As CPS prepares to close a record number of schools, the fate of students and communities is in question.
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As contract talks heat up, teachers union seeks stronger ties with parents
By: Rebecca Harris / May 03, 2012
In recent weeks, teachers at dozens of schools have made efforts to reach out to parents about issues ranging from the longer school day and school funding to class sizes to teacher pay.
The latest efforts represent a new target for outreach, as the Chicago Teachers Union has long collaborated with the city’s grassroots parent groups. Julie Woestehoff, the director of Parents United for Responsible Education, noted that her group was founded by parents who wanted to support the last teachers’ strike, in 1987, and believed that “politicians and bureaucrats weren’t doing their job.” Woestehoff spoke at a panel held for DePaul University teacher candidates on Wednesday.
Organizing parents is part of an effort to strengthen the union’s position as it faces an ongoing battle with CPS administration over how the district is implementing the longer school day, as well as contentious negotiations over teachers’ next contract. The current contract expires on June 30 and teachers could move to a strike authorization vote as soon as this spring.
The union and the district are currently in fact-finding, one of the final steps of a lengthy, legally required pre-strike process.
But good relationships with a community organization don’t necessarily “trickle down to the school,” says CTU organizer Matthew Luskin.
As the CTU seeks to expand its school-level outreach to parents, controversy over the longer day has bred an increasing number of parent organizations. Both 19th Ward Parents and Parents For Teachers (formed specifically to advocate for teacher issues) are part of the Coalition to Organize Democracy in Education, which is pushing for an elected school board. So too are the CTU and the older Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, a longtime ally of the union.
Raise Your Hand, which took root several years ago in response to a school funding crisis, does not back CTU. But “we want to make sure that outside of whatever’s happening with these political entities, parents and teachers don’t end up having a soured relationship,” co-founder Wendy Katten says. “We want to encourage people to keep the dialogue open.”
To that end, Katten appeared on a panel at a March event for active union members. Representatives from the group are participating in three education forums organized by other groups around the city this month, two of which focus on teacher-parent collaboration. The second, on Saturday, May 5, is sponsored by Teachers for Social Justice.
Raise Your Hand is also in the early planning stages for a forum of its own on parent-teacher dialogue, which will likely be held several weeks down the line.
Luskin says the union is trying to show that its contract organizing efforts are “part of a real debate around the direction of the school system and school funding.”
“There’s a real challenge around funding, resources and attention to [neighborhood] schools,” he adds.
This winter’s uproar over school closings and turnarounds, opposed by many parents and teachers, laid the groundwork for the current outreach by giving teachers experience collaborating with parents, Luskin says.
“I think it helped build a lot of confidence among our members that people aren’t against us,” Luskin says. “Parents trust their child’s teacher… more than an appointed member of the Board of Education.”
Contract organizing committees, which Luskin says have now taken root in hundreds of schools, have been tasked with outreach. The efforts have ranged from teachers showing up to local school council meetings – CTU gave teachers a sample letter to send to LSCs about the importance of a “better school day” – to a parent night at Nettelhorst Elementary featuring a talk by union President Karen Lewis.
Teachers have also presented their views at principal-organized parent meetings about the longer school day. That’s what kicked off organizing efforts at Prieto Elementary. In late February, bilingual program coordinator Andrea Montgomery – a union delegate – offered to share the CTU perspective in one such meeting.
“When I told the parents about merit pay and the 2 percent raise and the other issues [with the longer day], they were outraged,” Montgomery says. There were about 75 parents at that meeting. It was a Monday.
The group started brainstorming ideas for action and settled on the idea of getting a bus to take parents to the school board meeting two days later. A total of 21 parents showed up.
Parents attended the March board meeting as well. “If we are going to have a longer school day, we need the funds to hire more teachers and prepare our teachers,” Prieto parent and bus aide Raiza Rodriguez told the board. The group organized a multi-school town hall meeting about the longer day in late April.
Now, members of Parents For Teachers come to meet with Prieto parents every Monday morning to strategize.
Montgomery credits a positive school climate with building parent support for teachers. “The bottom line is parents believe in their hearts this is their school,” she says.
And, she argues parents will be supportive if a strike vote is called.
“They said, ‘If you walk, we walk,’” Montgomery says. “They have been 110 percent behind us.”
Timeline for a strike?
Hi everyone. I understand CTU members could move to a strike authorization vote as soon as this spring, and I know that June 30 is the end of the current contract.
But when exactly would a strike begin if it were voted on? Do strikes begin as soon as the vote happens? Or would it start on day one of next school year?
I am clearly hoping that Rahm and his appointed board of education can pull their noses out of corporate interests in education long enough to do what's right for kids and teachers. I'm just not sure that will happen, so I am hoping to better understand the strike process.
Lynn, A strike authorization
Lynn,
A strike authorization does not result in an immediate strike. It just gives the House of Delegates (the deliberative body of the Union comprised of hundreds of locally elected delegates) the authority to set a strike date if it so chooses. It also puts pressure on CPS to actually negotiate rather than simply imposing their will.
By law any strike date must come after various hoops are jumped through. It's going to take the rest of the spring and all summer to jump through those hoops. There is a timeline for this whole process on the CTU website.
On the other hand, a strike authorization vote can fundamentally change negotiations, so there may be no need for a strike at all. However, forgive my cynicism, but I doubt CPS and the mayor will pull their noses of of corporate interests long enough to do what's right for kids and teachers.
I actually think the mayor and CPS will magnify and accelerate their corporate driven agenda.
stike hurdles
even if we get the 75% AND STIRKE..THEN THERE is this little quote from the ol sb7
"If, however, in the opinion of an employer the strike is or
has become a clear and present danger to the health or safety
of the public, the employer may initiate in the circuit court
of the county in which such danger exists an action for relief
which may include, but is not limited to, injunction. The court
may grant appropriate relief upon the finding that such clear
and present danger exists. An unfair practice or other evidence
of lack of clean hands by the educational employer is a defense
to such action. Except as provided for in this paragraph, the
jurisdiction of the court under this Section is limited by the
Labor Dispute Act. "
I think CTU is powerless! I reallly do.....and correct me if I am wrong....we dont strike...they just give us what they want! I think oue salaries and rights are gone...I am pessimistic and blaming no one! However, in rhis environment...it's not going to be pretty
a deal still could be reached
As most readers of Catalyst are aware the UNITE HERE organized lunchroom workers signed a 5-year contract with CPS. There wage increase per year averages out to under 1%, CPS did however include some job guarantees in the contract. Mr. Brizard last night on WTTW came very close in his comments to stating that CPS would accept the fact finding panel’s contract framework when it was completed, this surprised me to a degree. I would be interested in how other people heard Mr. Brizard’s comments in relation to any fact finding panel based agreement. You can see this by going to http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2012/05/03/jean-claude-brizard
Because of SB7 the panel cannot discuss in its proposed agreement work rule such as the longer day, structure of the workday etc. It can only deal with money issues directly. If one looks at the CTU’s website and its powerpoint timeline for a possible strike in relation to the fact finding panel decision it has a big stamp on it titled “reject.” That may or may not be wise given the fact that the panel’s decision only addresses money issues, the CPS may like in its dealings with UNITE be willing at that point to bargain on non-wage issues even relating to job guarantees.
In general the CPS and Mayor Emanuel have been portrayed as having wanted to completely privatize all of the lunchroom workers or just have all meals prepared offsite and shipped in to schools, clearly CPS did not go that far. Bargaining stances are just that and it’s a high stakes game that has yet to be completely played out.
Rod Estvan
It's good to have hope
Rod I respect you more than anyone else on this board. However, I see this concession as nothing more than a PR stunt to outshine the CPS Teachers Union. I am not a Lunchroom worker.
Those people who work in the lunch room work there fingers to the bone. A 1% increase, economically, is a pay cut as inflation takes its ugly toll. They make about 10 dollars after taxes. A 1% raise comes out to 10 cents an hour or 4 dollars a week.
I don't even need to explain how little this gets a person in this city. . Even sicker, is a rich board of ED and Brizarrd use it as “an example of coming together” and as a PR stunt.
It would take the monthly raise of 437 employees just to pay for the former Chief Ed Donoso’s moving expenses. I am not a communist, and I understand people command a different salary. HOWEVER, I think CPS's spin machine is using this little concession to make a PR stunt with the CTU
Brizzard was quoted as saying "This is the message we are pushing: When two parties come together and sit together great things can actually happen," said schools chief Jean-Claude Brizard. "We're focusing on finding resolution. We're not focusing on strikes." Coming from a guy who make 230k?
This is just PURE PR to say listen teachers we aren't the problem here...see we give raises to other workers and listen to them. In other words they are not the bad guys; it’s CPS. We are going to give better lunches to the children and give our workers free work related classes. It's a calculated. Of course you don't see the tribune complaining that CPS is broke because they already work these workers to the bone (just watch them work the breakfast shift as Chartwell lines their pockets every day with snack packs they call brakfast.) I am sure the Chartwell Administration gets better than a 16 dollar month raise. Oh yea...they have so much money they took CPS higher ups to football games and concerts. Maybe they should have taken their own workers!!!!!!!
Rod I respect you more than anyone else on this Board, but I think we are being duped by CPS. They are winning the PR game. There is a picture of Brizzard hugging a lunchroom worker. This is sick. If he made her salary, he would not be smiling. I respect these men ladies more than any worker in my building, The lunroom workers are so kind and work in grueling conditions for often unthankful children and adults...
I wish we could double their salaries. To see their 16 dollar a month raises being touted as "two sides" coming together is exploiting their already tough condition. I “get it” (as rahn like to say) that they got some maternity leaves and sick leaves, but they are still left at poverty. And let's face it...what will they return to when they recover…500 dollars a week in a city that can bankrupt a person making 100k a year.
It is so hard to live in this city on 4000 a month...try cutting that in half and then be told you will have 16 additional dollars to pay for increased parking fees, city stickers, and gas....as CPS and the Tribune thought a "another example of two sides getting together"????? Then to see my picture on the Trib being hugged by brizzard in a calculated PR photo-op. I would be very sad!!
I am no labor expert, but I think the point is clear. CPS is using the pawns (the lunch workers) to fight their next battle! I wont say what who the king and queen are on this chess board hahaha
maybe surviving right now is a good goal
There is no question that UNITE HERE got a very weak salary increase. But let's not forget there were many union activists fearing that CPS simply wanted to push unionized lunchroom workers completely out of CPS. That seems not to have been the objective of the Board.
Did CPS not take an even harder line against UNITE because it breaks a common bargaining strategy? Maybe that is the case, but the CPS has also agreed to let the union survive. There is simply no question that there are forces inside the Democratic Party that want to totally reduce the role and scope of teacher unions. The Republican Party would simply ban public sector unions whenever it could and break private sector unions too.
Given all of this maybe surviving is simply the goal for unions until there is something of what can be called a fight back for wages and working conditions in this country. The truth of the matter is right now CPS could go to the market and find thousands of unemployed teachers with some experience willing to work in the district, so there is massive market pressure on teachers unions in terms of their leverage. Teachers are being laid off all over the nation.
One key to the situation is unionization of charter school teachers and support staff; something that has very slowly been happening in Chicago. Even if Illinois were to approve vouchers the key would be unionizing the private school teachers who would effectively be paid by public funds. Every year while Mr. Emanuel is Mayor there are likely to be more charter schools and more children in them. There is opposition to this process to be sure, but it has not stopped the train that has left the station.
The CTU will get smaller and can only survive if the relative cost and effectiveness between charters, or possible voucher schools in the future, and traditional unionized schools are brought closer together. That means unionization of those educational workers. The Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff which now is organized in 12 charter schools in part holds the key to the CTU’s long term survival. The AFT’s and CTU’s support of Chicago ACTs is the smartest thing the unions have ever done.
Rod Estvan
thanks Rod
You always give a fair analysis! I am just saying it as I see it as an amateur blogger. I agree...maybe protect the name for now and hope we get a Real Democratic Mayor not a wolf in sheep’s clothing like Rahm the Republicrat. Still makes me mad he got his job via the Democratic machine...yet he is closer in line with the tea party than any democratic socially minded politician. We used to call people like him Limousine Liberals.
Rod please explain further
Letting the Union survive? This is very short-sighted. When the negotiations are complete with the CTU, United Here will still benefit from whatever is agreed on. I have faith that CTU will get what is being brought to the table; and like in previous negotiations all the other Unions will benefit also.
Correct me if I am wrong. For example, if United Here gets a 1% raise and CTU wins negotiations and gets a 4% raise (for example); does that mean that United Here will end up with a 5% raise?
This JCB "show" in their arrogance is telling the rest of the Unions 'this is what it looks like when you sit down and shut up'. This may not be clear, but I hope you get my drift. As a Union member it is more gravy for the goose, which will make our Union stronger.
I would suggest to all of those unemployed teachers all over the country to do you due diligence and research your employer before you sign on the dotted line. Most large urban areas are saying that if you want to work your butt off for little pay and no job security, then Chicago, New York and San Fran is the place for you.
In most cities, the edupenures are killing the baby to justify throwing out the bath water. And as real educators, we know that the results in the Charters will be no different than the "crisis" that is going on now. They RM, JCB, et al, have no real solutions or plan, just reinventing the wheel. And the beat goes on.
The financial 'killing' of educators will not stop at the pre college level. It will continue as a cancer grows, when it hits the 'private sector' those that are against what the union stands for will suddenly see and by then it will be too late.
No link between UNITE contract and CTU contract
Each of the unions in CPS, and I think there are at least six of them have different contracts. If the CTU is given a higher percentage wage increase it will not impact lunchroom workers.
All I can say in response is that historically no trade union movement has been able to stop economically driven changes in a society. It can have an impact on those changes, it can adapt to those changes, it probably can't stop those changes. Privatization of schools is an economically driven process that has taken up the ideological framework of school choice. Traditional schools and school districts could offer every choice option and more than charter schools, the major thing that is stopping that is not union contracts, but decisions made by school boards that schools have to march in lock step.
Funding policies coming from the federal government which require traditional schools to do many things non-traditional charter schools do not have to do exactly in the same way also are a factor in this. By the way I support some of those federal policies because they protect the interests of students with disabilities and other subgroups.
But the same social forces that are pushing for privatizing school via both charters and vouchers also largely control school boards in most major urban areas. The social forces that control education, think tanks, major political contributors to candidates for office (other than unions and a small number of wealthy individuals ideologically on the left of the spectrum) , private for profit companies that hire graduates of school systems, are completely unwilling to increase the tax burden on themselves. Hence, public education and all other social services have to become more cost efficient. Part of that analysis on the part of these social forces is based on the need for US based for profit companies to be competitive with societies that provide far fewer social services and cheaper forms of k-12 education. By the way comparisons to Finland are absurd it is not a major competitor with the US on the global stage, the better comparison is China right now.
Unions have to both adapt to the reality they find themselves in and fight for the social and economic interests of their members. It is important to recall that most older craft unions in the AFL became weaker as industrialization grew, the CIO based industrial unions grew, as the industrial base of US declined so did industrial unions. What increased were public sector unions, but overall the rate of unionization in the nation declined. The mantra for the union movement has to be adapt for die. Part of adapting in Chicago is promoting Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff and part of it is keeping the CTU alive with a contract that keeps what benefits it can based on current realities.
Rod Estvan
Mr. Estvan is mistaken
What has been reported in the media is that there is a clause of the CBA between the Board and UNITE HERE that links the agreements of the seven (not six) Unions that represent CPS unionized employees. Should the CTU, for example, get a 3% raise, UNITE HERE would also get a 3% raise (but not 3% plus the 2% for 2 years they already have).
This is similar to clauses that are in the existing contracts.
As far as I know Danny your
As far as I know Danny your statement is based on the Tribune writing: "If teachers aides win a better deal with CPS, lunch workers will be entitled to those raises, said Henry Tamarin, president of Unite Here Local 1." As of today I have not seen the contract language; I have been expecting Substance to at least publish parts of it. I am assuming the link is to CTU aides not SEIU organized aides who are not required to have two years of college education, but I don't know that for sure. At any rate that contract is clearly not linked to an increase in salary for teachers because Mr. Tamarin was clear about that. Apparently the language may be somewhat more complex than simply that UNITE HERE gets whatever raises the CTU gets.
If the contract does not have a proviso that makes additional raises for UNITE based on a CTU contract for instructional aides linked to an escape clause based on CPS's ability to pay then that was intelligent bargaining. As of this morning I could not find on the UNITE HERE website an actual link to the contract language (http://unitehere1.org/?q=content/chicago-public-schools-agrees-lunch-wor...). Interestingly the UNITE report on the contract on its website does not mention the pay escalator provision. If Danny can send a pdf of the contract to Catalyst I am sure they will provide a link for its readers. I would like to read it.
Rod Estvan
at the end of the day
That photo of a Brizzard hugging the lunchroom worker who may, if the stars align, get a whopping 24 dollar week raise if you guys are correct, still makes me sick. It especially makes me sick when he knows he gave a CEO 21k to move to chicago and then fired her? So much for children first! Imagine what 21k could buy? If it's "all about the children", why didn't she have to pay to come here? Why didn't brizzard, who "loves the childre", stay until the end of the Rochester school year. Either he quit or was asked to leave. What teacher would get a job if they said in their interview, "i quit midyear" or "i go fired". Makes me sick!
Getting back to parents for a minute
Getting this thread back to parents for a minute, one of the things CTU is doing is noting that the largest organized group of CPS parents in the city consists of those of us who are Chicago Teachers Union members (or retired members) and who are also CPS parents (or grandparents). In the case of my wife and me (she's teaching at Steinmetz; I'm retired; our sons attend O.A. Thorp — except the one who graduated Whitney Young Class of 2007), the issues are as close to home as the dining room table every night when we set up for homework. When our elder young one reached fourth grade, he announced at the beginning of the school year that they got "more" kids in his class. CPS enforced the strictest class size and naturally raised the size of his class as soon as it could. His younger brother (first grade) is in a class of 28, while he (fifth) is in a class of 32. The only reason our class sizes are that "low" is a union contract! (Certainly not CPS generosity from the Good Old Days...).
One of the best things that's been happening the past two years is an end to one of the Big Lie stories repeated forever by corporate Chicago (since it was first uttered, falsely, as part of a Chicago Reporter story more than 25 years ago). That particular lie was the one claiming that "Chicago teachers" didn't send our kids to public schools then. It was false then, and remained false ever since.
We always have sent our kids to the public schools — and always will, for the majority of us teachers.
And there will always be those, who must be respected, who send their children to parochial schools for religious reasons (which was the basis of former Mayor Richard M. Daley's choice to send his daughter, for example, to Francis Xavier Ward when my wife taught there), and that part is nobody's business.
But we cannot overlook the smug in-your-face nonsense when our current mayor decided to send his own children (or mega-privilege) to the University of Chicago Lab School while attacking the city's real public schools (and the CTU) on the bogus "Longer School Day" campaign. Hypocrisy has a new synonym in Chicago nowadays, but that is another story for another time; this is about parents who are teachers.
One of the lesser teacher bashing "facts" purloined from reality and then recycled forever during the 1980s was that thingy the Reporter circulated based on the smallest sample size possible, viz, the false claim about where CPS teachers sent our kids.
The 1980s were the time that gave rise to almost all of the founding myths of the current corporate "school reform" era. It was the era of the Marva Collins miracle (a miracle that wasn't; I blew the whistle on the hoax in Substance by 1984), "A Nation at Risk" (we weren't; note Japan today); Chicago's Schools: Worst in America (the Big Lie courtesy of Bill Bennett and the editorialist and editorializing reporters at the Chicago Tribune aimed at destroying the Chicago Teachers Union); and the origins of stuff like "Stand and Deliver" (all you need is a [Republican, minority] "miracle teacher", see Marva again, and you can get poor kids to learn anything!)...
The most important fact is that the most important learning improvements won for CPS kids during the 1970s and 1980s came about as a result of teacher strikes. One of those was the current class size maximums (maxima?) that we have and can barely enforce (thanks to corporate "school reform").
When corporate "reform" stalled those gains by the 1990s (and the union took a vow of poverty by agreeing not to strike), class sizes went up, lies increased, and we wound up with a school system that is short about 150 school libraries.
But that same school system, with some cheerleading from the city's corporate media, is this year (for the first time) paying "relocation and transition expenses..." to a dozen or more corporate hacks (beginning with Jean-Claude Brizard, whose $30,000 should have been a scandal a year ago, but was only reported in Substance by me) — while also paying those same hacks salaries (like the $250,000 per year the Board voted to pay Brizard in June 2011) that have got through the roof.
And those are only the facts that any reporter can get from a close reading of public CPS Board Reports. The hundreds of new hirelings in the bureaucracy that have not been reported in the public record, many of those from the Broad Foundation and its ilk, are hidden from view unless you work to get the information; so much for Rahm's "transparency" — hypocrisy like everything else from this odious administration....
But I digress.
The history of Chicago's public schools shows that most of the things that made the public schools better for all kids since the 1960s came as a result of Chicago Teachers Union contracts, many of which required strikes to win.
The best thing about this year is that with the cooperation of the leadership of the CTU (which includes two officers who have children in the public schools; only two of the officers have children at this point, by the way) parents can see ourselves as parents and realize that with the teachers (and the union) we can get to choose better public schools and reject the quarter century of lies, Big and not so big that have dominated the narrative about Chicago public schools.
teachers union seeks stronger ties with parents
It's about time!
Facts about CPS 'relocation and transition' expenses
Since someone raised it in a comment and the thread is now back to talking about parents, it's interesting to focus on the lunchroom workers (most of whom are parents, with children in CPS; they certainly haven't been offered the money to pay for tuition at the Lab School at my old alma mater, by Rahm...). And on what CPS has been calling "relocation and transition expenses..."
I know that budget realities are not the stuff of a news outfit whose publisher can discuss phony deficits by using turd words like "gazillions" to discuss grim realities (Linda Lenz sharing mindlessness with WBEZ about a year ago...), there is an easy record to unearth during the past 11 months showing just one CPS money waster. Each of the top executives hired by Rahm's "team" since June 2011 has had a Board Report issued, and that Board Report shows the dollar costs (although it doesn't show up until the "Action" agenda).
So here are a few of the "relocation" expenses CPS has handed out since Rahm's seven-member Board decided that the most talented administrators in the USA all lived outside Chicago until Rahm's vetters discovered them. (I've added the date of the Board report; others can do the homework).
Here are just a few, whose "relocation" prices totaled about $100,000 according to the (almost hidden) public records of CPS. Every meeting, some of these guys and gals get up and prance through another Power Point pirouette explaining their latest plans to perfect our schools, while they wander around for the first time in history having purloined a perk nobody ever knew existed before.
Jean-Claude Brizard. $30,000 (June 22, 2011).
Noemi Donoso. $21.000 (June 22, 2011).
Andrea Saenz. $7,500 (June 22, 2011).
Jennifer Cheatham. $10,000 (July 27, 2011). Since Cheatham was already working here, the extra ten grand was called a "retention payment." Who knew?
Steve Gering. $7,500 (relocation) and $7,500 ("retention..."). (August 24, 2011).
David Watkins. $15,000. (October 26, 2011).
Oh, and today I just read, for "Teacher Appreciation Day," that "J.C." (as Rahm loves to call his pet lap dog, had an Op Ed about how he loves — just really really loves — teachers.
that's funny
that's funny george...because ..i as a "troughfeeding teacher" had to stop by Walgreens to buy my own packet of paper so i could make copies for my 1st grade listening center so i didnt get a bad review!!! Insain! And we have to provide "proof" to get our generous 100 dollar expense account! if my math is right! I would like some high end reporter to ask if Brizzard or Rahm every buy thier own office supplies or copy paper. Or if they have to pay for a kids field trip out thier own pockets. I will assume no if they dont even have to pay to move????????
hahhaahaah
typo guard!
please excuse my typos!!
Chicago's biggest Ponzi Scheme. Typos are Friday fatigue...
Don't worry about the typos, "Northside." And don't hold your breath waiting for anyone outside of Substance in the vaunted Chicago press corps to detail all the perks Brizard and his out-of-towners have poured on themselves since their arrival. Like their last three predecessors (who can forget that Arne Duncan was still "CEO" back at Christmas 2008?) — Duncan, Huberman, and Mazany — they are all doing their real job, which is to pretend to run a public school system while actually operating one of the biggest con games in the USA — a massive privatization program.
Since Arne left less that four years ago to see if he could play Bernie Madoff and hustle Chicago's Ponzi Scheme on the rest of the USA (charters, "innovation", privatization, test tests and testssss hissing like rattlesnakes), Chicago has continued on the same track. Whether it was called "Renaissance 2010..." (isn't that so last decade?!) or Rahmpage our rebranding of the Rahmster's Ministry of Propaganda assault on truth), the one signal program of CPS has been to give away dozens of public schools and thousands of public school students to the privatizers as fast as possible before they get caught. This is just as Madoff had to keep one new sucker ahead of the latest "payment."
What I'm happy about at this point is that very few teachers walk in, like many did four or five years ago, with a clip from the Sun-Times or Tribune and call that "research." Just about everyone in the classrooms now knows that what gets published as "news" in the two plutocracy's daily papers is ruling class propaganda. And what they ignore (there, or here at Catalyst) is the real story. The "relocation" and "retention" fees to the latest generation of Top Dogs at CPS (other professions have Top Guns... going way back we're stuck with...) are low hanging fruit of corruption and silliness, but every parent or teacher (or even most principals) can understand that scam.
It's going to be more fun the next six months.
Why?
Because for every story that we have uncovered ourselves at Substance (or with the help of our colleagues now doing real research at the Chicago Teachers Union... shout out to Carol, Pavlyn, Sarah and Kurt at this point, plus Michael's patient work... and Karen's leadership....), there are a dozen or more we're going to learn from our colleagues now that everyone is focused on just how insulting these ruling class lies and scams are. And how expensive to our children (both our own, like my two little ones at O.A. Thorp; or to all of our students, like Sharon's journalism and newspaper students at Steinmetz).
We're already hearing every day about the latest scams and corruptions. We're already hearing every day about how hard the "Inspector General" is working to clout against the real corruptions (and keep the focus on the nickel and time chickenshit), and this is only the beginning. And we're only taking a close look at 125 S. Clark St. Up in Rahm's hive of heathens it's actually even more gross. (Let's not forget: this ballerina pirouetted himself out of "public service" for a mere three years to make $18 million in "relationship banking" as Wasserman what's-its-name and still would get a low "F" on any basic accounting test... ). The crony capitalism and corruption at City Hall Chicago is today unprecedented (and this in the city of Hinky Dink and Rod Blagojevich... among others), but is still masked because the high level crooks today downtown are wearing thousand dollar suits, pasted on consultant eternal smiles.
This crowd is the real gangsters (and I'm getting used to my friends calling them "Banksters"). Since Rahm walked in, they've been shanking the public from the shadows with deals that will take us years to untangle and which will make the parking meter scams and the downtown parking lots (which now cost more per day and month — $33 per day to park! — than the average apartment rental in most Chicago wards...) look like a 7-11 stickup.
But this is enough musing for one night.
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