Gates, AUSL, & Closed Schools
Gates Foundation to give $10.3 million to 3 struggling Chicago schools Tribune
Some of the money would help fund the academy's takeover of Orr High School on the West Side and two of its feeder schools, Howe Elementary and Morton Elementary. Under the district's plan, which is expected to be approved by the Chicago Board of Education in February, the staff at all three schools would need to reapply for their jobs.
Gates to donate $10.3 million to CPS Chicago Sun Times
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is contributing $10.3 million to help fix the three ailing small schools in Orr High School, the subject of a series of academic fixes since 1995, as well as two other high schools, officials are expected to announce today.
Turnaround Schools Hunt for Top Teachers WBEZ
Chicago caused a national stir last week, when it announced it would replace teachers at four failing high schools and the elementary schools that feed them. This morning, the private group leading the reform effort at some of the schools is getting a ten million dollar vote of confidence from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Academy for Urban School Leadership says the money will provide critical support, as it tries to recruit and hire more than a hundred top teachers.
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Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 6:24 PM
Gates, AUSL, & Closed Schools
I'll have some more about this morning's AUSL dog and pony show at Sherman later, but on first pass it was an amazing production. We were in the north building where the littlest children are. I had a hunch the reason for that was that AUSL didn't want to risk us being in the south building, which houses the upper grades.
That said, for all the Daley adulation on display, nobody could answer the question about the Gates Foundation's former Flavor of the Month spending sprees in Chicago. Steve Seleznow, from Gates, did verbal cartwheels when asked (not by me, but by other reporters) whether Gates was abandoning "Small Schools" as a strategy, since AUSL was going to be purging the Orrs, which was one of the previous Small Schools outposts in CPS.
Daley was the most interesting. He actually told people the reason he decided to close down the present Orrs and replace them with the new AUSL Orr was that he had talked with the students and that was that. None of the big shots would explain how they were going to meet with the teachers and other staff at the schools they are closing down and explain how they had "failed" when they had been following the previous Flavor of the Month sure fire school reform project.
It's clear that Gates loves Chicago. There was a little riff about how Gates was convinced to double the amount going to AUSL from $5 million to $10 million because of how woundrous it all is.
Nobody was ready to do more than the usual marketing talk, and there were no real data sets or comparative data sets offered. For such a "data driven" bunch (including of course the Gates people), there was a paucity of data about the Sherman School of Excellence, and nothing at all except heart warming anecdotes about Harvard, which is the other AUSL "turnaround" project.
Despite the disruption of the events announced by the snow and traffic (I was late because of the Kennedy traffic, but the whole thing began very late so I was not late), a lot was said. The day was supposed to be in two parts, according to the AUSL press release: the press conference, then a tour of the building. When the press conference ended, however, CPS communications people told me there was no tour, because, they said, the mayor had to leave.
Actually, there were two tours, but only for select media. I tagged along after Channel 5 on one for a time, until I realized we were in a building that didn't go higher than third grade. Fifteen minutes after the official press conference was over, Daley left, having been on a "by invitation only" press event in the same building.
And, as I said, nobody was allowed in the south building, where the upper grade kids are. Off limits and all that.
Rufus Williams told me that he'd "think about" meeting with the teachers in the schools he's closing. After all, he supposedly went to Orr (when it was Orr High School, before it became the Orrs). He was resolutely vague on how and when he would do this, but seemed to actually think through an answer to the question about how he would look the teachers in the eye and tell them they were fired. AUSL has no intention of keeping the teachers who just jumped for five years through the previous hoops -- at the Orrs, or at Harper or the four elementary schools getting the latest axe.
Arne Duncan is going to have to begin traveling with that legendary teacher from Williams elementary school. In addition to claiming that the Williams test scores went way up (actually, they had gone up when the scores came out just as Duncan was axing the "old" school), Duncan tells this Reaganesque anecdote about a teacher who made the transition from the bad old Williams to the wonderful new Williams, and how she shares her stories about the terrible "culture" of the old Williams regularly with Arne.
She (it's a "she" he always uses in the little story he tells) is apparently still working at the "New Williams". She is taking on the status in Arne's anecdotes of the legendary "Welfare Queen" with the Cadillac that Ronald Reagan used to bash to the delight of his equally reactionary audiences. I can't wait to meet her and ask her to sit down with a couple of her former colleagues and tell us all about that terrible "culture" that Arne saved everyone from. I think I'll call the event the annual Catherine Peacher memorial breakfast. We'll see if Arne and his Welfare Cadillac lady will show up.
I guess it's impossible for reporters to ask that Arne and Rich Daley keep the cheering section out of a press conference. It was funny to watch the cheering at the requisite applause lines in each of the speeches. Arne had packed the room with about 40 (by my count) official AUSL cheerleaders, so it was difficult for reporters and crews to squeeze in. At least none of the reporters and crews joined in the required cheerleading.
That said, for all the Daley adulation on display, nobody could answer the question about the Gates Foundation's former Flavor of the Month spending sprees in Chicago. Steve Seleznow, from Gates, did verbal cartwheels when asked (not by me, but by other reporters) whether Gates was abandoning "Small Schools" as a strategy, since AUSL was going to be purging the Orrs, which was one of the previous Small Schools outposts in CPS.
Daley was the most interesting. He actually told people the reason he decided to close down the present Orrs and replace them with the new AUSL Orr was that he had talked with the students and that was that. None of the big shots would explain how they were going to meet with the teachers and other staff at the schools they are closing down and explain how they had "failed" when they had been following the previous Flavor of the Month sure fire school reform project.
It's clear that Gates loves Chicago. There was a little riff about how Gates was convinced to double the amount going to AUSL from $5 million to $10 million because of how woundrous it all is.
Nobody was ready to do more than the usual marketing talk, and there were no real data sets or comparative data sets offered. For such a "data driven" bunch (including of course the Gates people), there was a paucity of data about the Sherman School of Excellence, and nothing at all except heart warming anecdotes about Harvard, which is the other AUSL "turnaround" project.
Despite the disruption of the events announced by the snow and traffic (I was late because of the Kennedy traffic, but the whole thing began very late so I was not late), a lot was said. The day was supposed to be in two parts, according to the AUSL press release: the press conference, then a tour of the building. When the press conference ended, however, CPS communications people told me there was no tour, because, they said, the mayor had to leave.
Actually, there were two tours, but only for select media. I tagged along after Channel 5 on one for a time, until I realized we were in a building that didn't go higher than third grade. Fifteen minutes after the official press conference was over, Daley left, having been on a "by invitation only" press event in the same building.
And, as I said, nobody was allowed in the south building, where the upper grade kids are. Off limits and all that.
Rufus Williams told me that he'd "think about" meeting with the teachers in the schools he's closing. After all, he supposedly went to Orr (when it was Orr High School, before it became the Orrs). He was resolutely vague on how and when he would do this, but seemed to actually think through an answer to the question about how he would look the teachers in the eye and tell them they were fired. AUSL has no intention of keeping the teachers who just jumped for five years through the previous hoops -- at the Orrs, or at Harper or the four elementary schools getting the latest axe.
Arne Duncan is going to have to begin traveling with that legendary teacher from Williams elementary school. In addition to claiming that the Williams test scores went way up (actually, they had gone up when the scores came out just as Duncan was axing the "old" school), Duncan tells this Reaganesque anecdote about a teacher who made the transition from the bad old Williams to the wonderful new Williams, and how she shares her stories about the terrible "culture" of the old Williams regularly with Arne.
She (it's a "she" he always uses in the little story he tells) is apparently still working at the "New Williams". She is taking on the status in Arne's anecdotes of the legendary "Welfare Queen" with the Cadillac that Ronald Reagan used to bash to the delight of his equally reactionary audiences. I can't wait to meet her and ask her to sit down with a couple of her former colleagues and tell us all about that terrible "culture" that Arne saved everyone from. I think I'll call the event the annual Catherine Peacher memorial breakfast. We'll see if Arne and his Welfare Cadillac lady will show up.
I guess it's impossible for reporters to ask that Arne and Rich Daley keep the cheering section out of a press conference. It was funny to watch the cheering at the requisite applause lines in each of the speeches. Arne had packed the room with about 40 (by my count) official AUSL cheerleaders, so it was difficult for reporters and crews to squeeze in. At least none of the reporters and crews joined in the required cheerleading.
Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 9:19 PM
Gates, AUSL, & Closed Schools
Gates Foundation to give $10.3 million to 3 struggling Chicago schools Tribune
For that money the Orrs et al could hire 200 teachers and give small-group instruction. That could be the model that has a better chance of succeeding.
For that money the Orrs et al could hire 200 teachers and give small-group instruction. That could be the model that has a better chance of succeeding.
Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 10:46 PM
Gates, AUSL, & Closed Schools
Maybe people would be more interested in taking George on tours if he didn't interrupt the real journalists in the room to ask badly-constructed, loaded questions. (The blue jeans and poor hygiene don't help buy credibility either.) CPS or AUSL or whoever need to stop giving him press passes. When did having the time to sit around ranting on blogs all day turn into a qualification for meaningful reporting?
Fri Feb 1, 2008 at 1:06 AM
Gates, AUSL, & Closed Schools
While I don't agree with everything George writes, I find all of his posts to be well worth my time to read. It's a little disappointing to read someone equating jeans with credibility -- that's such a shallow statement of the status quo. As for 'real journalists', I'd have to put them in the extinct category. The talking heads in the news are just infotainment, while serious reporting gets buried by biased editors. Here's an example from those 'real journalists'. A front page article in yesterday's Trib was an article on how watching the Super Bowl can be stressful. Now there's some quality reporting that'll save a few schools.
George, please keep banging away on your keyboard. I prefer your amateurish 'rants'.
George, please keep banging away on your keyboard. I prefer your amateurish 'rants'.
Fri Feb 1, 2008 at 3:16 AM
Gates, AUSL, & Closed Schools
One of the strangest things about yesterday's performance by "calling an editorial and editorial" was that when he tried to kiss me he was the one who needed the Scope. Most of the reporters I admired for years (some now long gone) and some I half respect today don't spend much time following the AUSL dress code. In fact, it's only the TV reporters who seem to care much in that regard.
My question yesterday was straightforward, and had to do with how CPS (and AUSL, for that matter) officials were going to explain their decision face to face to the teachers and principals they are in the process of slandering and firing.
That question will be asked again when Arne and those other heroes dodge the hearings that begin Monday and leave underlings and hirelings to do the jobs. I'll bet my wardrobe now that not one member of the Board of Education is at those hearings. Arne will be so far away he can't even hear the screams of those he's attacking with those bland stares and carefully scripted lines. It's part of how he shows that "courage" AUSL and the Tribune's editorial board are always praising him for.
Since he began this orgy of teacher bashing with Williams and Dodge, the script has always been the same. He has not gone to one of the hearings. Nor will be bother to read the full report. Nor will the members of the Chicago Board of Education. And when someone challenges his sabotage of the general high schools or the inner city community elementary schools, he practices his Donald Trump voice and bellows "You're fired!" (Principal Marty McGreal, August 2006, for objecting to the forced overcrowding -- i.e., Duncanian sabotage -- of Gage Park High School).
The same questions have been around since Arne did Dodge and Williams (April – June 2002), and since the following year when all the Dodge and Williams dog and pony shows began (the grand reopenings in September 2003).
Are you going to explain all this in person to the people you’re attacking this month?
I repeated my question of yesterday later to Rufus Williams.
After all, the only thing the teachers (and principals) at the Orrs (and the other schools) have done wrong was staying in the inner city too long. Everyone knows that the Daley administration has targeted every inner city high school for sabotage, slander, then "turnaround." And about a hundred elementary schools. And of course if that doesn't work they can declare the school "underutilized." Or "dangerous." Or maybe infested with fleas? The trick is for them to control the narrative, and that was what yesterday was about. The Gates dollars have been pouring in for a long time. All to sustain that same pack of corporate lies.
As public policy, this entire "turnaround" scam guarantees that real teachers (as opposed to those being turned out in the corporate cookie cutters) avoid inner city teaching in Chicago forever.
For the past six years, the teachers who actually followed every twist and turn in the official script have been proven the suckers. How many thousands of hours have teachers spent on building “small schools” and “small learning communities” since July 2001? That's when Arne Duncan became CPS CEO based on absolutely no experience or certification to do schooling. Anyone from the Orrs can tell you how many meetings, mission statements, vision manifestations, and team building experiences they've been forced through.
They’re made to jump through a thousand hoops, then blamed when they finally collapse from exhaustion.
The Daley administration attack on public schools has been playing for a long time, long enough to have an enormously expensive record of failure.
Remember, this all began with “academic probation” (1996), then continued through “reconstitution” (1997), swept along in “reengineering” (1998), then continued with that ludicrous “intervention” (2000), followed by “small schools” (most of those years) and continues now with “turnaround.”
At every point, it’s pure and simple corporate teacher bashing. And it’s cruel. And the sure-fire plans corporate “school reform” has imposed have always included teacher bashing, right down to yesterday at Sherman.
This particular kind of cruelty was pioneered by the Daley administration as far back as when they destroyed the old Lucy Flower Vocational High School (which, by the way, they could never claim was "failing" based on test scores), helping to kill the former principal in the process. Every year, CPS came up with a new demand that the Flower people couldn't somehow catch up with. Finally, after bleeding the place for three years, they attacked what was left. Since, Arne's been slandering the memory of the place every time he talks about that little item. It's no different from that convenient out of context libelous anecdote he's carrying around from the anonymous Williams "teacher" about how bad things were before Arne and the mayor saved her and her school.
The dominant narrative requires that kind of stuff. As a result, any teacher (or principal) who voluntarily remains at a general high school or community elementary school serving Chicago's poorest children and teenagers is eventually going to be turned around, transformed, or something. The "bottom line" (as they love to say) is that the teachers are going to be dumped on, then dumped. Then the new cast will come on stage, while the myrmidons of mayoral power slander the former teachers behind their backs (and with those ugly Reaganesque anecdotes like the "Williams teacher.")
The question was about explaining the destruction of the teachers' lives and reputations on behalf of yet another in the long long line of Flavor of the Month corporate "school reform" sure fire guaranteed this one will work trust me changes.
I know. I know. "All change is hard."
Instead of answering my question, Arne and the Mayor's entourage ended the press conference right then and there.
Then they played the tour on fast forward, while, as noted above, they left out most of Sherman. As everyone who's been at Arne's carefully choreographed media events knows, Arne does this all the time. Last week it was "I'll get back to you on that" when he was asked for the data sets upon which these latest claims were based. Oh, and there’s always that chorus of cheerleaders, most of whom are there to keep their cushy jobs, when the show is on.
I’m still waiting for the documentation for all those one-liners Arne spewed out last week. Now there’s a whole new bunch of them from yesterday.
Last week, the non-answer to a question about facts was “I’ll get back to you on that.”
Yesterday it was to give the whole dog and pony show the hook.
My question yesterday was straightforward, and had to do with how CPS (and AUSL, for that matter) officials were going to explain their decision face to face to the teachers and principals they are in the process of slandering and firing.
That question will be asked again when Arne and those other heroes dodge the hearings that begin Monday and leave underlings and hirelings to do the jobs. I'll bet my wardrobe now that not one member of the Board of Education is at those hearings. Arne will be so far away he can't even hear the screams of those he's attacking with those bland stares and carefully scripted lines. It's part of how he shows that "courage" AUSL and the Tribune's editorial board are always praising him for.
Since he began this orgy of teacher bashing with Williams and Dodge, the script has always been the same. He has not gone to one of the hearings. Nor will be bother to read the full report. Nor will the members of the Chicago Board of Education. And when someone challenges his sabotage of the general high schools or the inner city community elementary schools, he practices his Donald Trump voice and bellows "You're fired!" (Principal Marty McGreal, August 2006, for objecting to the forced overcrowding -- i.e., Duncanian sabotage -- of Gage Park High School).
The same questions have been around since Arne did Dodge and Williams (April – June 2002), and since the following year when all the Dodge and Williams dog and pony shows began (the grand reopenings in September 2003).
Are you going to explain all this in person to the people you’re attacking this month?
I repeated my question of yesterday later to Rufus Williams.
After all, the only thing the teachers (and principals) at the Orrs (and the other schools) have done wrong was staying in the inner city too long. Everyone knows that the Daley administration has targeted every inner city high school for sabotage, slander, then "turnaround." And about a hundred elementary schools. And of course if that doesn't work they can declare the school "underutilized." Or "dangerous." Or maybe infested with fleas? The trick is for them to control the narrative, and that was what yesterday was about. The Gates dollars have been pouring in for a long time. All to sustain that same pack of corporate lies.
As public policy, this entire "turnaround" scam guarantees that real teachers (as opposed to those being turned out in the corporate cookie cutters) avoid inner city teaching in Chicago forever.
For the past six years, the teachers who actually followed every twist and turn in the official script have been proven the suckers. How many thousands of hours have teachers spent on building “small schools” and “small learning communities” since July 2001? That's when Arne Duncan became CPS CEO based on absolutely no experience or certification to do schooling. Anyone from the Orrs can tell you how many meetings, mission statements, vision manifestations, and team building experiences they've been forced through.
They’re made to jump through a thousand hoops, then blamed when they finally collapse from exhaustion.
The Daley administration attack on public schools has been playing for a long time, long enough to have an enormously expensive record of failure.
Remember, this all began with “academic probation” (1996), then continued through “reconstitution” (1997), swept along in “reengineering” (1998), then continued with that ludicrous “intervention” (2000), followed by “small schools” (most of those years) and continues now with “turnaround.”
At every point, it’s pure and simple corporate teacher bashing. And it’s cruel. And the sure-fire plans corporate “school reform” has imposed have always included teacher bashing, right down to yesterday at Sherman.
This particular kind of cruelty was pioneered by the Daley administration as far back as when they destroyed the old Lucy Flower Vocational High School (which, by the way, they could never claim was "failing" based on test scores), helping to kill the former principal in the process. Every year, CPS came up with a new demand that the Flower people couldn't somehow catch up with. Finally, after bleeding the place for three years, they attacked what was left. Since, Arne's been slandering the memory of the place every time he talks about that little item. It's no different from that convenient out of context libelous anecdote he's carrying around from the anonymous Williams "teacher" about how bad things were before Arne and the mayor saved her and her school.
The dominant narrative requires that kind of stuff. As a result, any teacher (or principal) who voluntarily remains at a general high school or community elementary school serving Chicago's poorest children and teenagers is eventually going to be turned around, transformed, or something. The "bottom line" (as they love to say) is that the teachers are going to be dumped on, then dumped. Then the new cast will come on stage, while the myrmidons of mayoral power slander the former teachers behind their backs (and with those ugly Reaganesque anecdotes like the "Williams teacher.")
The question was about explaining the destruction of the teachers' lives and reputations on behalf of yet another in the long long line of Flavor of the Month corporate "school reform" sure fire guaranteed this one will work trust me changes.
I know. I know. "All change is hard."
Instead of answering my question, Arne and the Mayor's entourage ended the press conference right then and there.
Then they played the tour on fast forward, while, as noted above, they left out most of Sherman. As everyone who's been at Arne's carefully choreographed media events knows, Arne does this all the time. Last week it was "I'll get back to you on that" when he was asked for the data sets upon which these latest claims were based. Oh, and there’s always that chorus of cheerleaders, most of whom are there to keep their cushy jobs, when the show is on.
I’m still waiting for the documentation for all those one-liners Arne spewed out last week. Now there’s a whole new bunch of them from yesterday.
Last week, the non-answer to a question about facts was “I’ll get back to you on that.”
Yesterday it was to give the whole dog and pony show the hook.
Fri Feb 1, 2008 at 10:01 AM
Gates, AUSL, & Closed Schools
While there have been many retirements this year and last, the majority of people placed in the principal preparation pipeline programs are young people with 5 years, sometimes less teaching experience.
Other districts are scrambling to re-hire our recent experienced retirees as principals and superintendents (yes, even CPS retirees, such as Janice Rosales), while CPS packs the leadership ranks with young and/or inexperienced people they can manipulate,dazzle and then own with salaries that are twice what they were previously making (check it out, one of them has something like four years teaching experience tops - the last one was as a substitute teacher in the suburbs).
This way none of the people at the helm even question what they are doing to infrastructure and neighborhoods, or even realize that the area is going to get fewer, not more resources.
After all, they are the heroes who were put there to 'clean up the mess'; they won't realize the mess was largely caused by neglect, cutoff of resources and central mismanagement until it is too late.
Other districts are scrambling to re-hire our recent experienced retirees as principals and superintendents (yes, even CPS retirees, such as Janice Rosales), while CPS packs the leadership ranks with young and/or inexperienced people they can manipulate,dazzle and then own with salaries that are twice what they were previously making (check it out, one of them has something like four years teaching experience tops - the last one was as a substitute teacher in the suburbs).
This way none of the people at the helm even question what they are doing to infrastructure and neighborhoods, or even realize that the area is going to get fewer, not more resources.
After all, they are the heroes who were put there to 'clean up the mess'; they won't realize the mess was largely caused by neglect, cutoff of resources and central mismanagement until it is too late.
Fri Feb 1, 2008 at 4:14 PM
Gates, AUSL, & Closed Schools
I'll take George's comments any day over the weak reporting on education across this city. Even Catalyst. Go deeper, you reporters. Get educated on what's really happening in public education in Chicago. "Reading George" can be a good start for that.
Mon Feb 4, 2008 at 12:14 AM
Gates, AUSL, & Closed Schools
Great question.
No one told our entire school face to face about the proposal. It was not until a week later that someone came to talk to the staff. A letter was read to the staff. The children recieved one to take home. The staff did not recieve the same letter until almost a week later in the mail.
The information in the letters was much different than what was said in the meeting.
The letters home were delivered to each classroom with the student's name on each envelope. When has anyone ever seen that leve of organization at the Board? How long has this really been in the works? Not a chance the union did not know about this while negotiating the contract.
George you keep asking questions. No guarantee you will get answers but keep asking!
No one told our entire school face to face about the proposal. It was not until a week later that someone came to talk to the staff. A letter was read to the staff. The children recieved one to take home. The staff did not recieve the same letter until almost a week later in the mail.
The information in the letters was much different than what was said in the meeting.
The letters home were delivered to each classroom with the student's name on each envelope. When has anyone ever seen that leve of organization at the Board? How long has this really been in the works? Not a chance the union did not know about this while negotiating the contract.
George you keep asking questions. No guarantee you will get answers but keep asking!
Mon Feb 4, 2008 at 3:28 AM
Gates, AUSL, & Closed Schools
Marilyn knew about all these school closings. That is why she removed the other officers on a number of occasions from the bargaining room. She even refused to have a union stenographer.
This is a fact!
This is a fact!
Mon Feb 4, 2008 at 9:20 AM
Gates, AUSL, & Closed Schools
"...Marilyn knew about all these school closings. That is why she removed the other officers on a number of occasions from the bargaining room. She even refused to have a union stenographer. This is a fact!..."
I've heard this from one other source, and if it's true, it explains the connection between the $700,000 MacArthur Foundation grant to the Quest Center (whose hiring Marilyn controls completely) and the new contract. CTU can lose another 1,000 members sold out by Marilyn and still maintain her levels of patronage at the Merchandise Mart with those dollars. And the MacArthur people are thiscloseto Gates in the "school turnaround" scam. The former MacArthur guy, as most people here knows, also helps spin the WTTW "facts" about what's going on in CPS. The corporate noose around the necks of most Chicago teachers is very tight, and most don't even realize all the ways it's being pulled, from "studies" that are pre-ordained to Catalyst's "reporting" to the stuff people will begin hearing at tonight's hearing when CPS begins to roll out all those cooked books from "Demographics" and "Research and Accountability".
If CTU had not been purging most of the people who could see through these layers of scamming, teachers at the school under attack this week might have more of a chance. As it is, Marilyn Stewart can't even explain the difference between percentiles, stanines, and standard deviations, so the CPS Enron style accounting used by Arne Duncan scams her every time they go face to face.
This year, the warning is to everyone. When CPS got away with closing LeMoyne's nationally famous program, it was one shot. Arne is as determined to destroy excellence as he is to kill what he calls "failure" (which is usually a dedication to the democratic idea that every kid should get a high school education, as now only practiced at the "failing" general high schools). The attacks on Edison and Andersen are an example of that. Whitney Young will be next if Arne gets away with these. Mark this spot.
It's going to be very ugly, and the purchase of some of the leaders of the third largest K-12 AFT local in the USA was a necessary condition for what's unfolding now. An amazing thing is that not all of them were willing to be bought.
I've heard this from one other source, and if it's true, it explains the connection between the $700,000 MacArthur Foundation grant to the Quest Center (whose hiring Marilyn controls completely) and the new contract. CTU can lose another 1,000 members sold out by Marilyn and still maintain her levels of patronage at the Merchandise Mart with those dollars. And the MacArthur people are thiscloseto Gates in the "school turnaround" scam. The former MacArthur guy, as most people here knows, also helps spin the WTTW "facts" about what's going on in CPS. The corporate noose around the necks of most Chicago teachers is very tight, and most don't even realize all the ways it's being pulled, from "studies" that are pre-ordained to Catalyst's "reporting" to the stuff people will begin hearing at tonight's hearing when CPS begins to roll out all those cooked books from "Demographics" and "Research and Accountability".
If CTU had not been purging most of the people who could see through these layers of scamming, teachers at the school under attack this week might have more of a chance. As it is, Marilyn Stewart can't even explain the difference between percentiles, stanines, and standard deviations, so the CPS Enron style accounting used by Arne Duncan scams her every time they go face to face.
This year, the warning is to everyone. When CPS got away with closing LeMoyne's nationally famous program, it was one shot. Arne is as determined to destroy excellence as he is to kill what he calls "failure" (which is usually a dedication to the democratic idea that every kid should get a high school education, as now only practiced at the "failing" general high schools). The attacks on Edison and Andersen are an example of that. Whitney Young will be next if Arne gets away with these. Mark this spot.
It's going to be very ugly, and the purchase of some of the leaders of the third largest K-12 AFT local in the USA was a necessary condition for what's unfolding now. An amazing thing is that not all of them were willing to be bought.
