Warning: Be careful who you embed with

em·bed

əmˈbed/ verb 1. fix (an object) firmly and deeply in a surrounding mass.

No, my warning isn't directed at Charlie Sheen's "goddesses". Probably too late for them. It's also too late for GOP current poll leader Ben Carson whose ignorance on foreign policy just got exposed (as if we hadn't noticed) by his "close adviser" and professional embedded "journalist", Armstrong Williams.

So just consider this a warning to everyone who feels they may need it -- AFT, NEA leaders?

Armstrong Williams

For those too young (or too old) to remember, William's approach to journalism was to embed himself with the Bush administration and in particular with Bush's ed secretary, Rod Paige. In January 2005, USA Today reported that documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that Williams had been paid $240,000 to promote No Child Left Behind. USA Today found that Williams was hired "to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same".

Now Armstrong has betrayed Carson. I guess Dr. C must not have left enough money on the nightstand.

Not to say that politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, or shouldn't. Just a reminder to use protection.

Case Studies... Billionaire Rauner is now the most hated governor in IL history. His budget terrorism and banning of Syrian refugees have been met with hostility and resistance across the state. But who will step up in this fight to save public education and salvage what's left of social support networks in the state? And what kind of deal will Sen. Cullerton and House Speaker Madigan try and cut?

I know CTU is watching to make sure we don't get sold out again on Cullerton's "compromise" SB318 like we did on the unconstitutional pension-theft bill.

Brother Fred says that the Supremes' latest oral arguments indicate that their next ruling will help insure us against another pension grab.

When the Court rules again in favor of our pension rights, as it is expected to do, it will now include what it did not have the opportunity to rule in SB1. They will not only protect us from the elected pension thieves in Springfield and City Hall. They will protect us from sell-out union leaders as well.

Ald. "Slow Eddie" Burke is still quick enough to know which way the wind is blowing on this one. He knows Rauner will take a beating on the refugee question, especially here in Chicago. For one thing, the governor doesn't have the authority to stop refugees from settling in Illinois. But he can push the legislature to cut funding for refugee aid.

So Burke is introducing a city council resolution reaffirming "Chicago’s historic role as a place of sanctuary and refuge". Co-sponsors are Marty Quinn (13th) and Progressive Caucus member, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th). Should pass easily.

Ald. Waguespack

From Natasha Korecki at Politico -- 9:30 a.m. Progressive Caucus presser at City Hall. From a release:

"Members of the Progressive Reform Caucus will join Access Living Chicago in support of a resolution calling for hearings regarding the impact of financial cuts to special education programs in Chicago Public Schools. To date, Chicago Public Schools has cut approximately $32 million dollars in special education programs, and the budget cut announcements are not over."

-- Expect Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) to introduce a resolution calling for public hearings on special education funding cuts. "This resolution asking for hearings by the Education Committee will provide CPS an opportunity to clear the air and tell the public exactly what the state of funding and support for special needs students is at this point in time and throughout the year," Waguespack said in a statement. "The system supporting special needs students needs to be fully funded and CPS has an obligation to fulfill that duty today."

In case you missed the interview with Kim Foxx, candidate for Cook County State's Attorney on Chicago Tonight. Watch it here.

Speaking Finn-ish: 'High quality learners' code name for...

You can mock these right-wing loonies and American Taliban all you want after tonight's debate (and I will). But remember, they still control both houses of Congress, lots of state houses and legislatures,  and dominate the Supreme Court. And we have a Democratic administration, including the Dept. of Education and some big-city mayors, that have abetted, enabled and imitated them for the past 7 years and longer.

Finn

Speaking of... Former Asst. Ed Sec. under Reagan, Chester Finn is targeting Finland's education system (progressives' favorite) for not spending more on "high quality learners." You don't have to speak Finn-ish to understand Finn's coded references or to see that he's not just talking about Finland, which already has lots of high schools devoted to the "gifted".

Finn, a senior fellow at the right-wing Hoover Institute, must love Dem Mayor Rahm Emanuel who is pushing selective-enrollment schools on every other block on the north side of Chicago. The north side obviously has more high-quality children.

Finn and his think-tank protege, Michael Petrilli at the Fordham Institute, are all about reproducing the educational system's inequalities.

Amanda Klonsky, who taught students in Chicago's juvenile detention center for several years, wonders what Finn would call her students?

@amandaklonsky1 He'd call them "low-quality learners". @pasi_sahlberg https://t.co/RxWD5MXUVd

— Mike Klonsky (@mikeklonsky) November 10, 2015

Come see us talk about prisons and justice at Penn State. #rapsessions https://t.co/yxB9CiijcY

— Amanda Klonsky (@amandaklonsky1) November 9, 2015

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

The protesting students are demanding that the institutions live up to their values. How long did we think the students wouldn't notice? — John Warner (@biblioracle)

Hillary Clinton

Most charter schools — I don’t want to say every one — but most charter schools, they don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them. And so the public schools are often in a no-win situation, because they do, thankfully, take everybody, and then they don’t get the resources or the help and support that they need to be able to take care of every child’s education. -- Washington Post

At Mizzou last night.

AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten

 Success Academy charter-school chain has suspended or expelled elementary students, including many kindergarteners, often for minor infractions — and at a rate seven times higher than elementary students in New York City’s public school system as a whole. -- N.Y. Daily News

Vermont Ed Sec. Rebecca Holcombe

These tests are based on a narrow definition of “college and career ready.”... If your child’s scores show that they are not yet proficient, this does not mean that they are not doing well or will not do well in the future. -- The Answer Sheet

Time Magazine's Jeffrey Kluger 

You have to accept that a single thing can exist in two states at once—alive and dead, black and white—until it’s observed or measured in some way, at which point it instantly takes on one quality or the other. -- What Einstein Got Wrong About the Speed of Light

I made this one up...

Ben Carson: "it's a witch hunt. The media keeps quoting me knowing I'm a crackpot."

— Mike Klonsky (@mikeklonsky) November 8, 2015