Privatization news: China delivers a blow to it's own ed profiteers

I doubt it. 

U.S. companies have raked in billions of dollars in super-profits, especially during the pandemic, from a burgeoning, privatized global ed-tech and remote-learning sector. Now they are turning apprehensive eyes towards China. 

This week China announced a sweeping overhaul of its $100 billion education tech sector, barring companies that teach the school curriculum from making profits, raising capital, or going public. Companies and institutions that teach the school curriculum must now go non-profit. 

Bloomberg reports:

The new regulations threaten to obliterate the outsized growth that made stock market darlings of TAL Education Group, New Oriental Education & Technology Group and Gaotu Techedu Inc. They could also put the market largely out of reach of global investors. Education technology had emerged as one of the hottest investment plays in China in recent years, attracting billions from the likes of Tiger Global Management, Temasek Holdings Pte, and SoftBank Group Corp.

Like the proverbial butterfly effect, China's latest anti-privatization moves have sent tremors down Wall Street with losses in Chinese tech and education stocks now exceeding $1 trillion since February. 

The new policies stem from a deeper backlash against the industry. Chinese educators say that excessive tutoring "torments youths, burdens parents with expensive fees, and exacerbates inequalities in society."  The out-of-school education industry has been “severely hijacked by capital,” according to a separate article posted on the site of the Ministry of Education. 

They say the new regulations are focused on compulsory subjects, meaning critical material like math, science, and history. Classes for art or music mostly would not fall under the new restrictions.

What impact all this will have on China's heavy reliance on standardized testing is unclear. 

Also unclear is what impact this will have on current U.S. ed policies which are increasingly tilted towards the privatization of public education, school vouchers, privately-run charters, remote learning, and standardization. 

The first thing Biden promised to do...

 

Biden was at a candidates event in Houston with National Education Association members in July 2019 when he said: “First thing, as president of United States — not a joke — first thing I will do is make sure that the secretary of education is not Betsy DeVos. It is a teacher. A teacher. Promise.” -- WaPO

Biden's cabinet is filling up fast. So far, once you get past all the chatter about a "second Obama presidency"; or about slipping a disgraced Rahm Emanuel in through the back door (NO, NO, NO please), or even about appointing Trump Republicans as opposed to anyone from the left, the process has been pretty transparent and necessarily fast-moving. 

But we're still waiting for more than whispers about his pick for Secretary of Education. This may be the most important pick of all given that most school districts remain in limbo or possibly on the brink of collapse because of the pandemic and Trump/DeVos's disastrous response. But even under the new administration, plans for a necessary, safe reopening are going nowhere without an immediate influx of cash -- possibly a trillion dollars or more -- to the districts. 

And it's not just about money. It's about radical transformation and the re-imaging of public education. We will never be able to go back to the old "normal". So where's the transformational leadership going to come from?

There are big questions to resolve about, systemic racial inequality, current, and post-pandemic standardized testing, privatization, student loans, universal pre-K and so much more. It will take much more than the new D.O.E. to undo the damage done these past four years under Betsy DeVos. Not to mention, that done under the previous decades of No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top. 

But the appointment of a new ed secretary will be a signal about which way the new regime is headed. So how did the first thing on Biden's to-do list move to near-last? Where is this teacher that been promised us? Why the hush hush?

Progressives have been pushing some good people for consideration. So have the influential, pro-privatization, anti-union hedge-fund reformers like DFER. 

I have a few recommendations myself. But I'm dubious that the left will be allowed any input into the decision. That's certainly been the case so far.

CPS made the right decision but big challenges remain

After floating a plan for a mix of in-person and remote learning, the mayor and CPS made the right decision by starting the Chicago school year with remote learning only. It was a decision driven by rising coronavirus numbers along with resistance to an opening from the CTU and many parents. It's also a decision that may save some lives and prevent fewer COVID casualties.

According to Sarah Karp at WBEZ:

The announcement also comes amid rising COVID-19 cases in Chicago. The district said a move to remote learning was dependent on whether the Chicago Department of Public Health determined COVID-19 cases weren’t under control. Though the city hasn’t surpassed those benchmarks, there is growing concern Chicago will reach them before too long. 

Now, Chicago parents and teachers will be looking to Chicago Public Schools to put forth a robust remote learning plan.

The initial hybrid plan would have rotated students into buildings two days a week for in-person classes. But CPS officials also said all along that the plan was "preliminary" and that they wouldn’t reopen schools unless it’s safe to do so. That determination has now been made.

But keeping schools closed for the next few months doesn't even begin to deal with either the immediate or long-term educational or health issues created by the pandemic.

There are some immediate measures that CPS, together with the teachers and other stakeholders, can and must take to take to ensure that internet access, along with adequate nutrition and healthcare is available to all of its nearly 400,000 students. The needs of thousands of homeless children have to be met along with those students with special needs, mental health issues, and physical challenges. A daunting, if not impossible challenge with only weeks to plan.

I'm not sure a "robust remote learning plan" can even be considered a real thing under these conditions--without a huge influx of federal dollars and supports which aren't likely under Trump/DeVos.

Then there are some in leadership at CPS who think a robust remote learning plan means returning to the same old sorting, tracking, and testing system that failed so many students in the past, only doing it remotely.

According to WBEZ's Kate Grossman on FB:

Chicago Schools CEO Janice Jackson announced that every teacher would provide live instruction every school day. The district also will return to its regular grading system, with all students receiving letter grades. 

I know a better plan can be produced, but it can't be done without a close working relationship between CTU leaders and Mayor Lightfoot. There's lots of divisive, sectarian baggage to be shed if such a relationship is to become a reality. Time is running out. But it can happen.

It seems to be happening in L.A. where L.A. Unified and the teachers union reached a tentative agreement Sunday night on procedures for distance instruction in the fall. Details to come. Now New York remains as the only one among the big 3 cities still moving forward with face-to-face teaching.

I was slightly encouraged to read what seemed like an olive branch being extended by CTU Pres. Jesse Sharkey today. His tone towards the mayor was hostile and divisive as ever yesterday:

 “The mayor does not have the guts to close schools,” CTU President Jesse Sharkey said Monday. “They’re putting it on us to close the schools. That’s what we feel like is happening.”

But today, Sharkey was congratulating the mayor for "being willing to listen to the concerns of families, educators, community groups and health professionals."

A good sign if I'm reading it right. We'll see.

Until the pandemic is under control and Trump and the Republicans are out of the White House and Congress, local school districts will be faced with lots of bad choices, like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

On the bright side is the movement in the streets, unprecedented ferment from below which has always been the key force behind progress in this country. Without this ferment, our vision of education and social transformation remains limited to maintaining the status quo or empty reforms.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Thousands of marchers took over Chicago's Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday, demanding an end to gun violence joblessness. 

Jonathan Capehart

Just when you thought the callous disregard for these children couldn’t get any worse, the New York Times reported last week that “records linking children to their parents have disappeared, and in some cases have been destroyed.” And don’t forget that the Trump administration is going after naturalized U.S. citizens now, too. -- Washington Post

Christine Geovanis, CTU spokesperson

“Our concern is equity. And where is the plan that is designed to lift up neighborhoods that are so clearly struggling? By not having a plan, by refusing to deploy a plan, they’ve been able to dovetail these one-off announcements that don’t strengthen all neighborhoods and all neighborhood needs equally, and end up privileging some at the expanse of thousands of others.” -- Sun-Times

Michael Sainato

The reality is that the decline of America’s traditional retail industry has left a void that corporate titans like Amazon will continue to exploit – unless employees, unions and Amazon customers work together to raise wages and improve working conditions. -- Guardian

Elizabeth Warren

 “He tries to bully me to shut me up, and he’s also trying to bully women all across this country. He talks about MeToo. He thinks we should sit down and shut up. It’s just not going to happen.” --Washington Post

David Callahan

The rest of us, ordinary citizens without big bank accounts, will certainly play a role in the outcome this November. We cast the votes, after all. But more and more, US politics – along with civic life broadly – often feels like a spectator sport, as a growing array of billionaire super citizens battle it out in the public square. -- Guardian

If Rahm intended to run for re-election on CPS progress, his campaign may be over before it's begun

Rahm Emanuel is beginning to look like a politician whose re-election campaign may be on the brink of collapse before it's even officially begun. His political achilles heel surprisingly turns out to be his autocratic control over Chicago Public Schools. Most everyone thought his greatest vulnerability would be his cover-up of the Laquan McDonald police killing.

What should have been his strong suit, running as an "education mayor," is now buried in a volcanic lava flow of school privatization, corruption, inequality, and dysfunction.

His new schools CEO, Janice Jackson, the fifth CEO in six years, has gone from looking like a source of hope for change, to being little more than Rahm's political functionary, in just a few months, even fronting for the mayor in commercials touting the progress at CPS, bankrolled by a nonprofit with close ties to MRE.

Instead of talking about alleged increases in standardized test scores and graduation rates, the mayor could spend the next eight months leading up to the election dodging questions about the mountain of scandals piling up at CPS.

These include hundreds of recently revealed cases of sexual assault and abuse of students over the past decade, cases that were ignored or covered up by CPS' law department and the mayor.

My alderman, Scott Waguespack (32nd), put it bluntly:

“This is about more than politics, it’s a core issue of our humanity. We’re calling for a City Council hearing on what the Tribune found. Every alderman should be demanding to have CPS there and the mayor’s people, too. He’s the boss. Emanuel is the mayor.”

Then there's new reports of mountains of filth and vermin in the schools since custodial services were privatized by Rahm and former CEO Forrest Claypool, who resigned in December after being charged with "ethics violations."

The Sun-Times reports that SodexoMAGIC and Aramark Corporation have received nearly $800 million in contracts to privatize school engineers and custodians and bust their union. Coincidentally, SodexoMAGIC made an extraordinary campaign contribution of $250,000 to Emanuel. And Aramark has charged CPS with over $20 million in cost overruns.

U of C Lab School fired Aramark over mouse droppings

Chicago Public Schools officials have now agreed to give $259 million in additional work to Aramark. They will be handed control of all facilities work at most of Chicago’s schools on July 1, according to its contract, which CPS officials tried to keep under wraps.

The irony of all this is that the University of Chicago Lab School, the expensive private school where elites like the mayor and former Ed Sec. Arne Duncan send their kids, just gave Aramark the boot after finding mice droppings in school food. Looks like mouse poop is only OK for other people's children.

There's more, so much more, including pay-to-play scandals involving Rahm's hand-picked board members like Deborah Quazzo, who colluded with former CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett, now doing time in prison, to enrich herself at the expense of the schools.

If Rahm had any intentions of building his campaign on his running of CPS, it's looking more and more like his campaign is over before it's begun.

Why Amazon is not the kind of company Chicago needs

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner are BFFs again. What brings the pair of Republicrat drinking buddies back together after some highly publicized spats, including personal name-calling, are school vouchers, more and bigger tax breaks for the rich, and Amazon.

Both of them, along with all but a few state and city pols, have been prostrating themselves before the Seattle-based king of global e-commerce, offering up some of the city's best real estate and a virtual tax-free existence if the low-road, parasitic company will only agree to open its second headquarters in IL, and bring "50,000 jobs" to Chicago.

Where have we heard those kinds of wild promises before? Think Olympic Games or Boeing's move here from Seattle in 2001, which, despite Mayor Daley's overblown promises, produced only a few hundred jobs and little in the way of taxes.

Ben Joravsky writes:

While 50,000 jobs sounds great, Chicago's got a checkered history when it comes to companies making good on job promises. The most infamous case was Republic Windows and Doors. In the 1990s, the city gave Republic more than $10 million in tax increment financing money to build a factory on Goose Island that would employ at least 610 people. In 2008, Republic closed the factory but got to keep the TIF cash.

Amazon's founder, CEO and Trump clone, Jeff Bezos  claims that his company is going to invest more than $5 billion to create a second headquarters in a city like Chicago. He says the move will produce thousands of high-paying jobs over the next 10 to 15 years. And all he wants in return is free land and billions in corporate tax incentives. Bezos has been playing the same game for years.

When Bezos was first deciding where to base his new e-commerce business in 1995, Seattle was not his first choice. Instead, according to Newsweek, the CEO of Amazon, now the world’s largest online store, eyed a Native American reservation near San Francisco that would have considerably lowered his tax bill.

The state of California quashed that scheme, but Bezos’s zeal for tax avoidance did not stop there. Throughout much of Amazon’s more than 20-year history, he has carved out competitive tax positions for the company as it expanded globally. His business acumen in that regard has even attracted the wrath of presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who earlier this year accused Bezos of buying The Washington Post to gain political influence and avoid taxes. During a speech in Texas, Trump said, “If I become president, oh do they have problems. They’re going to have such problems.” 

Boy, did he lie. Bezos, with a net worth of more than $45 billion, pulls down and annual salary, including stock options, of nearly $2 million. That's a small part of what's local taxpayers are paying for if Amazon is allowed to ride virtually tax-free.

More from Newsweek:

Amazon’s IRS case in the U.S., which could force it to pay more than $1.5 billion in unpaid taxes, has revealed some findings that are, at best, awkward for the company. According to court documents, Amazon hired an economist from the global financial advisory company Deloitte in 2001 to review the various approaches that could be adopted to reduce its taxes.

Bezos is also a big backer of charter schools and other school privatization schemes in the state of Washington. According to a report in the Nation, the Bezos Foundation has donated to Education Reform Now, a nonprofit organization that funds attack advertisements against teachers’ unions and other advocacy efforts to promote test-based evaluations of teachers. Education Reform Now also sponsors Democrats for Education Reform (DFER).

Other education philanthropy supported by the Bezos Foundation include KIPP, Teach for America and many individual charter schools, including privately funded math and science programs across the country.

Both Rahm and Rauner, facing upcoming elections, see landing Amazon as a feather in their respective caps and are eager to jump at the bait. Bezos' name popped up in recently-released Rahm emails. In January 2013, Emanuel emailed Bezos, asking for more information about the possibility of the online retail giant locating a facility in Chicago.

"While this is below you, this is very important to me and would like to know if there any chance to set up a phone call with you to discuss?" Emanuel wrote the billionaire, who also owns the Washington Post. "Hope you had a Happy New Year."

Bezos responded by adding one of his executives to the email, "who leads our global fulfillment." Amazon has built multiple facilities in suburban collar counties, but only one in the city.

Bezos

While the city needs jobs, it's questionable whether all, or even most of those promised jobs will go to Chicagoans or to those in communities with the greatest need or highest youth unemployment rates. More likely, Amazon would move many of its existing staff and top execs here from other cities. It's not even clear that these execs will live in the city or in the burbs.

Secondly, there's the question of the negative impact this giant tax giveaway will have on public education and the current pension-debt crisis? America's corporate tax rate is 35%. But Amazon is one of 115 companies along with Boeing on the S&P500 that pay much less -- around 4%..

Finally, there's the problem of Amazon's unethical and even criminal modus operandi. The company was just hit with a $293 million fine from the European Union for failing to pay its tax obligations there.

According to the International Business Times, Amazon is far from alone in shrinking its effective tax rate by racking up state subsidies and credits — as those same states struggle to keep their public pension funds afloat. It cites a study released Wednesday by the advocacy group Good Jobs First and the National Public Pension Coalition which makes the connection between the huge tax breaks used to attract giant corporations to states and cities and their growing pension-debt crisis.

Greg LeRoy, the founder and executive director of Good Jobs First, said the best policy solution for governments looking to attract companies to their states is to prioritize small startups with high growth potential, rather than flocking to well-established behemoths, as well as choosing firms that require a lot of human capital, as opposed to those based mostly on automation. Either way, he said, the bottom line is there needs to be a clear payoff to not just the company but the surrounding economy — in which access to stable retirement income plays a significant role.

Mr. LeRoy makes a lot of sense.

In short, writes Joravsky,

 ...bringing Amazon to town will probably cost untold millions in tax credits—money diverted straight from the state's coffers. That spells a tax hike for everyone else as the state jacks up taxes to compensate for the money it's giving to Amazon.

 I'm hoping the Rahm/Rauner deal with Amazon goes the way of George Lucas' Star Wars Museum.

DeVos' resume

The family tree

Betsy DeVos' appointment as Sec. of Education had less to do with her competency, adroitness, or knowledge of the field than it did with massive donations to the Trump campaign and her family's ties to a web of international intrigue centered around her brother, Blackwater founder and secret Trump attaché, Erik Prince. 

That's the only conclusion I could draw, especially after reading the WaPo story about Prince's secret Seychelles meeting to establish a Trump-Putin back channel.

Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.

Prince was an avid supporter of Trump. After the Republican convention, he contributed $250,000 to Trump’s campaign, the national party and a pro-Trump super PAC led by GOP mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, records show. He has ties to people in Trump’s circle, including Stephen K. Bannon, now serving as the president’s chief strategist and senior counselor. Prince’s sister Betsy DeVos serves as education secretary in the Trump administration. And Prince was seen in the Trump transition offices in New York in December.

 Prince is best known as the founder of Blackwater, a security firm that became a symbol of U.S. abuses in Iraq after a series of incidents, including one in 2007 in which the company’s guards were accused — and later criminally convicted — of killing civilians in a crowded Iraqi square. Prince sold the firm, which was subsequently re-branded, but has continued building a private paramilitary empire with contracts across the Middle East and Asia. He now heads a Hong Kong-based company known as the Frontier Services Group.

DeVos and Prince are the children of an industrialist named Edgar Prince. Prince and the DeVos family were major GOP donors in 2016. The Center for Responsive Politics reported that the family gave more than $10 million to GOP candidates and super PACs, including about $2.7 million from Prince's sister, DeVos, and her husband.

What more perfect résumé could one have in aspiring to run DT's Dept. of Education?

IT’S THE BIG ONE. BLACKWATER’S ERIK PRINCE ARRANGED A MOSCOW BACKCHANNEL FOR TRUMP https://t.co/k4PWnXIOBf

— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) April 3, 2017

Chicago and its public schools have become profit centers for privatizers

I don't think so. 

Under our last two mayors, the city of Chicago and Chicago public schools have become centers of privatization. All public space from parking spaces, to red-light cameras, to trash collection, to the highways and skyways have become fair game for the privatizers.

The move to privatize everything public, to erode all public space and public decision-making comes as a reaction to the real and sometimes manufactured financial and other crises which have shaken cities from New Orleans, Detroit and now Chicago.

The pains of privatization have taken their greatest toll on public education, turning schools into profit centers mired in corruption and waste and impacting everything from the way we teach to the way we test. Relationships between students and their teachers have been torn apart with the massive closing of neighborhood schools and replacing them with networks of privately-managed charters.

Things will only get worse with the election of privateer Donald Trump and the appointment "choice" fanatic Betsy DeVos and Secretary of Education.

The privatization of CPS has been a disaster. It has further expanded racial segregation. It has led to union busting and the degradation of teachers and school staff. Schools under the management of Aramark and SodexoMagic have been left filthy and disgusting. They are also charging CPS $80M to oversee custodial work instead of custodians reporting to school principals through their union at no cost.

Privatization has also meant massive corruption leading to the great SUPES scandal and the conviction of former CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett who is on her way to prison.

The latest moves by autocratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his hand-picked schools chief Forrest Claypool, to expand the privatization of custodial and building management services, has been met with resistance from school principals, parents and labor unions.

One of those unions is local143 of the International Union of Operating Engineers. Union Pres. Bill Iacullo will be our in-studio guest this Friday on Hitting Left. He will be joined by two of the city's top progressive political campaign strategists and communications specialists, Joanna Klonsky and Brian Sleet.

Tune in to Klonsky Bros. Hitting Left Radio, 105.5 FM, streaming live at 11 a.m. on Lumpen Radio.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Donald Trump

 “I love Caterpillar. I’ve been driving them for a long time.” -- Feds dig in: Agents raid Trump-touted Caterpillar 

Noble Charter School Teachers

“Today, we the Union of Noble Educators are announcing our effort to organize teachers and staff across the @benobleschools!” 

“We are passionate, committed, professional teachers and staff with diverse experiences in the Noble Network of Charter Schools,” they wrote in an open letter signed so far by 140 of more than 800 staffers. “We see our students every day and know they are better served by a lasting staff that can advocate for their schools. To this end, we seek a voice at Noble and beyond.” -- CBS Chicago

Jesse Jackson

The decision on private prisons reflects Trump’s desire to repeal all things Obama. It expresses the ideological bias of reactionaries like Sessions toward privatizing public functions. It also reveals the pervasive corruption already apparent in the Trump administration. -- Sun-Times

Danny Glover

Danny Glover at the March on Mississippi

"I don't abdicate my responsibility as a citizen. I don't need to abdicate (my responsibilities) for better education for kids and reading programs and all that other stuff. That's what a citizen does....that's what a human being does as part of a community." --  NBC

 Betsy DeVos makes course correction 

When DeVos addressed HBCU leaders directly the next day, she struck a different tone, saying: "Your history was born, not out of mere choice, but out of necessity, in the face of racism, and in the aftermath of the Civil War." -- nprED

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Former Peltier prosecutor calls for his release. 

Author Yaa Gyasi ("Homegoing")

 The history of America has involved figuring out new ways to subjugate black people since the beginning. In this post-election in-between space, as Donald Trump takes over, we are wondering what fresh hell may be about to be devised. -- Guardian

James Reynolds, former U.S. attorney involved in the case against Leonard Peltier

“I just thought that it was time. With all the circumstances that have gone down, both good and bad, it was maybe time for the president to grant clemency and to end the justice part of the case.” -- Free Speech Radio News

Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes

Streep  noted that one "performance" stood out this year: that of Donald Trump when he publicly mocked The New York Times' Serge Kovaleski, a disabled reporter.

"There was nothing good about it, but it did its job. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can't get it out my head because it wasn’t in a movie; it was in real life. That instinct to humiliate when it's modeled by someone in a public platform, it filters down into everyone's life because it gives permission for others to do the same." 

"Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose."

Rep. Katherine Clark (MA)

"After discussions with hundreds of my constituents, I do not feel that I can contribute to the normalization of the president-elect's divisive rhetoric by participating in the inauguration." -- Ward Room 

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (IL)

"I could not look at my wife, my daughters or my grandson in the eye if I sat there and attended as if everything that candidate Donald Trump had said about women, Latinos, African-Americans, Muslims ... is OK or erased from my memory." -- Ward Room 

Rudi Giuliani

 “President-elect Trump is going to be the best thing that ever happened for school choice and the charter school movement. Donald is going to create incentives that promote and open more charter schools. It’s a priority.” -- American Prospect 

Samuel E. Abrams, director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education

The fundamental problem with the free-market model for education is that schools are not groceries. -- L.A. Times 

SEIU does the right thing. Gives Boardman the boot from Local #73

Readers may remember back in 2014 when I tangled with Local #73 Pres. Christine Boardman. At the time I was reacting to Boardman's sellout of CPS janitors and custodians by agreeing to Rahm's $340 million sub-contracting deal with Aramark and SodexoMagic ("magic" my ass). It was one of the largest privatization moves of any school district in the nation, leaving custodians out of work, schools filthy, and principals in revolt.

Boardman's threatening letter.

Boardman then put icing on her sell-out with a $25,000 contribution to Rahm's campaign war chest. Local #73 also tried to put the kibosh on other locals' support for Rahm's opponent, Chuy Garcia. 

"Ugh!", I wrote. "She's dirtier than a CPS bathroom" for "signing on" to the deal. I had searched in vain, including on the Local 73 website, for any sign of protest or public resistance.

Boardman flipped out, tried to bully me and even threatened to take me to court over my hyperbolic blog post. Her lawyer's letter to me argued that she never actually "signed off" on the deal and that in fact, she was not "dirtier than a CPS bathroom".

After consulting with my own attorneys at Pro, Bono & Plead, and having made my point, I retracted both statements. I had no hard evidence that Boardman had literally signed an acutal piece of paper on the Aramark/Sodexo deal or that she was indeed, dirtier than a CPS bathroom (a pretty high bar for dirtiness, I admit).

Other observers, like the Reader's Ben Joravsky, possibly fearing the bully's wrath, also chose their words carefully.

Among union activists, Local 73 is known as the mayor's—well, let's just say union activists aren't too thrilled with Local 73.

My brother Fred tooned it.

Now, nearly two years later -- too late perhaps for the local's 14,000 city employees or for students wallowing in filthy schools -- the chickens have come home to roost at Local #73. SEIU trustees have stepped in and put the local in receivership. Boardman, the bully, has been given the boot.

According to the union's statement on the takeover:

This time, it stems from “incessant fighting” between union president Christine Boardman and secretary-treasurer Matt Brandon that apparently “reached a boiling point and seriously disrupted the operations and functioning of the Local, putting members’ interests at risk.” 

 Boardman and Brandon “each challenge the basic legitimacy of the other’s authority to hold office or lead the Local,” resulting in a “debilitating dysfunction of the Local’s governance process as well as causing instability and confusion within the Local and its membership,” 

Now the local has a chance to regroup, get organized and become a voice for the workers who need them the most.

Please don't sue me for saying this Christine, but good riddance to bad garbage.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Parents and students sit-in at Ald. Burnett's office to protest $60M selective-enrollment school.

Parent organizer Sherise McDaniel 

“Year after year, we face budget cuts to local neighborhood Chicago Public Schools, [and] we need those funds. We don’t need another magnet, selective enrollment for the privileged. We have to care about everyone.” -- Protesters to Ald. Burnett : stop new selective school

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis

Educators did not agree to the SUPES contract that led former CPS CEO to plead guilty to a felony last year. CTU members did not agree to the Aramark outsourcing deal that cost more but left schools filthy. We did not target the South and West sides of the city with the largest mass school closing in U.S. history. Those decisions were made by the mayor and his hand-picked board of education. -- Letter to Chicago Tribune

Author Samuel Abrams

Privatization takes the form of nonprofit as well as for-profit school management, as privatization technically means outsourcing the provision of government services to independent operators, whether nonprofit or for-profit. -- Answer Sheet

Author Tony Schwartz

If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath.” -- New Yorker

Slain Baton Rouge officer, Montrell Jackson

“I’ve experienced so much in my short life and the past 3 days have tested me to the core. I swear to God I love this city but I wonder if this city loves me. In uniform I get nasty hateful looks and out of uniform some consider me a threat.” - Facebook post 

The #BlackLivesMatter Movement is an anti-violence movement formed to take a stand against unjust violence and extra-judicial murders.

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) July 17, 2016

WaPo's Strauss: Chicago's school system at the brink

Ed writer deluxe, Valerie Strauss at (Donald Trump's fave) Washington Post asks, "Is the nation’s third-largest school district in danger of collapse?" She's referring to Chicago, of course, even though technically, Puerto Rico  has the nation's third-largest. Chicago is fourth, especially now that so many African-American families have left the city.

But the answer to her question is a definite, YES.

Strauss writes:

Dozens of principals, including some from the district’s best schools, have decided to leave, but those who are staying were warned recently that they could see 39 percent cuts in funding. That goes for teachers, after-school programs and enrichment programs. Chicago public schools, long in dire financial straits, face a budget deficit of more than $1 billion and must contribute $676 million to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund by June 30, which, the Chicago Sun Times says, would leave only $24 million in the district’s coffers.

 Meanwhile, problems with facilities have been growing  since the district, in what it said was a cost-cutting move, privatized cleaning services two years ago by awarding more than $300 million in contracts to two firms, Aramark and SodexoMAGIC (the latter associated with former NBA star Magic Johnson, who, incidentally, donated to Emanuel’s reelection campaign last year). Principals have repeatedly complained that schools were dirty and that complaints were not addressed in a timely manner.

Strauss gets it, that it's on Gov. Rauner, but not just on Gov. Rauner. 

Even as Emanuel fights with Rauner, public school educators are no fans of Emanuel. He has angered them for years by supporting key tenets of corporate school reform, including the privatization of public services, the expansion of charter schools and the closure of nearly 50 traditional public schools in a manner that infuriated parents.  In April, the union rejected an independent fact-finders recommendation that it accept a four-year contract offered by the city, and its president, Karen Lewis, said that the district’s financial problems could not solely be laid at the feet of the Republican governor, but also at the mayor’s and district leadership’s.

Good stuff, Valerie.

Flint water disaster was preceded by takeover of schools and local govt's

In Michigan, the idea of a government of, by, and for the people did not apply to poor black cities, and when residents were robbed of the ability to govern themselves, they suffered. In Flint, it meant they got poisoned. -- Bill Moyers

The current disaster in Flint has its roots in Gov. Snyder's racist, anti-democratic coup d'etat in which power was usurped from local elected officials in financially distressed municipalities across Michigan. Snyder replaced them with his own appointed political cronies and corporate managers.

Flint isn’t the only city in Michigan deeply affected by the coup. In fact, Flint was one of six cities — most of which were poor and had a majority black population — to be placed under emergency management by Snyder since 2011.

Bill Moyers, who grew up in Flint, writes:

The emergency manager law gave unchecked power to the governor in the name of helping these communities emerge from financial distress. But in reality, it unleashed a series of devastating austerity and privatization measures adopted in the name of progress, and took away democratic rights from poor communities of color.

The financial distress came, not as a result of mismanagement or corruption -- although there was plenty of that right in Snyder's office as well as in the legislature -- but from the state's massive de-industrialization and collapse of the state's auto industry which began in the '70s. But Snyder, a right-wing ideologue, who believes that autocratic rule should trump democratic decision making, didn't want to let a good crisis go to waste.

His next target was the state's local school districts where he seized control of their budgets. In Detroit, the district was put under the rule of an emergency manager, Robert Bobb by Snyder's predecessor, Jennifer Granholm. Bobb then contracted with Barbara Byrd-Bennett to run the schools. It was there that BBB and her partner in crime, Gary Solomon, embarked on a trail of corruption that would run through Chicago and end finally in conviction and a possible 7 year prison sentence.

Snyder replaced the elected city governments in Muskegon Heights. and Highland Park with hand-picked business czars. In Muskegon Heights, an emergency manager dissolved the public school system and turned it over to a for-profit charter school, only to have the company bail on the contract because, as the emergency manager put it, “the profit just simply wasn’t there.”  The districts were left in a state of chaos rather than academic improvement.

In Pontiac, emergency managers privatized or sold nearly all public services, outsourcing the city’s wastewater treatment to United Water months after the company was indicted on 26 counts of violating the Clean Water Act, including tampering with E. coli monitoring methods to cut corners on costs.

In Flint, says, Moyers, "children were poisoned to save money."

The poisoning of the children and families of Flint was part and parcel of the poisoning of democracy in the state of Michigan. Now IL Gov. Rauner is proposing the same measures for Chicago and its school district. If you want to see where that leads, look no further than Flint.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mercedes Schneider

America needs less of Pearson. A lot less. -- Deutsch29

NEA president Lily Eskelsen Garcia

“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think Arne is decent and honest,” says National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen Garcia, whose union has called for Duncan to resign. “But his reforms are so ridiculous, he’s uniting teachers, PTA’s, principals, everyone. We’re writing each other’s talking points!” -- Politico: Arne Duncan Wars

Rosenbaum

R.I.P Terry Rosenbaum

“My goal was to be a teacher of history in the New York City high schools. Which I did. I loved teaching.” -- NYT: Teacher Who Was Fired After Defying McCarthy, Dies at 97

Bob Quellos, one of the founders of No Games Chicago 

“They were there early, they were bulky guys, and they just didn’t fit the activist profile.” -- THE WATCHDOGS: Spy cops: Chicago police routinely spied on protesters

Rebecca Sibilia, CEO of Edbuild

“When you think of bankruptcy … this is a huge opportunity. Bankruptcy is not a problem for kids; bankruptcy is a problem for the people governing the system, right? So, when a school district goes bankrupt all of their legacy debt can be eliminated . . . Look, if we can eliminate that in an entire urban system, then we can throw all the cards up in the air, and redistribute everything with all new models. You’ve heard it first: bankruptcy might be the thing that leads to the next education revolution.” -- PR Watch

We need to end 'regurgitation education' now https://t.co/I6rhn790PN

— John Merrow (@John_Merrow) September 28, 2015

Student debt tripled after passage of @VP Biden-backed bill to help Wall St prevent students from reducing their debt http://t.co/cgjXVBo6WC

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) September 28, 2015

Good riddance, Tim Cawley. Champion of privatization and disinvestment in neighborhood schools.

Fred Klonsky

Good riddance to Tim Cawley, the very worst of Rahm's army of CPS bureaucrats who's gone from Number 2 honcho under Byrd-Bennett, to under the bus. I hope readers won't remember that I predicted his demise two years ago. Wishful thinking, I suppose. He's even outlasted the guy I thought would replace him back in 2013 -- Marine Col. Tim Tyrrell, who engineered the mass school closings.

It was Rahm who allowed Cawley to skirt the residency requirement, much to the chagrin of the CPS Inspector General. He commutes from Winnetka and was somehow given a special waiver while other staffers and teachers were fired for violating the residency rule.

More importantly, he was the architect of the privatization of school janitorial services, a scheme that has left hundreds of CPS staff without jobs and many buildings ankle-deep in trash and principals screaming for mercy (Where were you, SEIU?).

Thanks, Tim Cawley

It was Cawley's mismanagement of the Aramark privatization deal that left the district on the hook for some $20 million more to Aramark than promised, essentially wiping out the $18 million Cawley said the district would save in the deal's first year. A bad deal all around.

It was Cawley who became the main cheerleader for disinvestment in neighborhood schools and replacing them with privately-run charters. These were the very policies that led to the closing of Dyett High School and the current hunger strike by parents and Bronzeville community activists.

Back in 2011 he told the Tribune:

 "If we think there's a chance that a building is going to be closed in the next five to 10 years, if we think it's unlikely it's going to continue to be a school, we're not going to invest in that building... We believe that we get more bang for our capital investment buck when we couple it with a program change in the building."

Cawley also came up with the brilliant idea of having CPS borrow $500 million from the Teachers Retirement Fund in order to pay the fund the billions it still owes because of pension holidays.

He's an old AUSL guy which makes this story timely indeed. Wednesday, it was announced that the group is once again the target of lawsuits over its "ongoing pattern and practice of systemic race discrimination".

It seems Cawley's problem at CPS is -- he's not part of Forrest Claypool's trusted inner circle, especially now that Rahm's new schools boss has brought over his loyalists from the CTA like old pal Ronald DeNard, who's pulling down $225,000-a-year from our broke-on-purpose school system.

BTW, DeNard lives in suburban Flossmoor.

Remember, this is all about the kids.

Hey Tim -- Don't let the revolving door hit you in the ass on the way out.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

The 12 Dyett hunger strikers (Day 8)

Jitu Brown

It's a shame that parents have to starve themselves. These are mothers and fathers. We have to starve ourselves to have our voices heard while parents in other parts of the city of Chicago have to, parents in Lincoln Park and in Uptown and Rogers Park simply went to a meeting and said they didn't want a charter school. And the CPS pulled it off the table. -- Real News

CUNY Prof. Andrea Gabor

There is also growing evidence that the reforms have come at the expense of the city’s most disadvantaged children, who often disappear from school entirely and, thus, are no longer included in the data. -- N.Y. Times -- "The Myth of the New Orleans School Makeover"

Jacques Morial

“They’re peddling this notion of a complete recovery: opportunity for all, want for nobody,” say Jacques Morial, a community activist whose brother, Marc, and father, Ernest, have served as mayor. “That’s just not the case.” -- Washington Post

Gary "SUPES" Soloman emails Byrd-Bennett

“Thank you thank you thank you for everything. Really. And we need to make time for one another to just get together and laugh. As tired as we are, as hard as we work, I think it’s important we get together and just laugh a lot." -- Sun-Times

Barbara Byrd-Bennett emails Soloman

“I just cannot be lead [sic] around by the nose like this … just not who I am.” -- Sun -Times

CPS Liar-In-Chief Bill McCaffrey responds

 “I cannot comment due to the ongoing investigation.”  -- Sun-Times

Asked about the #FightForDyett hunger strike, Rahm tells reporters he is unable to comment because there is an ongoing hunger strike.

— Matt Farmer (@mifarmer) August 23, 2015

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

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Willie Barrow's Funeral 

Rev. Jesse Jackson

“Seventy-five years of protests. God gave her [Willie Barrow] a life full of stories,” Jackson told mourners. “Dr. King, 39; Malcolm [X], 39, Willie Barrow, 90 years,” he said to applause. -- Sun-Times

Principals Assoc. Pres. Clarice Berry

"It has been an utter catastrophe," Berry said at a press conference, where she also called for the contract with the two companies to be voided. -- Schools still dirty with privatized custodians: principals (Catalyst)

Greg Hinz

Garcia is facing a foe with almost as much money as Midas in Mayor Rahm Emanuel. In my view, his only path to victory April 7 is to get union members who don't like Emanuel to ring lots of doorbells—and to get their leaders to give Garcia enough of a war chest to counter Emanuel's TV ad blitz. Particularly key is the Chicago Teachers Union. -- Crain's

 Charles Wheeler

“I think Rauner has a pathological hatred for organized labor,” says Charles N. Wheeler III, director of the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois at Springfield. -- Garcia as mayor could be Rauner's worst nightmare (Sun-Times)

http://t.co/PP7pIHp16V pic.twitter.com/bJPTkHnkyq

— Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 22, 2015

'Dark Money' replaces the envelope under the table in Chicago election politics

Rahm's lap-dog Aldermen Reilly (42nd); Pawar (47th) and Smith (43rd) try and pull a slick campaign stunt and  show Chuy up by delivering books for him to "audit". When Rahm says bark, they go "arf". But Chuy's auditors won't find the "dark money" in those books. 

Look out kid,
They keep it all hid.
--Bob Dylan

In the days before Citizens United and super-duperPACs like Rahm's Chicago Forward, you could bribe a Chicago politician by simply slipping him an envelope under the table in Booth #1 at  Counsellors Row, right across the street from City Hall. A week later, you had yourself a fat city contract or a lucrative piece of real estate. My, my, how things have changed. It's all legit now.

Take the great slick ball handler and even slicker businessman Earvin "Magic" Johnson, for example. Last year, Rahm's hand-picked school board awarded one of Johnson's companies — SodexoMAGIC — an $80 million contract to privatize custodial and facilities management for Chicago Public Schools facilities. Lots of janitors lost their jobs in the schools, the unions said nary a word, and every principal and teacher in the city now has a horror tale to tell about the state of their bathrooms and trash-laden facilities.

Rahm's elite donors

Then, just in time for the elections, Magic and his partner Mark Walter handed over a quarter of a million dollars to Rahm's already-bloated campaign war chest. No envelopes. No donuts and coffee. Just a clean legal deal.

The Trib reports:

Four years ago, Emanuel came into office promising to end the "insiders game" that benefits only the well-connected. But the "Magic" Johnson relationship is just the latest example of a hallmark of Emanuel's governing style — his deep reliance on political cash from business interests who can count on City Hall or the mayor himself to help them.

Now, don't get me wrong. Chicago is still revered as Number #1 when it comes to corruption and lots of envelope-passing still goes on as in the case of Redflex and the red-light camera scandal, from which Rahm has neatly distanced himself.

But now we're more likely to see a group like Greg Goldner's Illinoisans for Growth and Opportunity (who could possibly oppose "growth and opportunity"?) come into town with a duffle bag load of cash to be legally dumped into various campaign funds. Of course that money doesn't have to be immediately spent on campaigns, and when a politician walks away from it all, he gets to take it all with him with only minimal restrictions. Disgraced Rep. Aaron Schock is doing just that with $3.3M this week.

S-T's Mark Brown calls it "dark money".

Four years after helping wealthy donors secretly invest $1 million in Chicago aldermanic candidates who shared Rahm Emanuel’s policy views, political consultant Greg Goldner announced Wednesday he is managing a new group of “progressive Democrats” that expects to plow $20 million into influencing Democratic state legislators “to support budget compromise.”

And by "influencing" he means... And by "budget compromise," he means Democrats cutting a deal with Gov. Rauner to support his cuts to public education, transportation and health care.

As you might expect, none of these specifics were mentioned during Monday's mayoral debate between Rahm and Chuy. You remember, that was where Carol Marin pushed both candidates for "specifics." The press was all over Chuy for not giving more "specifics" and for saying he wanted to see the books first. Funny, Rahm never mentioned all this "dark money" in his list of specifics. After all, it's hidden, but legit. And Chuy won't find any of it in the books.