights by CPS. Write the letter. Make the call.
http://www.copaa.net/news/IDEA_fairness.html. It details a Federal bill that would restore parents' rights to expert witness fees --- and we all know that due process is a battle of the "experts." The bill is called IDEA Fairness Restoration Act Introduced.
The link will take you to The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, Inc. (COPAA). COPAA is an independent, nonprofit organization of attorneys, special education advocates and parents. Its mission is to be a national voice for special education rights and to promote excellence in advocacy. Its primary goal is to secure high quality educational services for children with disabilities.
If you really want real access to due process, you should fax a letter to your congressional reps on the Hill and tell them to support the bill. Make a point of finding out how the candidates stand on the bill, too.
Act now, if you want to help disabled children and their families who are being denied their rights by CPS. Write the letter. Make the call.
Sat Feb 2, 2008 at 4:58 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Alexander there are problems commenting to the High-Level Strife Inside Chicago post.
They are not showing up
They are not showing up
Sat Feb 2, 2008 at 5:56 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
"...How do you contact the Corey H. monitors?..." (Fed Up. Jan 31).
Without sounding cynical, I think you would have an easier time contacting the judge directly with this question. And I'm serious about this. Despite the fact that the Corey H monitor receives about a half million per year to do the monitoring (at least that looks like the amount that comes from CPS; there may be more from ISBE), it is impossible to contact that person.
Last year, after the $26.5 million cuts to special education (the ones based on Arne's lies about the budget "decifit" that wasn't), I sat in court with people who had evidence of violations of Corey H going on that day. We watched the monitor stand in front of Judge Robert Gettleman and say there had been no violations that she was "aware of." The people who had come to court with evidence about violations -- remember, at real schools that day -- were ignored, and were warned they might be arrested if they disrupted the federal court by shouting out "Wait a minute!"
Later, I asked how she (the Corey H monitor) could become "aware of" such things as the dozens of violations that were unfolding in front of all of our eyes between September and December 2006.
She doesn't publicize any way to contact her.
She has not utilized that half million dollars a year to, say, start a website for parents, teachers, even principals (many principals are being squeezed into violating IDEA and Corey H, as you know, by CPS) to report problems, or alleged violations.
Her staff is not available to take calls from aggrieved parents and children. And as you know, in Chicago the majority of children who are violated by CPS when they trash IDEA are from the poorest families, so any serious enforcement requires a structure of support for those families (and the teachers or principals who might help them) against the CPS assault on truth and IDEA.
The monitor's job seems to be to collect money and ignore real time real world Corey H violations, while reporting to the judge that there are none. A few months after I witnessed the above incident, the infamous Jahn School incident took place, and one of the more famous attorneys for disabled rights (Matthew Cohen) brought the Jahn case directly into the court with a motion to intervene in the case. Judge Gettleman listened to Cohen argue and granted the motion -- because the facts were so clear and Cohen was so well known.
Had the attorney not been Matthew Cohen, or had the mother and child simply walked into court and sat there, that incident would never have come to the attention of the court.
But, as I say, it may be that someone who calls Judge (Robert) Gettleman's office with this question will get an answer -- or a brush off that would be worthy of a new story. While the official structure of Corey H is supposed to be to promote the rights of disabled children in Chicago's public schools, at this point the reality is that reporting seems to be the last thing anyone wants to happen in Corey H. It's as if CPS (along with ISBE) has been empowered to subvert Corey H while giving the appearance of compliance.
To date, even the most grotesque and dishonest betrayal of Corey H (Arne Duncan's 2006 lies about the "deficit" and the subsequent destruction of programs and services following the $26.5 million in cuts) have been allowed to go on. So you might say that each time CPS gets away with one of these Big Lies, the more bold they become in suppressing the truth.
Notice I haven't mentioned the name of the monitor. That name should be known to every family in Chicago which has a child with a disability. Instead, it's a secret kept as well as those "Weapons of Mass Destruction" that led the USA into Iraq. Some lies do big damage, and some do lesser damage.
Without sounding cynical, I think you would have an easier time contacting the judge directly with this question. And I'm serious about this. Despite the fact that the Corey H monitor receives about a half million per year to do the monitoring (at least that looks like the amount that comes from CPS; there may be more from ISBE), it is impossible to contact that person.
Last year, after the $26.5 million cuts to special education (the ones based on Arne's lies about the budget "decifit" that wasn't), I sat in court with people who had evidence of violations of Corey H going on that day. We watched the monitor stand in front of Judge Robert Gettleman and say there had been no violations that she was "aware of." The people who had come to court with evidence about violations -- remember, at real schools that day -- were ignored, and were warned they might be arrested if they disrupted the federal court by shouting out "Wait a minute!"
Later, I asked how she (the Corey H monitor) could become "aware of" such things as the dozens of violations that were unfolding in front of all of our eyes between September and December 2006.
She doesn't publicize any way to contact her.
She has not utilized that half million dollars a year to, say, start a website for parents, teachers, even principals (many principals are being squeezed into violating IDEA and Corey H, as you know, by CPS) to report problems, or alleged violations.
Her staff is not available to take calls from aggrieved parents and children. And as you know, in Chicago the majority of children who are violated by CPS when they trash IDEA are from the poorest families, so any serious enforcement requires a structure of support for those families (and the teachers or principals who might help them) against the CPS assault on truth and IDEA.
The monitor's job seems to be to collect money and ignore real time real world Corey H violations, while reporting to the judge that there are none. A few months after I witnessed the above incident, the infamous Jahn School incident took place, and one of the more famous attorneys for disabled rights (Matthew Cohen) brought the Jahn case directly into the court with a motion to intervene in the case. Judge Gettleman listened to Cohen argue and granted the motion -- because the facts were so clear and Cohen was so well known.
Had the attorney not been Matthew Cohen, or had the mother and child simply walked into court and sat there, that incident would never have come to the attention of the court.
But, as I say, it may be that someone who calls Judge (Robert) Gettleman's office with this question will get an answer -- or a brush off that would be worthy of a new story. While the official structure of Corey H is supposed to be to promote the rights of disabled children in Chicago's public schools, at this point the reality is that reporting seems to be the last thing anyone wants to happen in Corey H. It's as if CPS (along with ISBE) has been empowered to subvert Corey H while giving the appearance of compliance.
To date, even the most grotesque and dishonest betrayal of Corey H (Arne Duncan's 2006 lies about the "deficit" and the subsequent destruction of programs and services following the $26.5 million in cuts) have been allowed to go on. So you might say that each time CPS gets away with one of these Big Lies, the more bold they become in suppressing the truth.
Notice I haven't mentioned the name of the monitor. That name should be known to every family in Chicago which has a child with a disability. Instead, it's a secret kept as well as those "Weapons of Mass Destruction" that led the USA into Iraq. Some lies do big damage, and some do lesser damage.
Sat Feb 2, 2008 at 5:59 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
George you do know about the DOJ investigation of CPS ESL Administration?
Sat Feb 2, 2008 at 6:07 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
It's great to hear that one teacher was so successful!!!!!!!!!!! I hope more teachers follow his example.
I think the state of SPED in Chicago is reaching crisis level. It seems that schools are discouraging parents from seeking SPED services and are breaking promises in providing services. One parent I know was told that the afterschool program was equivalent to compensatory education. I wish the monitors and the state would do a better job of monitoring Chicago.
Please blog about your experiences so we can see if there is a pattern.
I think the state of SPED in Chicago is reaching crisis level. It seems that schools are discouraging parents from seeking SPED services and are breaking promises in providing services. One parent I know was told that the afterschool program was equivalent to compensatory education. I wish the monitors and the state would do a better job of monitoring Chicago.
Please blog about your experiences so we can see if there is a pattern.
Sat Feb 2, 2008 at 7:27 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
I really think that CPS needs to change the "Children's First" motto to "Children Last". I am a special ed teacher who was told not to give ESY to students unless they go through the majority of the year without any special ed teachers in sight. Many students need ESY to help them retain information during the summer. It is ridiculous that these policies are in force.
Sat Feb 2, 2008 at 9:05 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
I was told not to give ESY to students unless they are identified as TMH on their IEP.
Sat Feb 2, 2008 at 9:12 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
"...George you do know about the DOJ investigation of CPS ESL Administration?..."
Yes.
But I also watched George W. Bush and Richard M. Daley praising each other at the Union League Club January 7 after the No Child Left Behind show at Greeley. So let's just say I don't believe the DOJ has enough integrity or will to really do anything about all of the corruption, illegality, and viciousness at CPS. What is more likely to happen, as I noted about "whistleblowers", is that DOJ will somehow lose the information about who is helping with its investigations, and then the Daley people will get it and your principal will get a phone call from your AIO to nail you to a cross, or at least the nearest tree.
That's Chicago in the Year of Miracles 2008. Is there any reason to believe DOJ is less corrupt than any other outpost of the Daley-Bush regime?
Yes.
But I also watched George W. Bush and Richard M. Daley praising each other at the Union League Club January 7 after the No Child Left Behind show at Greeley. So let's just say I don't believe the DOJ has enough integrity or will to really do anything about all of the corruption, illegality, and viciousness at CPS. What is more likely to happen, as I noted about "whistleblowers", is that DOJ will somehow lose the information about who is helping with its investigations, and then the Daley people will get it and your principal will get a phone call from your AIO to nail you to a cross, or at least the nearest tree.
That's Chicago in the Year of Miracles 2008. Is there any reason to believe DOJ is less corrupt than any other outpost of the Daley-Bush regime?
Sun Feb 3, 2008 at 7:14 AM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
I sent a child with mild cognitive abilities to ESY and she was placed into a clasroom for children with severe-profound disabilities where she spent the entire 6 weeks reading to the children with autism. Mom says her daughter will not go to ESY again because she was not taught anything. CPS has effectively stopped the enrollment of any LD or mild cognitively disabled child from attending ESY. The monitor needs to study the data over time on the amount of monies that is NOT being spent on ESY. The data is there.
Also, we have children who need one on one aides but we are told by case managers that these children do not qualify for one on one aides because they are labeled LD. Many of these LD children, are in fact, autistic or EBD. It is an uphill battle for even the most experienced special education teacher to get a child retested. Many of these mislabeled children are being taught by non-tenured/non-certified special education teachers who have no experience in autism or emotional disorders. When even the head of the CPS autism department has no teaching experience in autism it comes as no surprise that we have so many unidentified children with autism.
Where are the ethics in the department of special education? I see subterfuge if not downright illegal manuevering to save monies on the backs of children who are the neediest in our system.
Also, we have children who need one on one aides but we are told by case managers that these children do not qualify for one on one aides because they are labeled LD. Many of these LD children, are in fact, autistic or EBD. It is an uphill battle for even the most experienced special education teacher to get a child retested. Many of these mislabeled children are being taught by non-tenured/non-certified special education teachers who have no experience in autism or emotional disorders. When even the head of the CPS autism department has no teaching experience in autism it comes as no surprise that we have so many unidentified children with autism.
Where are the ethics in the department of special education? I see subterfuge if not downright illegal manuevering to save monies on the backs of children who are the neediest in our system.
Sun Feb 3, 2008 at 10:09 AM
CTU, IFT, ISBE and CPS Special Education
What is the link between the CTU, IFT CPS and ISBE. Aren't there former/retired CPS employees who work for ISBE and former CTU employees who work for the IFT and ISBE. Maybe this is why special education teachers are drowning in unwritten illegal mandates, redundant paperwork and unmanageable caseloads.
Sun Feb 3, 2008 at 6:49 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Hey, as a CPS outsider, I know Chicago special education teachers have unmanageable caseloads, but I'd like to know what "unwritten illegal mandates" and "redundant paperwork" the teachers have to deal with. Knowing the specifics might help those of us who want to help you. Details, please?
Mon Feb 4, 2008 at 9:20 AM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Can someone please elaborate on the DOJ investigation of CPS ESL Administration? That department has had major turnover in the past 2 years.
Mon Feb 4, 2008 at 3:59 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
I am not naming my high achieving school because I believe my new principal will be singled out by OSS. He tries very hard to keep all of his special education personnel.
"illegal unwritten mandates" have included...no one gets ESY unless they are severe and profound (ISBE has a letter on its web-site in response to this matter), locks put on the computers at schools where case managers "over referred", no one gets a one on one aide unless the child is severe and profound
Inclusion caseloads are the same as resource caseloads yet they are totally different programs.
the lack of an online IEP- Impact will have one in the fall BUT it cannnot be saved so it will be useless-suburban teachers attend IEP meeting with their district supplied laptops and complete the IEP at the meeting...we have to handwrite much of the same information over and over-usually at home where there is quiet (special education teachers rarely have their own classrooms at school) I am talking about 25 page IEPs-handwritten!
Then if we want a child to attend ESY there is more paperwork to prove that the child will not retain information over a break-isn't the information on the IEP enough?
How about the fact that special education inclusion students have no support IF they are recommeded for the general education summer school for Bridge grades 3, 6 and 8. Aren't special education students supposed to have accesss to the same programs as general education students?
CPS has never hired sped ed teachers to work in the Bridge programs. The choice is to send the inclusion children to ESY (but the ESY population is not high incidence) or offer nothing because there is no support in the Bridge programs. I have a difficult time explaining this travesty to my students' parents.
"illegal unwritten mandates" have included...no one gets ESY unless they are severe and profound (ISBE has a letter on its web-site in response to this matter), locks put on the computers at schools where case managers "over referred", no one gets a one on one aide unless the child is severe and profound
Inclusion caseloads are the same as resource caseloads yet they are totally different programs.
the lack of an online IEP- Impact will have one in the fall BUT it cannnot be saved so it will be useless-suburban teachers attend IEP meeting with their district supplied laptops and complete the IEP at the meeting...we have to handwrite much of the same information over and over-usually at home where there is quiet (special education teachers rarely have their own classrooms at school) I am talking about 25 page IEPs-handwritten!
Then if we want a child to attend ESY there is more paperwork to prove that the child will not retain information over a break-isn't the information on the IEP enough?
How about the fact that special education inclusion students have no support IF they are recommeded for the general education summer school for Bridge grades 3, 6 and 8. Aren't special education students supposed to have accesss to the same programs as general education students?
CPS has never hired sped ed teachers to work in the Bridge programs. The choice is to send the inclusion children to ESY (but the ESY population is not high incidence) or offer nothing because there is no support in the Bridge programs. I have a difficult time explaining this travesty to my students' parents.
Tue Feb 5, 2008 at 7:10 AM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
We need help in Special Education. Caseloads are too large with too many children misdiagnosed.
Tue Feb 5, 2008 at 9:55 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
When I was Case Manager, I was told that because of Corey H. monitors coming into my school that I needed to change the percentage of time that students spent in self-contained classroom. They limited children in rooms more than 60% of the time to about 5% or the school would be sanctioned. Yet, they also said that only students serviced more than 60% could get ESY services. It was virtually impossible to get a student who was in the regular classroom even with a full-time aide into ESY. In some cases, I was told to reconvenue IEP meetings to change them from eligible to ineligible. Is this still going on?
Wed Feb 6, 2008 at 6:19 AM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Who would sanction the school? ISBE does nada.
Wed Feb 6, 2008 at 10:56 AM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Why doesn't the inspector general's office investigate as to whether special education laws are being followed. There is a lot of money from state and federal funds earmarked for special education. Does it all get to the children with disabilities?
Wed Feb 6, 2008 at 5:41 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Who uis investigating the high number of special education students who are being pushed into regular education classes (and totally disrupting the learning for all of the students in the class) under the guise of Corey H. inclusion? The reason CPS gives is that the state is mandating it, but the result is that the teachers in these regular ed classes as well as the regular and special education students are being overwhelmed and poorly served. Needless to say, no one is well educated in these instances.
Thu Feb 7, 2008 at 10:37 AM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
Inclusion is overly promoted by CPS because it frees up empty classrooms in overcrowded schools. This is very apparent on the southwest side. Inclusion with supports and services works-dumping children into gen ed rooms without support does not work.
Thu Feb 7, 2008 at 4:21 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
What is the caseload for inclusion programs?
Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 9:45 PM
Former Greeley Teacher Reinstated With $321K In Back Pay
What does inclusion look like in action? Parents have no idea.
