catalyst-chicago.org

Allies and political messengers close to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who faces a deepening standoff with the Chicago Teachers Union, have emerged to take a tactical fight public on his behalf, the Tribune reports.

Parents and students from seven cities are joining those in Chicago in filing civil rights complaints against school closings, phase-outs and other “rampantly horrible” reform upheavals they contend have disproportionately victimized minority communities, school activists said Thursday. (Sun-Times)

Complaints are being filed on behalf of students from Chicago; Detroit; Baltimore; New York City; Newark, N.J.; Eureka, Miss.; Wichita, Kan.; Boston; Washington D.C.; and Philadelphia. (Catalyst)

The complaints call for the Department of Education to investigate school closings in each of the cities and demand a national moratorium on shutting down failing schools without reform that includes community input, according to the Tribune.

Clemente Community Academy High School in Humboldt Park will become Chicago’s third public high school devoted exclusively to the rigorous International Baccalaureate diploma program tailor-made to prepare students for college. (Sun-Times)

CPS chief Jean-Claude Brizard unexpectedly told a group of school community groups that the district’s Office of School Improvement would no longer do school turnarounds. Instead, CPS plans to get more outside organizations, like the privately-run Academy of Urban School Leadership, or AUSL, to do the work of firing existing staff and essentially starting schools over. (WBEZ)

Comedian Ed Flynn presents "an uneducated man's" explanation the Chicago Teachers Union strike authorization vote. (WBEZ)

IN THE STATE
The State Board of Education removed the elected school boards in the East St. Louis and North Chicago districts on Thursday, citing nagging academic underperformance. (The New York Times)

IN THE NATION
In response to protests and petitions, change.org will no longer be collecting signatures for Rhee or Edelman because their organizations are anti-union, writes DianeRavitch on her blog. Change.org claims to be a progressive website, not just a free-market platform for anything. As a progressive website, it was subject to growing criticism for enabling groups like Students First and Stand for Children to promote their agenda of privatization and union-busting.

Between 90 and 95 million low-skill workers — or 2.6 percent of the global workforce — will not be needed by employers by 2020 and will be vulnerable to permanent joblessness, according to a report released Thursday by the McKinsey Global Institute. Meanwhile, employers around the world will need nearly 45 million more medium-skill workers (with secondary school and vocational training) and 38 to 40 million more high-skill workers (with a college education) than will be available, according to the study. (Huffington Post)

Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana was unanimously voted the next president of Purdue University by the board of trustees on Thursday, making official what had been reported by a number of local and national news outlets this week. Daniels, a Republican who cannot run for a third term because of term limits, will start as the university’s 12th president in January. (The New York Times)

A judge ruled that the Orleans Parish School Board and the Louisiana Department of Education, in laying the groundwork for a school reform movement that has become nationally recognized, illegally fired 7,500 school employees. (The New York Times)