What Junior forgot to mention about Chicago gun violence

D.T. Junior had so much oil on his head last night, Dad was worried the stage lights might ignite him. And wouldn't that be tragic on top of everything else, Melania-gate and all?

Looking for some easy claps from the convention's dwindling gaggle of racist Trump sycophants, Junior called out Chicago, cynically using the rising death toll that gun violence has taken in the city's black and Latino neighborhoods to make his case against any and all gun control legislation.

"Just look at how effective those laws have been in inner-city Chicago, a city with the toughest gun laws in our nation, where 70 people were murdered last month alone and where over 3,400 American lives have been lost since this administration took office in 2009." 

No Junior. Chicago doesn't have the toughest gun laws in the country.

But I'll give him a point for trying. He's right that local gun laws alone don't do much to stop the shootings. They may save a life now and then. Not a bad thing.

But the reasons for the city's pandemic gun violence are complex. They are rooted in institutionalized racism, poverty, joblessness, school closings leading to more blight, worsening post-industrial socio-economic conditions, feelings of despair and anger, and neighborhood segregation and isolation. Add easy access to guns and a competitive, largely unfettered drug market and you get Chiraqs.

But Democrats can't blame all this on the Republicans.

Junior could have mentioned that IL's concealed-carry law was struck down by the court back in 2012. And it's all but impossible to get any laws with teeth passed in the legislature for fear of being taken out with NRA money.

While buying a gun inside the city limits may be slightly more difficult for some, all they have to do is drive across the Indiana line into Gov. Pence territory, for one of the largest gun buffets in the country. Everything from Saturday Night Specials to heavy artillery is there for the taking.

Almost 60% of the guns used to commit a crime in Chicago are first bought in states like Indiana, Wisconsin and Mississippi, Those states do not require background checks for gun sales at shows or over the Internet.

Oil-Can Trump could have scored big points against Mayor Rahm Emanuel by pointing out how he, as Pres. Obama's chief of staff, put the kibosh on every attempt to pass national gun control legislation. Remember in 2009, when Rahm told Atty. Gen. Holder to STFU on gun control?

But national gun laws would have cramped gun sales in V.P candidate Pence's home state and so many others controlled by Republicans and the NRA. So Junior was left with nothing but a few claps.

Of course I want to hear a #GOP platform on education from the son of a billionaire who attended a $55k/yr boarding school. #RNCinCLE

— Helen Gym (@HelenGym2015) July 20, 2016

Little to cheer about latest CPS suspension/expulsion rates. Charters are main culprit.

There is no evidence that  frequent reliance  on removing  misbehaving  students improves  school safety or  student behavior. -- Skiba & Losen 

Rahm and spin team at CPS are cheering the good news. District leaders are claiming that they've  expelled and suspended fewer students last school year than the year before. But are their claims real? Partly yes and partly no. Is there much to cheer about? Uh uh.

They've been on a push to reduce school suspensions and expulsions since 2014, when Pres. Obama and the Department of Justice under Attorney General Eric Holder released a set of guidelines warning schools that disciplinary policies could not have a “disparate impact” on minorities. Disgraced CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett did lead a push away from the district's horrible "Zero Tolerance" policies, giving more discretion to principals and school staff is deciding who when to suspend/expel. But African-American and Latino students still are suspended and expelled at extremely higher rates than white students to the point of absurdity.

The numbers tell the story. Let's start with expulsions. Can you believe that not one white student was expelled from CPS last year? Compare that with black students who account for 39% of CPS students (district-run and charters) but 68% of 61,349 suspensions and 81% of expulsions in the 2014-15 school year.

White students, made up about 9% of enrollment but just 3% of suspensions and zero expulsions.

Latino students fell somewhere in the middle. 

There has been some lowering of suspension rates from last year. But only in district-run schools. In charters, suspension/expulsion rates are higher and the gap between white students and students of color has grown wider.

At charter schools, for example, black students accounted for 82% of expulsions, up from 77% in 2013-14, while in district-operated schools, expulsions of African-American students fell to 76% from 87%.

That shows little has changed since this report came out in 2014 showing charters expelled 61 of every 10,000 students while the district-run schools expelled just 5 of every 10,000 students.

CPS says it has continued to invest in “restorative justice” programs that coach and counsel instead of just punishing, though the Chicago Teachers Union has questioned the depth of the district’s commitment to the idea. I don't see much when I'm out in the schools. 

The district also says it is working with charter operators to train them in the same practices that are keeping CPS students in classrooms — but it cannot under state law require them to change their discipline practices.

Hey wait. I thought district schools were supposed to be learning from the charters.

The 'Cone of Uncertainty' and other random notes...

The Cone of Uncertainty

We were heading out for D.C. this morning and then on to the Bethany Beach. We turned around. Lucky we checked the weather. I always thought the "Cone of Uncertainty" was a research/risk-management term 'til I heard Al Roker use it yesterday. I always called it, The Black Swan after Nassim Taleb's book of the same name.

This morning, I'm CERTAIN that Jauquin has the same travel plans as we do. Note to my old high school friend, Floyd at UM. I'll take a rain check on that beer.

Jake in Wauwatosa

Poll: There's 2 guys, Reggie and Bob, in Green Bay, Agnes in Oskosh, and Crazy Jake the exterminator in Wauwatosa, who still support Walker. -- Politico

Chiraq...After 14 people were shot here yesterday in just 15 hours, including an 11-month-old boy and a 2-year-old boy, the mayor jumps out and says gun laws must "reflect the values of the people". All this had me harking back to '09 when Rahm, while serving as Obama’s chief of staff, told AG Eric Holder to “shut the f--k up” on his proposed assault weapons ban. 

Speaking of Rahm, his boy Forrest Claypool ran a board hearing on charter expansion yesterday, that was shady enough to do the mayor and his predecessors proud. Critics were barred from entry and even run out of the hallways, while the room was stacked with Noble charter supporters. Final score: 86 speakers for Noble St. 10 for anti-expansion. 

Note to Sen. Warren...If you're serious about exposing think-tankers who are on the take from Wall Street, call me. I've got names and addresses. 

“Big oil companies shouldn’t be able to peddle phony research on climate change, and the financial industry shouldn’t be able to support phony economics hiding behind a think tank. People expect think tanks to be independent in the research they produce, and the fact that more and more of their work is funded by wealthy corporate interests — often in secret — further tilts the playing field for those with money and power.” -- Lacey Rose, a Warren spokeswoman.

Duncan's legacy

"It will take years to recover from the damage that Arne Duncan’s policies have inflicted on public education." -- Diane Ravitch

Arne Duncan says he will remain at the D.O.E. "until the final bell". At this point, no one really cares.

The damage is already done and with billions of Race To The Top money no longer in his back pocket, he has no more juice with states, school districts, or with Congress. According to most surveys, his version of school reform has been badly discredited (I hope I helped a little) and many feel he will be remembered as the worst ed secretary ever. 

Diane Ravitch documents the destruction left in his wake:

*He used his control of billions of dollars to promote a dual school system of privately managed charter schools operating alongside public schools; 

*He has done nothing to call attention to the fraud and corruption in the charter sector or to curb charters run by non-educators for profit or to insist on charter school accountability or to require charters to enroll the neediest children;

*He pushed to require states to evaluate teachers by the test scores of their students, which has caused massive demoralization among teachers, raised the stakes attached to testing, and produced no positive results;

*He used federal funds and waivers from NCLB to push the adoption of Common Core standards and to create two testing consortia, which many states have abandoned;

*The Common Core tests are so absurdly “rigorous” that most students have failed them, even in schools that send high percentages of students to four-year colleges, the failure rates have been highest among students who are English language learners, students with disabilities, and students of color;

*He has bemoaned rising resegregation of the schools but done nothing to reduce it; [Here, I would add that Duncan openly opposed, what he referred to as "forced integration" and abandoned fellow cabinet member, AG Eric Holder on his deseg suit in Louisiana--mk].

*He has been silent as state after state has attacked collective bargaining and due process for teachers;

*He has done nothing in response to the explosion of voucher programs that transfer public funds to religious schools;

*Because of his policies, enrollments in teacher education programs, even in Teach for America, have plummeted, and many experienced teachers are taking early retirement;

*He has unleashed a mad frenzy of testing in classrooms across the country, treating standardized test scores as the goal of all education, rather than as a measure;

*His tenure has been marked by the rise of an aggressive privatization movement, which seeks to eliminate public education in urban districts, where residents have the least political power;

*He loosened the regulations on the federal student privacy act, permitting massive data mining of the data banks that federal funds created;

*He looked the other way as predatory for-profit colleges preyed on veterans and  minorities, plunging students deep into debt;

*Duncan has regularly accused parents and teachers of “lying” to students. For reasons that are unclear, he wants everyone to believe that our public schools are terrible, our students are lazy, not too bright, and lacking ambition.

Diane could have also included Duncan's unflagging support for autocratic mayoral control of urban school districts. He made mayoral control an essential piece of his top-down school reform model and went so far as to say he would consider his time as education secretary a “failure” if more mayors didn’t take over city school systems by the end of his tenure.

They didn't. It was and he is.

Final Note: According to a report in the S-T, while Duncan remains in D.C., is wife and two daughters returned to Chicago with the children to attend the expensive and private University of Chicago Lab School.

I leave it to Valery Strauss at WaPo to point out the obvious:

…now his children will attend a progressive private school in Chicago, a school that does not follow key school reform policies that his Education Department has set for public schools.

It does not, for example, use the Common Core State Standards (though many teachers there support them). It does not bombard its students with standardized tests or spend weeks each semester in test-prep mode. It does not evaluate teachers by student standardized test scores. In 2013, 20 Lab teachers signed a letter to Duncan protesting his policies that promote standardized test-based school reform. Also among the signatories were teachers from the Ariel Community Academy, a public school founded by a team of people that included Duncan.

[...]
Another irony is that Duncan will be sending his children to a private school in a city where he ran the public schools for seven years; he then went on to control federal oversight of the nation’s public schools for another seven years. One wonders if there is not a single public school — or public charter school — that Duncan could have chosen after being personally responsible in some way for the improvement of the public education system in Chicago.

Arne Duncan chooses a school free from his influence http://t.co/NIA1aWRXNf Because you know he has to do what is BEST for his kids

— linda (@breezydayz) July 10, 2015

Why is CPS going after pregnant teachers? Interferes with testing.

Maybe AG Holder was in Chicago for more than just a Rahm photo-op.

The lawsuit also alleges that [Scammon Principal Mary] Weaver asked a teacher who was nursing, "When will you be done with that?" and told a teacher who announced she was pregnant, "I can't believe you are doing this to me. You are going to be out right before (mandatory) testing!"

No, it's not just one principal. Byrd-Bennett and the district leadership are fighting a federal anti-discrimination lawsuit.

The Tribune reports:

Weaver subjected pregnant teachers "to disparate treatment with regard to performance evaluation ratings" and other matters, and "there existed a regular, purposeful, and less-favorable treatment of teachers because of their sex (pregnancies)," according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

CPS issued a statement, saying it "will not tolerate the kind of discrimination or retaliation that is alleged to have taken place at Scammon Elementary" but also that it intends to defend itself against the suit. 

Rahm and Weaver

Weaver was awarded a bonus last year under a principal quality award program that's supported by $5 million from the city's philanthropic community.

But the CTU wants her put on administrative leave during the Justice Dept. investigation. V.P. Sharkey says, it's not just the harassment of pregnant teachers, but the "the incredibly toxic internal environment of fear" she's created at Scammon Elementary.

"No woman should have to make a choice between her job and having a family," Vanita Gupta, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.

So maybe Eric Holder was doing something in Chicago besides a photo-op with Rahm.

Where's Holder and the Justice Dept. in all of this?

Jesus Mary, this Bob McCulloch guy may be the single greasiest public servant I've ever encountered. -- Esquire's Charles P. Pierce

 Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, wept after learning the grand jury’s decision.“They still don’t care. They ain’t never going to care.” -- CBS Chicago

 The father of Michael Brown appeared at a news conference Tuesday wearing a T-shirt with the slogan, “No Justice No Peace.” -- NBC News

Smirking McCulloch

Woke up this morning still sickened by faux-prosecutor Robert McCulloch's smirking, racist, interminable "explanation" of the Ferguson grand jury whitewash of Michael Brown's murder.

The churning in the pit of my stomach lasted all night, as I watched the exclusive club of seated, nearly all-white "journalists" softball McCulloch and play along with the charade. Then to top it all off, there was President Obama on one side of a split screen, giving what could only be called an exercise in uninspired acquiescence, while on the other side of the screen, the tear gas was flowing.

Never was the disconnect between Obama and the young black men and women in the streets of Ferguson, victims of relentless police mistreatment and violence, more obvious. The president's professorial (I mean that in a bad way) ramblings were never more out of place. Never were his calls for "calm" more hollow sounding.

Two things McCulloch said last night stayed with me through the morning. They were his insinuations that both the Brown family and Eric Holder's Justice Department were complicit in the whitewash.

The first was easily dispelled by the family's own denunciation of the process. As for Holder and the J.D., it's not so clear.

Holder insists the federal probe of the policeman is ongoing and independent of St. Louis prosecutors. But since his initial trip to Ferguson, which was little more than an administration photo op, we have heard nothing about the department's investigation.

Holder visits Ferguson

Here's what McCulloch said:

As Attorney General Holder and I both pledged our separate investigations follow that trail of facts with no preconceived notion of where that journey would take us. Our only goal was that our investigation would be thorough and complete to give the grand jury, the department of justice and ultimately the public all available evidence to make an informed decision.

 I detail this for two reasons. First, so that everyone will know that, as promised by me and Attorney General Holder, there was a full investigation and presentation of all evidence and appropriate instruction of the law to the jury, to the grand jury.

According to McCulloch,  Holder was involved directly in gathering and presenting "evidence" (of what?) to the sham grand jury, where Michael Brown and family obviously had no advocate.

So, since neither Holder nor anyone from the Justice Dept. has responded to or rebutted McCulloch's claims, we're left with the obvious questions:  To what degree, if any, were the U.S. Justice Dept. and Attorney General Holder complicit with this travesty of justice? And what are they going to do now, if anything, to intervene and help bring at least a semblance of justice to the Brown family and the Ferguson community?

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Atty. Gen. Holder meets with students from St. Louis Community College

Eric Holder

“History simmers beneath the surface in more communities than just Ferguson.” -- New Republic

 Lesley McSpadden (Michael Brown's mother)

“We couldn’t even see him. They wouldn’t even let us go see him. They just left him out there, four and a half hours, with no answers. Wouldn’t nobody tell us nothing.” -- N.Y. Times

Tyona Fields 

“I’m praying to God we can get these kids in school because kids have been out too long,” said Tyona Fields, one of the cafeteria workers at Griffith Elementary School. School is scheduled to start next Monday. -- N.Y. Times

Rahm Emanuel

 “The narrative is: We’re the murder capital. Not close." -- Politico

Coltrane

Cornell West on Obama

"It’s a sad thing. It’s like you’re looking for John Coltrane and you get Kenny G..." --- Salon

Stephen Mihm

When we see broad areas of inequality in America today, what we are actually seeing is the lingering stain of slavery... Today, in the 21st century, it still casts an economic shadow over both blacks and whites: “Slavery.”  -- Boston Globe "Where Slavery Thrived, Inequality Rules Today"

Eric Holder turned into a political hack for Rahm

Shame on Attorney General Eric Holder for allowing himself and his office to be used to kickstart Rahm Emanuel's re-election campaign. Holder was in town Wednesday to hail the “amazing” turnaround in school safety since the 2009 beating death of Fenger Academy student Derrion Albert — even after 50 school closings.

“There are a lot of great things going on in Chicago. There is an organized, a galvanized community led by a great mayor that has led to reductions in all the viable statistics — really amazing reductions,” Holder said during a roundtable at police headquarters.

What a bunch of horsebleep! Remember, Rahm is the same guy who, as Obama's chief of staff, told Holder to "STFU' when it came to drafting any gun-control legislation. It may be borderline legal for a cabinet guy to campaign for politicians, but it's shady, as Holder well knows. Especially when an administration like Rahm's is so notorious for corruption and with Holder's Justice Dept. possibly having to carry out investigations an prosecutions.

Yes, "galvanized community" indeed. It's galvanized alright, galvanized against the mayor's school closings and against his failure to control the growing gun violence epidemic. I'm certain Holder has seen Rahm's single-digit approval ratings on the south and west sides.

Emanuel and Holder both claimed that the just-ended school year was the "safest on record" in the seven years since the Chicago Public Schools started tracking safety.

What Holder failed to mention or worse, failed to notice was, thousands of black and Latino children having to navigate through cordons of "safe passage" guards just to get to their receiving schools an the psychological impact that has on students and families. Holder might have pointed out that there was never many in-school shootings. Even Albert wasn't killed in his school. Schools have always been a safe haven for kids, especially in neighborhoods lacking in jobs and after-school programs. Another reason why Rahm's mass school closings may be a great contributor to the dramatic rise in gun violence this year. It's on the streets, not just in the hour preceding or following school, where these same children, thousand of them afraid to go out and play after school, are facing the threat of gun violence every day, primarily in the very neighborhoods where the mayor has closed their schools.

Holder might have also noticed that Rahm and his top cop Garry McCarthy have been caught tinkering with the crime stats to try and make the city's gun violence pandemic look more palatable to voters.So whatever numbers he and the mayor are tossing around are hardly worthy of serious consideration.  Even with the tinkering and political spinning, there no question that Chicago remains among the worst cities in the nation when it comes to shootings. The shooting numbers this year are even higher than last and continue to rise during the summer months.

Hardly "amazing", Mr. Holder.

Shades of 2010 when Sec. of Ed Arne Duncan went out on the stump for then-mayor Adrian Fenty (and Michelle Rhee) in D.C. Duncan had no juice in D.C. communities and couldn't deliver for Fenty. I think the same applies to Holder here in Chicago. But whether Rahm wins or loses, Holder has denigrated himself and his office on many levels by singling Rahm out for  undue praise on the violence issue as the campaign season approaches.