Victories in WI & IL Gov Races leave educators relieved

Tony Evers and Mandela Barnes

Many Illinois and Wisconsin educators are breathing sighs of relief this morning.

Democrats swept the floor clean in yesterday's IL election, tossing one-term governor, Bruce Rauner out on his ear. It was Rauner who used his veto power to hold the state's education budget hostage for nearly three years, relenting only after Chicago's mayor, Rahm Emanuel agreed to bring vouchers into the system. Rauner lost to billionaire J.B. Pritzker and  in the most expensive ($284M) gov's race in history.

Now that boss Mike Madigan has a veto-proof, supermajority in Springfield, Dems have no excuses on adequate school funding, cap on charter expansion and elected school board for Chicago. Let's see if any of that happens.

The victory also means the state will see its first African-American lieutenant governor in state Rep. Juliana Stratton.

In neighboring WI, right-wing bag-'o-crap Gov. Scott Walker was finally given the boot. Walker busted the state's teacher unions and led the assault on the once-great, state university system. It was only right that he lost, in a close race, to Tony Evers, the state's school superintendent and running mate, former state Rep. Mandela Barnes (great name), who will become the state's first African-American lieutenant governor.

The loss probably puts the kibosh on Walker's presidential ambitions. Although who knows?...Republicans elected two congressman facing federal indictments, a dead pimp, and gave 53,000 votes to an open nazi yesterday.

Barnes quote: "We are bringing education back to the state of Wisconsin. We are bringing science back to the state of Wisconsin and we will bring equality back to the state of Wisconsin."

Brother Fred and I will be summing up yesterday's elections Friday on Hitting Left with in-studio guests, Rebecca Sive, author of Vote For Her: A Manifesto, and Cassie Walker-Burke, Chicago bureau chief for Chalkbeat. Tune in at 11 a.m. CT to WLPN 105.5 FM, streaming live at www.lumpenradio.com 

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

In response to war on unions, the CTU prepares its troops for battle

"Our plan will eliminate the big government unions entirely..." -- Scott Walker

Gov. Rauner's war on the unions, especially teacher unions, is modeled on his pal, Gov. Walker's war in Wisconsin. Walker's plans include preventing federal workers from collective bargaining, creating a national right-to-work law and eliminating the National Labor Relations Board. He has already succeeded in taking away teacher collective-bargaining rights.

Unlike Walker, Rauner is facing a Democrat-controlled legislature. So he is holding the state budget hostage in an effort to get Democrats to crush the CTU and other public employee unions in exchange for releasing badly-needed state funds. The question is, will Dem political bosses Madigan and Cullerton go along with the sociopath governor in exchange for a budget deal. So far they have resisted. With 2016 elections on the horizon, there are not many Democrats in Springfield who are ready to go back to their districts and face the wrath of union constituents and their families.

Capitol Fax's Rich Miller writes in Crain's:

The governor cannot win this fight in the pro-union, Democratic stronghold of the Legislature. All he's doing in the meantime is making those unions even stronger as their members become more and more fired up.

CTU V.P. Jesse Sharkey tells teachers to prepare for a strike.

I hope Miller is right. But not so sure. Without strong, militant resistance from the unions and allies, the Dems may cave. Remember in 2011 when many of them took campaign money from union-busters, Stand For Children and DFER. Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law SB7 praising the bill for “historic reforms” that “put Illinois at the forefront of education reform” such as teacher evaluations standards and making it harder for the Chicago Teachers Union to strike.

Fifteen months later, CTU staged their first strike in 25 years with support coming from parents and community groups across the city.

Then Dems voted for and passed (shockingly with support from many state union officials) unconstitutional pension-theft legislation that was ultimately thrown out by the supreme court.

The next battle ground will be Chicago where Rahm Emanuel seems more than willing to appease Rauner. His hand-picked schools chief Forrest Claypool just announced (to Rauner??) that he is about to fire 5,000 CPS teachers. It's a move that will be a crushing blow to what's left of CPS and destabilize the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and their families.

Let's hope Chicago teachers respond in kind once again and that the CTU gets the support they need from community allies and local pols if another teacher strike is necessary.

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.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Bree Newsome

“For as long as I can remember, I just became aware that simply being myself was an act of defiance,” she said during a panel at Atlanta’s Spelman College in 2014. “The space that exists for many of us, as a young black girl, is so extremely limited so that you really can’t go very far without being an activist, without being in defiance of something.” -- Washington Post

Justice Anthony Kennedy

 “The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed.” -- Writing for the Court majority

Arne Duncan to National PTA

Every year, the U.S. spends $7 billion to $9 billion on textbooks that are “basically obsolete” by the first day of school. “We in education move too slowly to change...I know we’re not serving all children well today, and that’s heartbreaking to me.” -- Charlotte Observer

Howard Fuller on Post-Katina New Orleans

Fuller co-founded the Black Alliance for Educational Options and supports the reforms. Still, he said the firing of more than 7,000 public school employees, mostly African Americans, remained an open wound. He said black New Orleanians generally feel the reforms "have been to us, not with us," a disempowerment that threatens the schools' long-term success. -- Times Picayune

Michael Stone, co-CEO of New Schools for New Orleans

"We're trumpeting these gains that are getting us to the state average in a state that's 49th. ..If Louisiana were its own country it would have the highest incarceration rate in the world, and New Orleans has the highest incarceration rate in Louisiana."  -- Times Picayune

Donald Trump

"I love Mexicans." --  Guardian

Is the United States prepared/willing to tackle white supremacy the same way it has gone after Islamic extremism? If not, why not?

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) June 25, 2015

WEEKEND QUOTABLES: Not dropouts at CPS. Rather, 'transferring to motherhood'

FOX 32 News Chicago

Sarah Karp, BGA

"[At CPS] There was widespread misclassification of students...They were classified as transfers. In some cases transferring to motherhood." -- FOX 32

Stanford charter researcher Margaret “Macke” Raymond 

“[Ohio] Be very glad that you have Nevada, so you are not the worst.” -- Ohio charter schools have become a joke — literally

Curie High School is one of many high schools falsely labeling dropouts.

Bernie Sanders

“This campaign is sending a message to the billionaire class, and that message is you can’t have it all." -- Iowa speech

Scott Walker

“The first step is, we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all public-­employee unions because you use divide-­and-­conquer.” -- N.Y. Times Magazine

Chris Christie on Clinton's shift to the left

 “I thought that Elizabeth Warren wasn’t running for president,” -- The Guardian

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Urban Prep students support their teachers at a rally earlier this year. (Arielle Zionts)

Noel Perez-White, Urban Prep English teacher

"I support the unionizing efforts at Urban Prep because our students deserve a school where teachers return year after year. Teacher turnover has a grave impact on students. I believe a union will create a more supportive climate for teachers at Urban Prep -- ending the revolving door, and creating a more consistent learning environment for students". -- Progress Illinois 

Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 

“The evidence from across the country is clear and compelling: Our nation must dramatically change the way that educational resources are distributed so that there is true equity in America’s classrooms.” -- Washington Post

Milwaukee School Board member Larry Miller

 “The whole idea of regimented, special discipline for African-American children doesn’t work for me...How are you bringing music? How are you bringing the arts? Kids need much more than just academic rigor.”” -- Neighborhood News Service

Zabe Davis, the chief of the campus police at Senatobia [MS] High 

“We were instructed to remove anyone that cheered during the ceremony, which was done. And then Jay Foster, the superintendent, came and pressed charges against those people.” -- New York Times

Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin A.F.L.-C.I.O.

“Scott Walker didn’t have the stature, influence or money to become governor on his own or to end collective bargaining on his own. All of that flowed from Mike Grebe, the Bradley Foundation and a network of influential conservatives, including the Kochs.” -- New York Times

Is the Gov. From the State of Koch too big to jail?

I wonder why there's no mention of the Koch Bros. in S-T's coverage of Gov. Walker's crooked campaign fundraising tactics. Walker is after all, the Gov. from Koch.

Remember when a prankster called Gov. Walker  posing as David Koch and mentioned "special interests" the governor didn't flinch. He didn't have to be told in whose interests he was working. Koch had bankrolled his campaign and contributed over $1 million to the Wisconsin Governor's Assoc. The Koch-funded Wisconsin T-Party were his campaign workers.

Prosecutors are now on his trail but teacher-bashing, union-busting Walker may be too big to jail. He's one of Limbaugh Party's main hopeful's for White House run in 2016. NYT reports:

...the Club for Growth become “a hub,” according to prosecutors, for coordinating political spending by the Walker campaign and an array of outside groups. These ranged from the Republican Governors Association to Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group co-founded by the billionaire industrialist David H. Koch and financed by the political network overseen by Mr. Koch and his brother Charles.

Back in 2011, I had to hand it to Walker for truth-telling in a to talk with supporters at the stodgy, tie-only Union League Club. A group of protesters had donned business attire and sneaked inside the meeting, greeting Walker with chants of, "Union busting -- it's disgusting!" before they were finally escorted out by security. But Walker was clever enough to retort:

“I found it amusing to be referenced in the same vein as Rahm Emanuel, the mayor, but, really, some of the reforms he’s trying to do here echo the things we try to do in the state of Wisconsin and I give him credit for that despite the fact I’m a Republican and he’s a Democrat." 

Couldn't have said it any better, myself.