WEEKEND QUOTABLES

After more than $1billion was easily raised for the repair of  Notre Dame Cathedral, thousands marched in Paris, for the 23rd week in a row, over the lack of economic equality in France  

Father Michael Pfleger

 “It’s being reported a lot of money to rebuild Notre Dame is coming from the United States. Well, consider the fact that America hasn’t finished rebuilding the 9th Ward in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. We still don’t have clean water in Flint, Michigan. We still have not rebuilt Puerto Rico since Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017. Up until recently, little money was raised to rebuild three black churches burned to the ground in Louisiana. Poverty is raging in communities in Chicago and the state.” -- Sun-Times

John Barnett, Boeing whistle-blower

“As a quality manager at Boeing, you’re the last line of defense before a defect makes it out to the flying public. And I haven’t seen a plane out of Charleston yet that I’d put my name on saying it’s safe and airworthy.” -- New York Times

For the first time, Chicago top execs are all women of color. 

Lori Lightfoot

 “We are very focused on making sure … that we are creating opportunities for diverse young people to get a seat at tables that they wouldn’t ordinarily have a seat at. I think that’s reflected in our transition committees — we’re matching up people who are notable with people who are laudable and unsung and everything else in between.” -- Sun-Times

Anand Giridharadas, author of  'Winner Take All"

And he lambasted the notion, frequently championed by the likes of Bill Gates and Barack Obama, that Silicon Valley’s innovations would disrupt old hierarchies and spread capitalism’s rewards. “Really?” Giridharadas asked. “Now five companies control America, instead of 100! And a lot of those companies are whiter and more male than the ones they disrupted.” -- Washington Post

Dick Simpson, political science prof at UIC

Simpson noted that the woman Emanuel affectionately called “B3” was “held out to be a reformer who was improving the schools....There should have been red flags, given some of her previous involvement, as came out in the court case, with her former employer." -- Sun-Times

Keep your mouth closed and head up

I'm hearing warnings to "keep your mouth closed and your face out of the water!" Is this directed at Olympic athletes in Rio? Flint, MI residents? Or Chicago Public School students?

Don't wade in the water, children.

"We'll spend whatever it takes to remove any devices or any piping that might pose lead hazard risk. Whatever that is, however much it costs, we will do it to make sure that our water pipes are safe and that our children, your children, are safe." --  Forrest Claypool

Claypool sounds like a guy trying to get out of a bad marriage after he's been caught cheating.

Lots of questions here. What does he mean, "whatever it takes"? What if it takes billions, like in Flint for example? I mean, we're only beginning to get a handle on the problem. Right? And why is that?

Every day, the number of schools found with leaded water grows. CPS is still awaiting test results from dozens of buildings but has disclosed that at least 27 28 schools have dangerous levels of lead in their water fountains.

Does Claypool have some unlimited mountain of money stashed somewhere that he's not telling us about? I thought the system was "broke". At least that's what he's been telling the CTU as an excuse for not settling contract negotiations with the union.

Does "whatever it takes" include making things right for the potentially tens of thousands of students, former students, and teachers who have drunk from those toxic fountains for years?

And finally, how can parents trust that current and past lead testing is on the up and up? The Guardian names Chicago as one of 33 U.S. cities that have used water testing “cheats” that potentially conceal dangerous levels of lead. It seems that the mayor's  water department testers have been using the same water testing methods that prompted criminal charges against three government employees in Flint. In one case, Chicago officials asked employees to test water safety in their own homes.

It's enough to make you wonder why Claypool brought over Jason Kierna, one of his cronies from the CTA, with no school building experience, to run the facilities department.

It also makes me wonder why State Senator Heather Steans suddenly rode in on her white horse last week to sponsor a new water-testing bill. Where has she and her bill been all these years?

Steans, who is exploring a run for governor, is right when she says:

“We know that exposure to lead can cause developmental delays, learning disabilities and many other significant health problems, and young children in low-income and predominantly minority neighborhoods are most at risk. That’s unacceptable. By mandating rigorous testing of water systems and communicating openly with the public, we can prevent our cities and towns from becoming another Flint – a community where children were poisoned unawares.”

But hasn't this horse already left the barn? Could lead poisoning be one of the causes of the so-called "achievement gap" in our test-crazy school system? The Steans testing bill, even if passed and signed by the governor, won't "prevent" anything for those like my former basketball players who guzzled water at practice from those fountains for years or for all those summer school students, going back decades, who tried to stay hydrated in 100-degree buildings with no A/C.

Steans claims that until her bill is passed, CPS is under no legal obligation to do lead testing. Who does she think she's protecting here? Does she really expect angry parents to buy the excuse that lead testing didn't go on, or that Chicago cheated on testing, because there was no legislation mandating it?

Do you think Claypool is at all worried about leaded water at Francis Parker, where where he sends his children?

No, this isn't just about  removing or fixing some water pipes. It's about trying to restore faith in the leadership of a school system that seems more concerned with political ass-covering than in the safety and well-being of other people's children.

Have we learned nothing from Flint?

Urban school district austerity based on colonial model

Austerity is the forerunner to colonial-style takeovers of the cities, urban school districts and democratic decision-making. What the banksters are doing in Puerto Rico is setting the stage.  

The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, backed by the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton, (opposed by Bernie Sanders) and Republican congressional leaders, would create a new bankruptcy-type process for PR. It imposes a seven-member oversight board with dictatorial powers. Any new laws that are passed have to be approved by the control board. Any capital investments on the island have to be approved by the control board. If passed, the legislation will be geared to protecting bondholders and paving the way for massive cuts in the island’s public services.

Sound familiar? Maybe like the Control Board established for D.C.?

Newark in '05?

New Orleans in 2003?

Philly in 2001. 

Or Michigan's Public Act 436 in 2012, that allowed criminal Republican Gov. Rick Scott to appoint emergency managers with near-absolute power in cash-strapped cities, towns, and school districts. Emergency managers who can supersede local ordinances, sell city assets, and break union contracts -- leaving local elected officials without real authority.

It's the act that led to the takeover of Detroit schools, the Flint lead-in-the-water crisis, and the end of democracy (such as it was) in the state of MI. 

After "emergency" takeover in Michigan

According to Democracy Now's Juan González, there's one big difference. 

The governor of Michigan did have the power, under the laws that existed, to do that. Puerto Rico supposedly is a self-governing territory, that was granted self-government by Congress back in the 1950s. And so, this is a situation not just of a state imposing itself on a city, but of one nation imposing colonial control on another nation. 

Now we're seeing similar plans emerging for colonial-style takeover and privatization of debt-ridden urban (mostly black and Latino) school districts like Chicago and Baltimore..

Yesteday's Baltimore Sun reports:

Baltimore City school officials said the district will save about $14 million from cutting 171 positions this year, which included 111 staff members who were notified Tuesday that their jobs were being eliminated. The new details about the layoffs were released to The Sun on Wednesday, one day after the school system executed the third round of layoffs in two years.

There have been several attempts to takeover Baltimore schools in the past decade. So far, all have been beaten back. 

Schools may not open in the fall in Chicago where sociopath Gov. Rauner has kept the state without a budget for nearly a year, forcing massive, up to 40% cuts in local schools. 

Rauner is also pushing legislation aimed forcing Chicago schools into bankruptcy and allowing a takeover and ultimately privatization while busting the CTU. So far, the Democratic majority in the legislature hasn't given in. Stay tuned. 

The lead/water crisis and Chicago's school children

CEO Claypool says testing not based on any "indication" of lead. Then why no transparency?

Exposure to even small amounts of lead as a child causes subtle brain damage that can trigger learning disabilities and violent behavior later in life. -- Chicago Tribune

And what about exposure to large amounts of lead, consumed daily in the tap water of old Public Schools over a period of years? This is the prospect we are facing and the question parents are asking as we enter the post-Flint era.

According to the city, about 80% of city buildings are still connected to water mains by lead pipes, which were banned in 1986.

CPS claims that while the district has not tested water fountains for lead contamination. Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the system will begin checking water in a "small number of schools" this year. But it won't be the first time. Tests have been done before but the results have been kept from the public.

Schools CEO Forrest Claypool says it's no big deal. He says, “this is not because of any indication. It’s out of an abundance of caution.” Of course, Claypool sends his kids to ritzy private school, Francis Parker, where you can bet the drinking water has been fully tested.

Principals at several of those schools told the Chicago Sun-Times they learned of the testing from the press, and weren’t sure what to tell parents. I can't really blame them for being cautious, given what's happened to outspoken Blaine principal Troy LaRaviere.

Several principals, who did not have district permission to speak, said they had not been notified by CPS of the testing. Though the district typically sends letters home about such developments, the principals said they had been given no guidance on how to respond to parent questions this time.

Rahm's announcement Wednesday came more than a month after the Tribune requested the results of any water quality tests conducted by or for CPS since 2012. The school district failed to respond to FOIA requests, but in an email sent an hour before Emanuel's office released its statement a district spokesman said CPS "had no records to provide".

According to the Tribune,

The water crisis in Flint, Mich., has put new pressure on cities and school districts to address the safety of drinking water. Like Flint, Chicago and many older cities required the use of lead plumbing during the last century, and few have been required to replace those pipes with safer materials. CPS owns or operates more than 600 school buildings, some of which were built in the 1800s.

I'm told that lead and asbestos testing has gone on in the schools since 2003 but the results were never made public.

80% of city's buildings still connected to banned lead water pipes.

Similar lead scandals have emerged, especially in other poor, predominantly black and Latino school districts across the country. In Detroit, they've found elevated levels of lead and copper in nearly a third of its elementary schools, contamination that one expert says could be found nationwide, wherever school authorities spend the time and money to look.

In D.C. they've found 12 schools so far with lead levels that violate federal standards.

Boston Public Schools officials shut down fountains in four schools after a test revealed elevated levels of lead in the drinking water.

Obvious questions. Why are they testing such a small number of schools? Why has it taken so long?And why the lack of transparency? The answers: While testing is relatively cheap (we just had the tap water in our house tested for $35) the cost of necessary infrastructure repair and lead abatement, not just in the schools, but in many neighborhoods of the city (and nation) could require a national campaign with costs running into the trillions. Possibly parallel to what we're spending on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not to mention the costs of possible class-action lawsuits, criminal trials and political fallout (would this be happening in a wealthy, white school district?) resulting from cover-ups of the Flint variety.

Is Chicago and the nation willing to make such a commitment in these times of austerity and anti-tax, anti-government hysteria? Even with the health and well-being of our children hanging in the balance?

My bet is that Chicago's lead crisis will be used as an excuse to further erode public space, close or privatize more schools.

Schools being tested include:

• Burr, 1621 W. Wabansia
• Canty, 3740 N. Panama
• Coonley, 4046 N. Leavitt
• Crown, 2128 S. St. Louis
• De Diego, 1313 N. Claremont
• Dett, 2131 W. Monroe
• Ericson, 3600 W. 5th
• Evers, 9811 S. Lowe
• Hefferan, 4409 W. Wilcox
• Mahalia Jackson, 917 W. 88th
• Jamieson, 5650 N. Mozart
• Jungman, 1746 S. Miller
• Kellman, 3030 W. Arthrington
• Kozminski, 936 E. 54th
• Lenart, 8101 S. LaSalle
• Mays, 6656 S. Normal
• Neil, 8555 S. Michigan
• Nicholson, 6006 S. Peoria
• Parker, 6800 S. Stewart
• Pritzker, 2009 W. Schiller St.
• Saucedo/Telpochcalli, 2832 W. 24th
• South Shore ES, 1415 E. 70th
• Stagg, 7424 S. Morgan
• Sumner, 4320 W. 5th
• Tanner, 7350 S. Evans
• Harold Washington ES, 9130 S. University
• Webster, 4055 W. Arthrington
• Westcott, 409 W. 80th

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"Special place in hell…" -- Albright

Madeleine Albright assails young women Democrat Sanders supporters

“There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!” Mrs. Clinton laughed, slowly clapped her hands and took a large sip of her beverage. -- N.Y. Times

Gloria Steinem says they're boy crazy

“When you’re young, you’re thinking, ‘Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie.’ ” -- New Republic

Kim Foxx

Daily Herald Editorial Board

In the case of Laquan McDonald, it took Alvarez 400 days. That's more than a year. It was long after the city of Chicago had settled the civil case. And more than 50 percent longer than the national average she cites. Where is the swift justice in that? We endorse Kim Foxx in the Democratic primary for Cook County state's attorney. -- Endorsement: Alvarez slow on police shooting; we back Foxx 

Tom Corfman, Crain's political editor

Affluent Chicago families are directed to increase their supply of water from the Fiji islands. -- Chicago's Flint Problem, On Politics

Nikhil Goyal, author of "Schools on Trial"

From a President Clinton, unfortunately, I don’t expect anything better than what we’ve seen under President Obama. I don’t expect her to be any better; I think she’s still a proponent of charter schools and this pay-for-performance model. -- Salon

#LaquanMcDonald was moved from school to school as resources for troubled kids were cut, @SSKedreporter reports: https://t.co/MMfhNvCtnT

— Mick Dumke (@mickeyd1971) February 8, 2016

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Rahm's council rubber-stamp, Ald. Will Burns bails out. Takes job with AirBnB.

CTU Vice-Pres. Jesse Sharkey 

“The Big Bargaining Team will tell us if there’s a [tentative agreement].” -- Sun-Times

Freep Editor Stephen Henderson on Flint

This is about cities themselves, and how Michigan’s system of governance permits and even incentivizes the creation of poor, isolated urban centers that don’t have enough population or resources to deliver services. This is about race and class, and the historic emphasis of suburban development on moving away from black and poor communities, stripping them of the tax base and other resources they need to survive. -- Detroit Free Press

Rahm Emanuel on $1.3B O'hare expansion

"We went after this like a heat-seeking missile." -- Crain's

Brother Fred on Iowa Caucus

If Trump gets 25% that's 30,000 people. That wouldn't be a sell-out crowd at Wrigley. -- Iowa Caucus Project

Donald Trump on his donations to the Clinton Foundation

 “Again, I was a businessman, and it was my obligation to get along with everybody, including the Clintons, including Democrats and liberals and Republicans and conservatives. As a businessman, I had an obligation to do that.” -- The Hill

Rauner makes his move to take over Chicago and CPS

If you want to see what it looks like when a right-wing governor pulls a coup d'etat and appoints corporate managers to supplant elected local officials, take a look at Flint, MI.

Yesterday, we heard the news that Gov. Bruce Rauner and top Republican leaders are planning to introduce legislation aimed at an emergency financial takeover of the city of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools. Their rationale is the $500 million shortfall within the Chicago Public Schools system which they themselves -- with help from sellout Democrats -- created.

We are told that the legislation would also allow for CPS and the city of Chicago to declare bankruptcy – something by law both cannot currently do. To sweeten the pot, Rauner threw in the promise of a elected CPS school board, but only "once the financial situation is remediated". 

Given the history of corruption, racism, and incompetence behind Rahm Emanuel's own autocratic rule over the schools, the promise of an elected board may sound attractive, given the widespread support shown for an end to mayoral control by Chicago voters. But it's merely a ploy.

The move is also Rauner's way of heading off a budget compromise and a contract agreement between CPS and the CTU and cutting the heart out of collective bargaining rights for teachers public employee unions, statewide. It's their alternative to raising taxes on their wealthy and corporate patrons to pay for the operation of a predominantly black and Latino school district.

It's the "Katrina model" which Paul Vallas used to bust the teachers union and privatize the entire New Orleans school system, getting Arne Duncan's stamp of approval in the process. Gov. Snyder used it in Michigan to destroy democracy, including elected city government and the school system in Detroit. Snyder poisoned the people in Flint as a cost-cutting measure, along with way.

It's all based on Rahm's dictum, "never let a serious crisis go to waste."

The move brings to mind the Tribune editorial board's call back in May, for a "Mussolini-type" dictatorship over CPS followed by the Trib's Kristen McQueary praying for a Katrina-like storm to hit Chicago.

Can Rauner pull it off? Can he do what Snyder's done in Michigan? Not without complete and total acquiescence from Madigan, Cullerton and state Democrats who still hold a veto-proof majority in the legislature. Rahm claims he is "100% against the plan". But we don't know what kind of deal he's cut with his pal the governor, behind closed doors, to save his own ass.

In other words, yes he can. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to support AFSCME sanitation workers. That evening, he delivered his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech to a packed room of supporters. The next day, he was assassinated.

Dr. Martin Luther King

The two most dynamic movements that reshaped the nation during the past three decades are the labor and civil rights movements. Our combined strength is potentially enormous. -- Speech given to the Illinois State AFL-CIO, Oct. 7, 1965

CTU's Jesse Sharkey

“We’ve got our big bargaining team coming in on a holiday, and we’re trying to see if there’s a deal here. So far, there isn’t.”

“Everyone knows that if you tried to lay off 5,000 people in the middle of the school year, you would crash and tank the schools, and if you did that, you would only get halfway through their claimed deficit. So no, I don’t think that any of us think (Claypool) was really going to do it. But I don’t have any doubt that they’re contemplating making cuts.” -- Sun-Times

Flint water bill over $1,000 with late fees.

 Stephen Mittons DCFS worker

If the wealthy elite use the Supreme Court to silence us, who will oppose big corporations and their CEOs when they manipulate our economy and try to buy our democracy to serve only themselves? And without unions, who will speak up for the middle class? -- Sun-Times

Flint, MI mom

 "I can’t afford to go buy 20 gallons of water just to bathe him one time,” said Hawk, a 25-year-old single mother of three who attends Mott Community College and is pregnant. "We get treated like … we don’t matter,” she said. “That’s how it’s been feeling.” -- Detroit Free Press

Michael Moore in Flint

 “This is not a mistake. Ten people have been killed here because of a political decision. They did this. They knew.” -- Detroit Free Press