Marshall High and other turnaround high schools, in Chicago and nationally, face a thorny dilemma. Higher-performing students are being siphoned off through competition, driving down enrollment and raising tough policy questions about the future of these schools.
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Huberman Hype
By: Alexander Russo / July 16, 2009
"If this uber-technocrat makes serious progress,
he will stride toward his rumored destiny as Daley’s heir."
From Chicago Magazine's new profile of Huberman, "Numb3rs Man."
Huberman Hype
Goodness gracious when will someone do something about this ridiculous practice of hiring retired administrators, principals, chiefs, etc. as consultants! They are already collecting a pension well over $100,000. and then make an additional $75,000. - $85,000. "consulting"! Some do it for years after retirement, look at Jackie Anderson and Jack Harnedy and Domingo Trujillo to name a few. It's a joke and then they brag about it! Two come to mind but there are many more! Come on Olga Laluz consulting what? How to be a hateful B----and her buddy Sandra Fontanez-Phelan consulting what? How to spend 10 hours a day in your school barefoot and accomplish nothing? The Board of Education should pass a policy that does not allow this type of waste of money on people who have retired. So many classroom cuts and then people like the aforemention brag about making more money which would truly be spent better in a classroom. Somebody do something!
Huberman Hype
Goodness gracious when will someone do something about this ridiculous practice of hiring retired administrators, principals, chiefs, etc. as consultants! They are already collecting a pension well over $100,000. and then make an additional $75,000. - $85,000. "consulting"! Some do it for years after retirement, look at Jackie Anderson and Jack Harnedy and Domingo Trujillo to name a few. It's a joke and then they brag about it! Two come to mind but there are many more! Come on Olga Laluz consulting what? How to be a hateful B----and her buddy Sandra Fontanez-Phelan consulting what? How to spend 10 hours a day in your school barefoot and accomplish nothing? The Board of Education should pass a policy that does not allow this type of waste of money on people who have retired. So many classroom cuts and then people like the aforemention brag about making more money which would truly be spent better in a classroom. Somebody do something!
Huberman Hype
The fact that there was anyone at the board meeting with black armbands (WHICH THERE WAS), and Julie Woestehoff and her crazy ass voodoo doll thing that she carried, which "represented the death of all students by the board doing nothing" or whatever crazy ass thing she said, just tells you that people get completely irrational about school closing (and wow, what a thing to walk into as a new CEO!). A picture's worth a thousand words, George, but no picture doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Huberman Hype
Talking about making more money after retiring - how about Rosa Ramirez and Marietta Beverly who "consult" for the Cluster 4 Offices and make well over 85K?
Huberman Hype
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2009/Numbers-Man/
Huberman Hype
you should read the string--this is the second time this entry by you has been posted
Huberman Hype
THE FOLLOWING IS THE COMMENT ALEXANDER REMOVED YESTERDAY. I've reread it and decided to put it here again. I have also discussed this subject with the Substance staff and only because we have so many other stories to cover (tomorrow is the Board meeting), we're not going to revisit this except in "Media Watch" in our print edition.
I'll try to be brief.
We're discussing the integrity of a major report, published in a magazine owned by the Tribune Corporation, that deals with Chicago's public schools.
Here is one paragraph from that article which to the average reader would seem to be a report of a fact (although it is not attributed to a source, which generally means that the reporter is the source):
"At his first school board meeting, Huberman was greeted with boos from outraged parents and teachers in black armbands. Most critics, however, weren't really attacking Huberman. They were condemning a school system that has been failing students for decades." (Numbers Man, Chicago Magazine, August 2009, at p. 127).
Substance has covered every meeting of the Chicago Board of Education in 2009. Those meetings took place on January 28, February 25, March 25, April 22, May 27, and June 24. Ron Huberman was in the CEO seat almost all of the time at all of them. The "first meeting" at which Ron Huberman was in the CEO seat took place on January 28, 2009 at CPS headquarters at 125 S. Clark St. in Chicago.
Although Substance has more than one reporter at each Board meeting, it's possible we miss something that takes place at the Board meeting. Much is going on, and many times members of the public are relegated to "holding rooms" on other floors, where they watch the meetings on closed circuit TV until their particular issue and speaker is called.
Because of this complexity, we have also tried, from time to time, to review both our audio tapes of the meetings and the official video that broadcasts on Chicago Cable TV.
Since January, I have taken between 300 and 500 digital photographs on the day of each Board meeting (many of those have been of protests that took place downstairs from the Board meeting or outside on the sidewalk). Other Substance reporters also take photographs, although that is my main job. Some meetings, we also have a videographer.
Those three sentences above purport to the average intelligent reader three facts about the January 28, 2009 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education.
There is no attribution for these alleged facts, and our review of the three sentences lead us to believe that none of those "facts" is a fact.
First, there may have been one or two "parents" who were wearing black armbands at the January 28 Board meeting (Huberman's first), but our photographs do not show any.
Second, the majority of the teachers who spoke at the Board meeting were not wearing black armbands.
Third, there was no one from Chicago magazine at the January 28 Board meeting sitting among the press. The Tribune reporter is not cited in the Chicago magazine article as a source for these "facts."
Fourth, although there were boos at the Board meeting, they came usually over the question of the 2009 "Hit List" of schools to be closed, phased out, consolidated, or subjected to turnaround. Few, if any, of the boos were directed at Huberman personally.
Fifth, none of the parents to whom we spoke during the protests on the day of the January 28, 2009, Board meeting or at the meeting talked about "a system that has been failing for decades." None.
Most of the 31 people who signed up to speak spoke (four were listed as "Spoke Last Month" which generally means they won't be speaking this month).
Most of those who spoke were critical of Chicago Board of Education policies (most notably the proposed closings, etc.).
Of those who spoke, most can easily be reached by phone. Some (the two people from PURE, Wanda Hopkins and Julie Woestehoff) have been widely quoted in the press over the years.
Of the teachers who spoke (at least 11), each listed his or her school and could easily have been reached by calling the school and leaving a message. They all knew they were on the public record by speaking to the Board, and most have been on the record since.
The President of the Chicago Teachers Union, Marilyn Stewart, spoke and did not complain about a system that has filed for "decades."
Two of those who spoke spoke in favor of CPS policies and items on the agenda for that day. Neither of them spoke about anything that had been failing for "decades" or any other time period.
Most of the speakers were critical of the CPS policies that were being implemented at that time (especially the phase outs, etc.).
The paragraph quoted above as fact is fiction.
--
Huberman Hype
no break needed and you short shrift the whole thisn with your obsession with GS. The guy could ahve asked for 1 source, one listed above--easy-and if her read this blog, well he has a big source there. GS was not the only one who commented or are you only after him and that satisfies you?
Huberman Hype
Chicago Magazine is also often advocacy journalism as it has a primary goal of advocating for Chicago. It is not hard hitting in general although periodically it jumps into the frenzy.
Give the reporter a break. He will learn that one should never try to make Schmidt happy and Schmidt is no barometer of quality journalism. He may think he is the standard bearer. He is not.
Huberman Hype
to the Chicago magazine people so they can learn from their mistakes--or is it jusrt left here in blogland?
If this does not get sent to them, or Alexander does not bring it to there attention--well then so what? Really--if we do not educate, they will only make the same mistakes and create fistion over and over. And George--you are never brief. (No slam intended.)
Happy Monday Y'all.
Huberman Hype
I believe Substance is advocacy journalism - and I'm OK with that. Chicago Magazine is not presented as an advocacy publication, and I'd expect "fair and balanced reporting" (there is no such thing as "objective" reporting). As it stands, I believe I gain more from Substance than from Chicago Magazine (or the Tribune for that matter).
Huberman Hype
no guarantees, but i'm pretty sure that blitstein and other reporters in town are watching this comment thread.
he and i emailed about the story and i know he's interested to see what people think.
so far, it's been pretty interesting and useful, i think.
-- alexnader
Huberman Hype
Amen to the commentator above. Balanced and fair reporting, George? really.....I guess for you it's your definition of balanced and fair
Huberman Hype
Grady was fired by Valas, He hooked up with Schmidt when that happened and they have been an unlikely pair ever since. Grady was a disaster when he ran high schools. He was one of the most political administrators I have ever seen. It was all about his friends.
And as for Mr. Schmidt's plea for balanced and fair reporting, when in the world was the last time anyone can remember a balanced Substance article? Somebody please show me any attempt, when writing about Arne and Ron, where there was a positive quote in a Schmidt article Schmidt is the master of one sided journalism. If he were to teach journalism he should use the Chicago Magazine areticle and any of his articles to show one sided opinionated, unbalanced writing.
Huberman Hype
[comment suspended]
Huberman Hype
This thread is basically about the sourcing and editing of the Chicago magazine profile of Ron Huberman. One of my main points it that the piece is simply shoddy reporting, basic public relations puffery folded into a major feature article in a very important publication.
Thanks to Alexander for pushing this question forward — and for continuing to raise questions.
My main point today is that in the Chicago magazine article we're looking at an almost perfect example of 21st Century Jim Crow propaganda. As a product of the Tribune Corporation, it rivals those wonderful fictionalized quotations used in Richard Wright's novel "Native Son" (which I taught for years in Chicago's public high schools) and is in the same traditions of racism and propaganda that the Tribune has long been famous for.
We (several of us on the Substance staff) read the Chicago magainze article carefully over the weekend, and I intend to share it with many others. As noted, were I teaching journalism to high school students today, I'd use it as a major part of any course, a cautionary warning.
This discussion needs to be held widely. At Substance, we're still deciding whether to do a full analysis of the article, or simply continue blogging along here. (As anyone can see from substancenews.net, we have lots to report and analyze this summer. Wednesday's Board of Education meeting should be a hoot. The recent "New Schools" privatization hearings are still in the queue. And local school scandals from Field and Prescott — on the far north side — to Gunsaulus, Brooks HS, and White — across the South Side — continue).
I'm not even going to respond to the people who took my suggestion that Grady Jordan, Manford Byrd, Richard Stephenson and others be called as an opportunity to attack the service, integrity and experience of these men.
They can (and, I suspect will) speak more for themselves. The fact is, they weren't even on the Tribune corporation's Roladex, and some of us maintain that's because most of them (not all, by the way) are African Americans and critical of the Daley version of "school reform."
A major fact of this thread (and the broader critique of the official reporting on the Chicago corporate "school reform" miracle narrative) is that it is so overwhelmingly biased against black teachers and other veteran educators from Chicago that were we to suggest it's not so biased is dishonest, although in a long Chicago tradition of racist dishonesty.
So some people here don't "like" (???) Grady Jordan and don't like me.
There are dozens — if not hundreds — of other black teachers, principals, administrators — and other experts, beside Dr. Jordan — to be called when stories like this arise.
The white supremacist biases in the Huberman article — and in some of the responses here — truly speak for themselves more loudly than anything I could point out here.
For the record, Dr. Jordan has remained very active in Chicago school politics — as anyone who has been paying attention knows.
Here is just what I know of over the past 90 days or so.
He was covering events at the most recent (June 24, 2009) Board of Education meeting.
He was recently honored by the Collins High School alumni at their reunion (Friday, July 19). They celebrated the successes of the graduates of Collins High School's "Jordan Years" (1979 - 1985).
That Collins High School story is worth more to Chicago (the city) than that piece of puffery in Chicago (the magazine) on Ron Huberman. But like most such stories (and there are dozens from the schools the Tribune and Chicago magazine attack) it is not "news" to corporate Chicago so it is dropped down the memory hole, just as in 1984, while the Huberman hagiography is the latest iteration of the Miracle Management Team story.
It can truthfully be said that few retired administrators from CPS have continued to devote as much time and energy to Chicago's public schools as Grady C. Jordan (who has now been retired for more than ten years, as noted nastily above).
More importantly for this thread, Dr. Jordan's activism in the protests against the privatization of Austin High School (and the destruction of a public high school "choice" for Austin teenagers, who now face Manley High School as their "neighborhood" public high school) is widely known by thousands of community members and activists.
Just because those people are out on the far West Side of Chicago — and aren't on the radar of those who write for Chicago magazine (because they are (a) black and (b) not praising the Mayor's Party Line?) — only shows more clearly what my point is.
Rather than change to another topic, I'm going to leave this as my continuing suggestion. It's simple:
Any story about Chicago's public schools that leaves out — deliberately — critical voices from the educational leadership of Chicago's huge African American community is biased, pure and simple.
Over the past years (since the beginnings of the massive privatization activism of the Duncan administration; before that, during all of the "Daley years") my colleagues and I at Substance have covered hundreds of meetings, dozens of the "hearings", and hundreds of school board meetings where people were protesting the destruction of black public schools in Chicago (and the firing of the teachers and other staffs at those schools).
Those protests and hearings have involved thousands of people.
To white all that out in such a ridiculous way is how Chicago (and "Chicago" the magazine) operate today.
But Chicago's (both the city and the magazine) corporate narrative does not reflect the reality.
Chicago has thousands of educators (with Illinois Type 75 administrative certificates and years of classroom and local school professional experience) who are more qualified to run America's third largest school system than Arne Duncan or Ron Huberman.
That fact needs to be said as loudly as possible, with photographs to show some of the contrasts between Daley's boys and girls, on the one hand, and the teachers, principals, administrators, and others whom Daley — and the Daley scribes — are continuing to try and destroy.
Huberman Hype
it's not like there are no critical voices in the piece. it includes klonsky, for example. he got a quote or two. and kevin oneill, who blogs about the CTA.
no quotes from stewart, pro or con -- that's interesting.
--alexander
Huberman Hype
as for radner and depaul, her work in the HS actually FAILED under vallas-hansen. they paid her and depaul lots of $$ and she brought in a curriculum that only made the scores go DOWN. Corliss comes to mind. There were more schools as well where her 'way' fialed terribly. Reporters should at least get how much $ these people have gotte/get from CPS BEFORE they ask for or rely on them for quotes.
Huberman Hype
ps...and, if depaul u had any sense of integrity, it would've stopped the radner "expert" quotes long ago...but $ means more to them then the university's honor...same university that hired Marge Harrigan (may still be paying her) to be its dean. For those of you under 50, Marge Harrigan used to run Personnel back in the days Alexander calls "the good old days."
Huberman Hype
Just seems to me that the ed reporters at the Trib and Sun-Times should be disciplined enough to not seek quotes from Radner and others who are directly or indirectly benefiting (receiving grant and other funds) from CPS. It's simple.
Huberman Hype
Where I live rants are pretty consistent with insanity and all the other nastiness included in your post.
http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/belie
George lards his post with lots and lots of op-ed that reflect his personal feelings. I'm not so crazy about that part.
But George has faithfully reported in a workmanlike fashion the chicanery and misdeeds of several Board administrations. As a teacher, I will never forget his gritty and brutally honest reporting of the James Moffat trial. I was already married and had been teaching when this story broke, but the things that were reported were shocking; it was stunning to think such things had happened in a school, to students. It was traumatic for me to read, but it was a story that was not being reported in the regular media, and it needed to be told.
Keep telling 'em, George. Your value is not assessed by the inability of some readers of this blog to understand it.
Huberman Hype
George and for the others you think so willingly follow him; the bottom line is that Chicago Mag could have called Julie from PURE--her name has been in the Chicago papers more than enough times for every reporter to know, or even Designs for Change or Jitu (for a minority opinion) just to get a different or at least an opposing opinion--they do hear much from many LSCs. Instead, they went to B. Radner, while knowledgeable, she does not do work with LSCs or parents. Simple as that.
Huberman Hype
Regarding Racist Politics -
I am not a big fan of the Daley's, but let us go back in time for a moment and look at a couple of the most famous black leaders in the city that HELPED the Daley's.
According to Mike Royko in his book BOSS, he points out Congressman William Dawson. Here is a guy that delivered the African American votes for Richard J. Daley's election in some of the most impoverished areas on the South Side. He was part of the "machine politics" and was not liked by many civil rights leaders of his time.
Why wasn't Dorothy Tillman re-elected? She was not doing her job! She complained about reparations and integration more than bringing jobs to the 3rd Ward. How many times did she vote with Richard M. Daley?
Huberman Hype
Racist Policies is spot on, albeit in an elementary, almost too easily seen way. The neighborhood CPS H.S. that are south, south east and west are a reflection of their neighborhood feeder elementary schools: racially isolated, filled with students of very low SES. The neighborhoods themselves are disasters that as Beryl Satter's book Family Properties, were written off at least two generations ago when Blacks began to explode from the Black Belt and the monetary value of those communities plummeted (along with their almost all-White former residents). H.S. history teachers should read the section in Satter's book about CPS schools chief Willis (from "Willis Wagons") for a portrait of why schools in segregated neighborhoods were hopelessly doomed even back in the 60's. The duplicitous elder Daley followed his predecessor and Daley the II is clearly at least funneling some resources to the southeast and west side schools (things are bad but not as bad as when Kozol's Savage Inequalities came out under Bush the Elder). Old timers don't speak up enough. And this post Civil Rights, Post Obama gen. may not be able to see it, but the racism (and classism) is the culprit and they follow in the wake of $$$$$!
Huberman Hype
Why wasn't George N. Schmidt contacted for the article? Probably because nobody knows or cares who George N. Schmidt is. Each of his rants belie his insanity and irrelevance. Were it not for this blog, he would have no audience. Why would the Chicago mag bother to contact this bitter man when they would have no way to know (or care) that he even exists?
Huberman Hype
gh--For whatever reason (and [i]reason [/i]has nothing to do with their thinking), George has quite the devoted following of lickspittles who will make spurious personal attacks on those who question their Fuehrer's ideas; or make apologies on his behalf in the light of obvious errors. (Both types of response to your initial comment are displayed above.)
(George himself, of course, isn't responsible for the drivel these anonymous cowards write.)
About the point you (gh) were trying to make--I recall a small number of colleagues (now dead or retired) who had at one time worked for Grady Jordan at various west-side high schools (perhaps, Collins?) Their characterization of Mr. Jordan was quite dissimilar and their esteem for him quite lower than how George consistently recalls the man. Although my only personal knowledge of Jordan is through his articles for [u]Substance[/u], I certainly understand the point you were making.
Like you, I found George's tirade above completely over-the-top. Undoubtedly, George is a master of rhetoric and can stir up an emotional frenzy when he is "preaching to the choir." His stylistic name-calling, gratuitous insults, and obvious contempt for those who disagree with his thinking, however, do nothing to win new converts or persuade the undecided.
Huberman Hype
George is correct.
Look at the policies of Mayor Daley and those appointed by him to systematically destroy African-American committees. Between him and his father (21 + 20) they have ruled Chicago for an entire generation and calculated corrected over time controlled three generations of Chicago citizens with their policies. As can clearly be seen the African American communities are still segregated and are continuously targeted as places of failure and probation.
There is no one else to blame except the Daley family for the racist policies in Chicago that have resulted in a large number children of color and lower SES unable to do compete with calculations when they graduate high school.
[url=http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/gaps/ new=true]The findings [/url] were part of a report by the National Center for Education Statistics that examined racial achievement gaps for math and reading across the country.
[b]This is a fact.[/b]
By the way being gay, hispanic or black does not mean you are not a racist. When people are trained to systematically discriminate and divert services from on group of people they are racists.
[b]Remember who has been in power and who is in control. [/b]
The policy maker in Chicago will spin the story how ever-way they want. They will say the sky is purple and will have thousand saying yes it is purple when in fact it is blue.
[b]Remember who has been in power and who is in control. for over 40 years now. [/b]
Remember the facts, not what people write as the facts. Also remember the Daley family lies(father "shoot to kill" Daley jr "Olympic funding")
History lesson about governmental deception
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_J._Daley new=true]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_J._Daley[/url]
[i]Daley was castigated by many for his sharp rhetoric in the aftermath of rioting that took place after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. Displeased with what he saw as an overly cautious police response to the rioting, Daley chastised police superintendent James B. Conlisk and subsequently related that conversation at a City Hall press conference as follows[2]:
"I said to him very emphatically and very definitely [b]that an order be issued by him immediately to shoot to kill [/b] any arsonist or anyone with a Molotov cocktail in his hand, because they're potential murderers, and to shoot to maim or cripple anyone looting."
.....Rev. Jesse Jackson, for example, called it "a fascist's response." The Mayor later backed away from his words in an address to the City Council, saying:
"It is the established policy of the police department – fully supported by this administration – that only the minimum force necessary be used by policemen in carrying out their duties."
Later that month, Daley asserted "[b]There wasn't any shoot-to-kill order. That was a fabrication.[/b]"[/i]
drk
Huberman Hype
good point, but I took it as past with the second sentence. George writes like at 2:00 in the AM! So mistakes happen. But really, I think even George would realize that no reporter would know TODAY or even last year to call Mr. Jordan for any clarifications or input. Before your 'slam', it probably would have been worth it to clarify the meaning first here--at least that is what I would have had my journalism students do.....
Huberman Hype
I suggest you re-read it, paragraph 1. He is saying no reporters call Grady Jordan as a CPS expert "now." Last I learned "calls" is present tense.
Huberman Hype
Read what G said--he was NOT putting Grady to comment on Ronnie, just that no one called him during the time he was the head of high schools. Take you time and read.
Huberman Hype
Leader
Like most of us I never personally met Mr. Jordan
Or Manfred Byrd .Even back in the day they were
Already out of the schools and into offices.
I have, however, worked for a real leader Mr. Ned McCray
He took over Simeon and ran it for almost 15 years. His steady
Leadership kept a school together and running during the
street wars of the last quarter century. He also oversaw a
Staff which could best be described as unique. The kids learned, the teachers
Taught the bums were dealt with all in that most horrible building.
During all that time Simeon built a reputation which continues
to this day. None of the scandals facing it now occurred under him.
He was in street talk “Straightâ€. Five hours after Ben Wilson died
The man gave a speech which I still remember today.
If the powers to be want to know how to do it right they should
Ask Ned.
Huberman Hype
George...I read most of your posts and respect your viewpoints(and largely agree with them), but you really stretch your personal credibility (at least from us veterans who remember) when you put Grady Jordan up as a knowledgeable and capable CPS leader. Did you ever directly work for the guy? He may be your friend and on staff at Substance, so I get the personal connection, but....
Huberman Hype
Yesterday Grady Jordan told me that no "reporter" ever calls him about stories like this. By the time Grady retired as high school district superintendent 14 years ago, he knew every public high school in Chicago and hundreds of the elementary schools as well.
When the Sun-Times, Tribune, Catalyst or Chicago magazine writes about Chicago high schools and ignores the most knowledgeable African American administrators, it's serious, both for the narrative and for the historical record.
The Chicago magazine piece is simply another example of that white blindspot, that cover up, and the promotion of the "Great White Hope" that began with Daley's appointment of Paul Vallas, continued with Arne Duncan, and continues now with Ron Huberman. When this stuff is put into its historical context it will stand beside "Birth of a Nation" and the other center pieces of the last era of massive Jim Crow in the USA.
Grady Jordan, like many of the other administrators who worked for CPS from the 1960s through the 1990s (the years Daley began his massive purge of African American teachers, principals and administrators) knew every high school in the city by the time he retired.
There are hundreds of others with lesser knowledge who are still in Chicago and are equally ignored by Chicago's corporate media as this fictionalization of Chicago public school history continues. Manford Byrd, Richard Stephenson, Grady Jordan, and a dozen additional retired (top) administrators who worked their way up (usually from origins in place like Jim Crow Mississippi) from the classroom to the principalship and into other administrative jobs are still around Chicago.
Most of them are in the phone book.
When Chicago magazine chooses to white out the history of Chicago's public schools, this 21st Century example of Jim Crow is big news. The Blitstein article is worse than simple fabricated puffery on behalf of one minor public celebrity at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century. It's part of a pattern that existed 100 years ago, when a different iteration of Jim Crow (and The Great White Hope) was the dominant narrative in the USA.
Blitstein's Chicago magazine piece on Ron Huberman is not simply piffle and puffery, it is white supremacist fabricated puffery. Some of the stuff reported as "fact" in the article is simple fabrication.
As I've noted earlier, Blitstein was not at the first three Chicago Board of Education meetings after Arne Duncan left (following the December 2008 Board meeting) and Rob Huberman began acting as "CEO" (at the January 2009 Board meeting). How, then, was he able to know that "parents" were wearing "black armbands" at one of those meetings? (They weren't). And that these "parents" were really not angry about Ron Huberman, but about a "failing" system. The "failing" system Blitstein glibly discusses had, by the way, been under the dictatorial control of Huberman's sponsor and patron, Richard M. Daley, for the preceding 14 years. Fourteen years is a complete lifetime of a student in the public schools from kindergarten through 12th grade!
So if there is "failure" in 2009, then that failure is of policies and the man who was Chicago Public Schools dictator in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009. That man is and has been Richard M. Daley.
This silly Chicago magazine piece is part of the vast cover up of the facts to CPS prior to Daley's introduction of the Miracle Management Team (starting with version 1.0 and Paul Vallas in July 1995) and a continuation of the media hoax that was created around the "Daley Miracle."
Now that the Daley Miracle is being crammed down the throats of every school district in the USA courtesy of the Arne Duncan team at the US Department of Education, every iteration of this nonsense in a major Chicago publication has to be dissected immediately. Those hoaxacious narratives then have to be denounced for the rest of the USA as an additional warning regarding the policies Arne Duncan will try to force on every school district if this stuff isn't stopped.
Huberman Hype
Yes, george agreed, I would use this article for a HS journalism class as well as an example of how better research/sources is/are needed. But, you see there are no more (or very few) jouornalism classes left in COS high schools. CPS does not want student knowing about freedom of the press.
Huberman Hype
I'm off this thread after today. Too much to do. But one memory of Chicago magazine came back to me as I was discussing this piffle of puffery with some friends and colleagues.
Many years ago, every Chicago reporter (and free lancer) slowly built up a decent file of people and groups that would be quoted on the record when doing an education story. One of my favorite moments was coming into work at the high school I was at at the time and having a colleague at the sign in sheet laughing and saying, "I can't believe you said that."
Chicago magazine had a quotation from me about Ruth Love, then superintendent. I said she was an "overpaid, undercompetent bubblehead..." and went to offer to document each of those three characterizations.
The laughing went on for several days, and Ruth Love had to live with it, because that's what democracy is all about -- and a free press.
Flash forward to this week. Even assuming that Mr. Blitstein's love letter to Rob Huberman was written without much editing (or an editor who said, "What do you mean you can't find anyone else critical of the guy?"), anyone with Google would easily locate PURE (for starters) and from PURE be within GEM (which has led some of the main protests against Hubermania since January).
You don't even have to wind up with CORE or Substance.
Defend the silliness as much as you want. Blitstein's piece will stand eternal as an example of pufferous "reporting" (which is why I'd use it in a journalism class) and lousy editing. When the reporter is writing drivel, it's the editor's job to force a few facts in between the teary-eyed expressions of affection. It used to be Chicago's pride. "If your mother says she loves you, check it out!" and all that.
Now we've got reporters doing Madison Ave. narratives, with some mystical and mythical underpinnings (as I noted in my first post after reading this Campbellesque piece of drivel) and being very very well paid for it. The Chicago story about tattoo artists is better reporting. But you can bet that Ron Huberman's fan club has been reproducing this piece (along with that Chicago Tonight thingy and the Newsweek silliness) and passing them along to the next wave of lazy "reporters" who stop by Chicago to write about Miracle Management Team 3.0.
Huberman Hype
administrators--they worked on student attendance with our avarage of over 50,000 students A DAY out of school. I think the number is actualyh higher--70,000?? Anyone know what our ada is per day--how many student OUT oer school day?
Although this changes some with the track E schools now, but it still could be averaged in to get teh number. And I think CPS looses $10 per child per each day they are out from state funding.
Huberman Hype
What does AAAs mean?
Huberman Hype
[i]And Alexander...why you have a problem with it, I don't know, but Huberman's sexual orientation is simply not relevant in any way. (btw, the lack of reporting on it demonstrates reporters are living in the 21st century...you call that "reporter self-censorship?").[/i]
Exactly. When's the last time anyone mentioned Arne Duncan as a heterosexual? Or Mayor Daley? Or Michael Scott? Should we reference your sexual orientation in our comments to your blog, Alexander?
Mr. Huberman's sexual orientation is well known. It's not as if there is an outcry about it. If there was, well, I suppose someone could cover that outcry as a "story". But that still wouldn't be a story about his sexual orientation, it would be a story about bigots and intolerance.
So, Alexander, why is it so important to you? How or why should it be relevant to any of us?
Huberman Hype
were all let go yesterday from the area offices. Seems like every friday is a hurting day fron Ronnie.
Huberman Hype
"I'm sure an intelligent, data-driven leader like Mr. Huberman would welcome the constructive critical voice on the issue."
I think we will find that he is a dictator and is not willing to listen or learn--time will show that it is his way or the high way--take no prisoners, etc. This is what he has been assigned to do. He is Daley's boy. (And that has nothing to do with his orientation--I don't care)
lol on the Chicago magazine for the hotel crowd. it used to be a good magazine, but this current assessment is correct. However, all the tourists who can read, will read that he is some great manager doing great things. And no dis to klonsky and radner, but these are tired references who have received big $ from CPS over many years. xian is right, there should have been better research, better input from someone else, even a parent organization, but then again, it is Chicago Magazine, not the New Yorker.
Huberman Hype
I have to respectfully disagree. A journalist would have to contact George or CORE specifically, but to simple get a few critical quotes and say "it's controversial" is the type of yellow journalism that has destroyed the field.
Even as greenhorns doing high school and college newspapers, we knew that if there was opposition to policy, we had a responsibility to contact groups spearheading that opposition.
Anyone doing a professional piece on Mr. Huberman needsd to talk to someone from GEM, and actually talk to some of the community (and not just the paid spokespeople) about the effects of his current policies.
It's not just for posterity, it's for our shared Chicago community and educational system's sake. I'm sure an intelligent, data-driven leader like Mr. Huberman would welcome the constructive critical voice on the issue.
Huberman Hype
just because he didn't call you doesn't mean that he didn't make the point. the article does include some critical comments from klonsky and radner, and does make clear that ren10 and the reorganization have been extremely controversial.
/ alexander
Huberman Hype
OK, Alexander and George...fun reading, but it's CHICAGO magazine, for God's Sakes. It belongs in hotel rooms for tourists! To be working this over as if it's "journalism," is a bit weird. And Alexander...why you have a problem with it, I don't know, but Huberman's sexual orientation is simply not relevant in any way. (btw, the lack of reporting on it demonstrates reporters are living in the 21st century...you call that "reporter self-censorship?").
Huberman Hype
realize that these charters are not good and are hurting in the long run, their children. I hope they stay away from them.
Huberman Hype
canyou get this to Chcicago Mag--the strings abiove about their puff pieve. They are no reader, but they have been much poorer at reporting these days--it is kindof a puff magazine now.
Huberman Hype
Although I don't know what would have come up had it been Googled three months ago (or whenever Blitstein was on deadline, which was probably March or April), but any Google of "Huberman + Chicago Public Schools" yields both Substance and CORE in the first two pages.
Blitstein did not even try to contact critics who would have been on the record. And less than two hours yields critics who worked under him at CTA, both on and off the record. The cops also find the guy exotic -- and not because he's gay, but because he's creepy and a nut case data head surrounded by people who are, in some cases, even creepier.
Chicago magazine simply published puffery as a piece of reporting. Not the first time they've done it, and it probably won't be the last.
Huberman Hype
Blitstein was well paid for this piece of puffery and piffle. As afar as a highly paid propagandist, he's not in the same league as Peter Cunningham (who once told me he was paid $1,000 a page for doing the words for the Forbes insert advertisement on how great Chicago is), but maybe this is part of the vetting process that the next generation of Goebbelses has to endure.
The inside story of how Chicago magazine assigned, vetted and edited this nonsense is news in this era of "journalistic" retrenchment. Chicago magazine can afford to pay copy editors and fact checkers, especially when it's paying a reporter $5,000 or more for a major piece.
Basically, Blitstein had to spend a lot of time not seeking out people to say critical things about Huberman, then had to spend even more times making up "facts" and reporting things that are simply not true.
Two examples beyond what I've already noted:
Since Blitstein was not at the early Huberman era Board of Education meetings (January and February 2009) and may not have been to one of the six Huberman meetings yet, how the guy saw, fact checked and reported those "parents" who wore black armbands and "booed" is a wonderful example to take back to J-School.
But my favorite (at this moment) comes in the paragraph about how Ronnie spent much much much time going over the Hit List (22 schools) he inherited from Arne Duncan. When CPS announced it was reducing the Hit List from 22 to 16 schools, I was on my way to Peabody (one of the schools that was on the original Hit List, but was taken off) and had the fun of covering the celebration (at 9:00 p.m.) when Peabody learned they had gotten a reprieve. Peabody had planned a vigil that night, and instead it was a celebration.
But down the street, Carpenter (which had protested earlier that day) was still on the Hit List Ron Huberman supposedly labored over, blah, blah blah. As were South Chicago, Devis Developmental, and nine others -- WHICH WERE NOT GONG INTO TURNAROUND FOR 'FAILURE'!
To read Blitstein's version of this reality, all 16 of the remaining schools on the Hit List were there because they were "failures." Ron Huberman, after going over information from the hearings (of which he did not attend one; I was at them), and the transcripts (which he may or may not have read; I doubt it) decided to leave 16 schools on the Hit List because he had to act forcefully, etc., to save the children.
In truth, the opposite was and is the case. Only five of the remaining 16 schools was being "closed" (actually, turnarounded) for supposed "failure." The remaining 11 were being purged, most of them (e.g., most dramatically, South Chicago) were being ehtnically cleansed so that CPS could privatize, evict, or semi-privatize them under the "Renaissance 2010" program and based on the edicts of "New Schools."
Medill was slated for the "Air Force Academy."
South Chicago's building was slated to go to that charter thingy that's already a local joke on the streets out there.
Etc.
The Blitstein story would be worth a week in a serious journalism class -- as an example of falsehoods in reporting and amateurish fact checking.
Were I still teaching a J course to Chicago high school students, I'd first assign my students to find attribution (see, New York Times Manual of Style and Usage) for each alleged fact. Then we'd go over each assertion of fact. Finally, and this would be the real hoot, we'd invited the "reporter" and his "editor" to stop by and explain how they utilized the front page and major inside pages for a piece of piffle and puffery.
Those classes used to get some interesting reporters during our "Adopt the Press" program. John Kass stopped by a couple of time before fame went to his head. John Cody was very helpful.
Somehow, I doubt that Blitstein will every answer questions about how he created that thingy.
But we'll be using it at the Substance editorial meeting later today, just for fun.
Huberman Hype
Right on. He should be called Ron Rhee! Daley prbably said i want someone like her and out him here. Rhee at least was a teacher, but she uses that against all. This guy is just brutal.
Huberman Hype
some things i learned/noticed from the chicagomag article --
-- i still find it hard to believe that no journalist asked huberman if he was gay or thought it was relevant to report until [u]after[/u] he was approved. it's an amazing miss, or an example of self-censorship by the reporters or the editors. i wish i knew which.
-- there were [u]lots[/u] of people who wouldn't talk to blitstein, including duncan, critics and supporters inside city government -- even the mayor. WTF?
-- there a few references to people having a moment where they were really impressed by huberman -- one of his professors, and daley -- has anyone yet had one of those moments since he's been head of CPS (even if you disagree with him)?
--describing huberman as brusque and his style as brutal makes me think of DC's michelle rhee, another younger feisty "by any means necessary" type.
-- there's a striking absence of CPS/daley/duncan hype re the performance of the schools over the past 15 years. at least blitstein didn't buy into the test score hype.
-- alexander
Huberman Hype
one needs a job even if the hourly rate is lower. These adverts say: TEACHERS NOT WANTED.-