We have a shot

Brother Fred's version of the latest poll which shows Rahm to be very beatable. Fred says numbers don't add up to 100% because, "this is Chicago."

As I've been saying all along, despite his over-sized campaign war chest, Rahm Emanuel is beatable.

We knew that when CTU Prez Karen Lewis and Ald. Bob Fioretti were the presumed opposition candidates. We know it now that Jesus "Chuy" Garcia has stepped in and replaced ailing Karen in the race. The latest CTU poll says Mayor 1% will be hard-pressed to avoid a run-off election after the February primary. And in a head-to-head contest, Cook County Commissioner Garcia could be in striking distance of a victory. 

The Sun-Times Natash Korecki reports:

The telephone survey conducted by Lake Research Partners of 621 likely Chicago voters found that on a three-way ballot including Emanuel, Garcia and Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd), Emanuel would take 33 percent of the vote, Garcia 18 and Fioretti 13. In a head-to-head between Garcia and Emanuel, the difference narrowed to five points with Emanuel at 36 percent and Garcia at 31. 

Amara Enyia and William Kelly have also announced their candidacies for mayor. A vote total of 50 percent plus one is needed to avoid a run-off election. A large percentage of those surveyed -- 30 percent -- remained undecided.  

What's most interesting about those numbers is that Garcia's campaign hasn't even gotten off the ground yet and he is already within 5% of Rahm in a potential head-to-head runoff. And at least in my mind, Rahm is already at or near his peak while the others can go nowhere but up. 

Of course polls are one thing. Raising money, developing an aggressive media strategy and putting troops out in the field is something else. A lot of time has been lost and Rahm has gotten virtually a free pass with only Fioretti (and his Progressive Caucus) among the candidates, speaking out lately and loudly on issues like:

•  The mayor being on the receiving end of campaign donations from financial firms managing city pension funds
• Chicago Public Schools borrowing practices, specifically the series of deals engineered by Rahm's financial go-to guy, Board Pres. David Vitale, that ended up costing taxpayers as much $100 million more than more traditional borrowing methods.
• Demanding the refund the $7.7 million in fines (hidden regressive tax) generated by red-light cameras after the timing of yellow lights was reduced from 3 seconds to 2.9 seconds. (Crap, I think they may have nailed me last night, driving down Sacramento). 

"Chuy" Campuzano

Speaking of Chuys...Thanks to my man "Chuy" Compuzano for having Brother Fred and me on his live podcast today. Chuy is a fierce Rahm opponent and a dynamic community organizer, especially within the city's disability community. The three of us make a pretty good team. I'm sure listeners agree. Let's do it again. 

Shame on Rahm, with single-digit poll numbers in the black community, for claiming credit for the new plaque in honor of the late Mayor Harold Washington that will hang in the Harold Washington Library. Pure political opportunism for the current leader of the same machine that fought Harold and now fights all that Harold stood for. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Lily Eskelsen Garcia

NEA Pres. Lily Eskelsen Garcia

”For students in all types of schools—traditional, charter or magnet—the key is having a sound structure for oversight and accountability, while providing educators with autonomy to create great learning environments for their students.” -- Education Votes

Nicholas Kristof

Can’t we at least acknowledge that in the case of race, William Faulkner was right: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” -- N.Y. Times

Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the SEC

"The perception of Wall Street money going to state and city officials potentially undermines the faith of citizens and investors. Political contributions by any entities that do business with pension funds tends to destroy the confidence that is so fundamental to these markets....Contributions from firms to chief executives of states and cities violates the spirit of the law and it just looks awful...Maybe that’s how business is done in the municipal world, but it certainly smells.” -- Crain's

David Sirota

 The SEC rule prohibits firms from earning management fees from pensions if those firms' executives make political donations to public officials overseeing those pension systems. Emanuel and his administration appoint trustees to the boards of the Chicago city pension systems. -- IBT

Right-wing think-tanker Hess lectures Newark "rabble-rousers" on civility

Community "rabble-rousers" protest Newark One in Feb. 2014.

More lectures on civility from right-wing think-tanker Rick Hess directed towards Newark parents and community activists [Hess calls them "rabble-rousers". No really, he does.] who traveled to D.C. to protest Supt. Cami Anderson's speech at AEI. Once Anderson and the think-tankers caught wind that the angry community members were planning to make their voices heard, they quickly flew the coop and re-staged Anderson's performance in a room without an audience. It seems she can't go anywhere these days without be dogged by angry Newark residents.

Anderson, appointed by Gov. Chris Christie, is the architect of  “One Newark”, a corporate-style reform plan to relocate neighborhood schools, convert others to privately-run  charter schools and re-engineer still more traditional public schools by replacing all their principals and firing hundreds of teachers in violation of the contract. It's a plan that devastates already resourced-starved Newark neighborhoods.

The Washington Post reports:

The plan for the 35,000-student school system has been the target of lawsuits, a federal complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education and student boycotts. It was a central factor in last spring’s mayoral race, which led to high school principal Ras Baraka winning office in large part because of his opposition to One Newark. Baraka wrote to President Obama last month and asked him to intervene on behalf of the community.

"I’m opposed to all of it,” Baraka said by phone Thursday. “She has forced this down people’s throats, and the people don’t want it. We need a new superintendent.”

Tensions have grown so much in Newark that Anderson no longer attends meetings of the locally elected school advisory board, where her opponents regularly railed against her, hurling invectives.

Anderson & Christie

But to the why-can't-we-all-just-get-along-minded Hess, African-American and Latino families demonstrating peacefully but loudly to save their schools is equivalent to "vitriolic and even threatening tactics." To Hess, it's all about civil debate, so long as he controls the speakers and the agenda. To show how fair minded he is, he boasts:

 Over the years, I've hosted "reformers" including the likes of Arne Duncan, Rod Paige, Joel Klein, Kaya Henderson, Michelle Rhee, John Deasy, Jim Shelton, John White, Deb Gist, Howard Fuller, and Campbell Brown. I've hosted those who come at things very differently, such as Randi Weingarten, Diane Ravitch, Dennis van Roekel, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, Debbie Meier, Carol Burris, Kevin Welner, and Larry Cuban.

He writes:

But it's the hypocrisy that bothers me the most. A group that claims it is disenfranchised and silenced, and wants only to be heard, adopts tactics that stifle debate.

"Claims it is disenfranchised and silenced"? Did Hess really say that?

Well, let's put it this way. They may still be disenfranchised, but they weren't silenced for long at AEI. Maybe he should have included some of them among his approved list of "reformers".

A real policy debate would have taken place BEFORE the schools were closed and privatized, not after the fact. Parents and community were excluded from the debate then and they were excluded (not invited) to the debate by AEI. Instead they made their voices heard the best way they could. They were heard again last May, in the city's mayoral election when they elected Mayor Baraka, a militant opponent of Anderson's and of "One Newark". And yet the program remains.

Hess should know that people still have the right to protest against oppressive government policies, while those bureaucrats enforcing those policies still have the right to run and hide from the community.

It's a free country.

Charter school churn leaves students and families in turmoil

"A lot of people in the school choice movement like the idea of accountability, but when accountability hits home, it's really hard to maintain your focus on results," said Brandon S. Brown, the director of charter schools for the Indianapolis mayor's office. "It's the authorizer's responsibility to hold an absolute bar for performance, which means that, sometimes, low-performing schools will not continue to operate." -- EdWeek

Privately-run charter school networks try and operate on a corporate business model, even though they are supposedly public entities, supported with public funds and accountable to public oversight. While their original charge was one of collaborating with their public school cousins to drive innovation and school improvement, their business model is one that puts competition ahead of collaboration and market measures ahead of public good.

In order to attract both public and private investment, charter operators need to manipulate competitive market measures, such as test scores and other comparative indicators of school success to show that they are supposedly outperforming, not only public schools, but competing charter chains as well. This high-stakes competitive drive has often led to a lack of transparency, test cheating as well as cooking the books and other forms of financial mismanagement.

Such market competition requires a continuous process of weeding out "low performers" in order to boost average measurable outcomes, gathered in various research studies and performed by willing academic or private research organizations. In the process, overseen by so-called authorizers,  thousands of children's and families' lives are disrupted as schools are closed and teachers fired (without due process) and new ones open. These children and families are often the ones most in need of stability. Teachers and students (overwhelmingly poor and students of color) become the flotsam and jetsam of charter school failure.

In 2011, conservative pro-charter Center for Education Reform reported: " Of the approximately 6,700 charter schools that have ever opened across the United States, 1,036 have closed since 1992."

It's a system that operates much like giant retailers Wal Mart, Target and Starbucks, which turn over their entire work force on average, nearly every six months. 

Edweek reports that in cities like Indianapolis, "failing charters closing abruptly, blindsiding parents and sending them scrambling to find new schools" has become a major problem.

The charter sector has long stood by the premise that if the independently run public schools fail to perform, they are shut down—an idea often referred to as the "charter bargain." But as the movement matures, it increasingly faces the messy reality of closing schools—a situation that could become more common.

In Ohio, according to the report, when the time between the announcement of a charter closing and the actual shutdown stretches the full academic year, it is referred to as a "zombie year." Teachers and administrators learn as early as September that their school—as well as their jobs—will cease to exist come May or June. That situation is generally a product of Ohio's closure law, which mandates the automatic shutdown of the state's poorest-performing charter schools, as well as the timing for when student-assessment data gets released.

The most telling piece in the charter school-closing puzzle is, that despite all the intentional disruption and churn, the great majority of privately-run charters fail to out-perform traditional public schools on every important measure.

Taking back Chicago

I'm still high off of the energy and unity shown at yesterday's downtown Take Back Chicago rally. School, labor and community activists packed the Chicago Temple and then poured out into the streets in a demonstration of strength. Now the coalition has to find a way to translate its militancy into a successful election strategy. With Rahm's ratings plummeting, there may never be a better time, not only to take back City Hall, but to build up and expand the Progressive Caucus in the city council.

Kari Lydersen at In These Times offers us some background on two of the groups, Grassroots Illinois Action and Reclaim Chicago, working to change the city’s political course by targeting the 50-member City Council, trying to elect more progressive candidates willing to challenge the mayor while also building a durable political grassroots movement.

On November 15, Reclaim Chicago will announce its endorsements in 10 to 15 aldermanic races. Group leaders have been interviewing candidates and deciding endorsements based on a platform that includes promoting a living wage, high-quality public schools, criminal justice reform and infrastructure spending; and opposing privatization, cuts to pensions and layoffs of public workers.

On thing that bothers me about this kind of endorsement process is that this same coalition endorsed phony progressive Christian Mitchell for state rep in the March primaries. Teacher pension robber Mitchell, with big corporate, anti-union money behind him, narrowly defeated real-deal Jay Travis. If the group is really about fighting pension cuts, we don't need any more endorsements like those.

And you know what? Mitchell is still at it. Check out Brother Fred's post today.

Tuesday's Take Back Chicago Rally

I ran into Ald. Fioretti at yesterday's rally. Today he released this statement on the mayor's and David Vitale's toxic rate swaps, which have cost the schools $100 million plus.

CPS gambled our children's future with taxpayer dollars and lost big, and Chicagoans are paying for it. The City Council needs to hold immediate hearings into the risky investment strategies CPS uses and get to the bottom of why the mayor and his appointed school board are leaving Chicago taxpayers on the hook for these shady deals.

Gambling with our children's future is not the same as investing in it. This is another in a long line of examples of the administration prioritizing private interests over the public good. The people of Chicago will not stand to have their children used as investment opportunities so bankers and billionaires can profit.

The CTU's Jackson Potter writes in Tribune:

Two years ago Chicago Public Schools officials and Mayor Rahm Emanuel claimed they had to close more than 100 schools to save money. It turns out that the costs of the closings, along with the installation of countless Safe Passage routes to protect children moved to new schools, have far outstripped predictions. In addition, receiving schools like Chopin and Courtenay have seen their scores plummet and culture and climate deteriorate in the aftermath of the closings.

Potter points out that a union-led coalition raised red flags at the time, not only about the phony cost-saving estimates on school closings, but on toxic rate swaps as well. 

Potter says there's still time for Rahm to make it right.

Emanuel and his appointed school board have a tremendous opportunity to claw back nearly $1 billion for a revenue-starved city and school system from the banks that profited unfairly.

As for me, I'm doubtful. Replacing Rahm and his school-board cronies with a new mayor and elected school board remains a prerequisite to straightening out the mess at CPS.

Mihalopoulos' Poop Scoop
This post is getting kind of long, but I can't close without saying something about my least-favorite Sun-Times political writer, Dan Mihalopoulos. You remember, I tabbed him as a LAR (Lazy Ass Reporter) when he "broke" the bullshit story of the year, about Karen Lewis' supposed vast real estate empire..

Today, he's got an even bigger scoop (no pun...) about Fioretti's former law firm making campaign donations to both Democrats and Republicans a few years ago. What law firm in this city doesn't? And why not? I would still take former Gov. Ryan, who ended the death penalty in IL, over any Democratic machine pol.

If his point was that Fioretti called out Rahm for being a Republican, it's a dull point. Fioretti was right on. No Republican could come close to Rahm when it comes to school closings, tax breaks for the rich or privatizing anything in this city that bears the name public. This isn't about giving money to Republican or Democratic campaigns. In this town that simply amounts to rendering unto Caesar.

And this from a guy who writes for a rag that sold its soul and the paper's credibility by doing Rauner's bidding, throwing his colleague, ace reporter David McKinney under the bus and then endorsing Republican Rauner over Quinn. As far as I can tell, Mihalpoulos had barely a Tweet about that. He might have had a great scoop there. Maybe a Pulitzer.

VETERANS DAY, REALLY?

As the nation prepares to commemorate Veterans Day, President Obama has authorized the deployment of an additional 1,500 troops to Iraq. The plan will more than double the current U.S. force in Iraq and will reportedly cost $5.6 billion. That's enough to operate the Chicago Public School system, including the hiring back of all laid-off teachers and custodial staff.

Among the hidden costs
After all the parades and football game cheers have ended, Iraqi and Afghan war vets are still dying from suicide upon their return home at a much higher rate -- more than 22 a day -- then on the battle field.

More than half of the 2.6 million veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars struggle with physical and mental health problems stemming from their service,


This is no longer "Bush's war". It's Obama's. What is he thinking? The real cost will be paid in human lives in a war that's has no end, no victory, only victims -- including vets. They are returning home to communities with few well-paying jobs, deteriorating schools, and inadequate health care for them and their families.

Matthew Hoh, is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. He is a former Marine and State Department official who resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan over U.S. policy in September 2009. Prior to his assignment in Afghanistan, he served in Iraq.

He tells Democracy Now's Amy Goodman:

 I think, in the United States, scratching their head and wondering: What are we doing? What does the United States government really think it’s going to accomplish by putting more American troops into the middle of the Iraqi civil war and into the middle of the Syrian civil war, particularly coming off of 13 years of war in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, in Somalia, in Yemen, etc.? So, my response, Amy, is more or less the same as most people’s, of a—very concerned and, you know, lack of a better phrase, this is crazy.

Support the troops. Bring 'em home. Provide counseling, health care, school and job opportunities at a living wage.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Strawberry Mansion High in North Philadelphia is one of 37 schools the school had slated for closing. 

Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite 

"Alarming. "This diagram suggests that children who are most in need of resources are receiving the fewest amount of resources." -- Philly Public Schools Notebook

Cassie Creswell, More Than A Score board member

“The state must administer the test but that doesn’t mean the kid has to take it. On a legal basis, the parent should have the right to refuse for the kids.” -- Sun-Times

Rev. Barber

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber

"When you look at Moral Monday and our movement, you see North Carolina and America in all of its beauty." --  NC Civil Rights Leader Questioned About Being Featured in Campaign Attack Ads

Danny Glover

 “Harry was a kind of bridge between the blacklist and the actors who were beginning to speak out.” -- Harry Belafonte Receives Humanitarian Oscar

Richard Berman, right-wing media guru

“I get up every morning and I try to figure out how to screw with the labor unions — that’s my offense,” Mr. Berman said in his speech to the Western Energy Alliance. “I am just trying to figure out how I am going to reduce their brand.” -- N.Y. Times

NYT Editorial

The economy is not working for those who rely on paychecks to make a living, which is to say, almost everyone. Steady gains in the October jobs report, while welcome, do not change that basic fact. -- Job Growth, But No Raises

BEST ELECTION TWEETS 2

Tom Frank: "Obama hasn't done anything for two years that gets people excited about being Democrats." http://t.co/noScISQWgm
— Salon.com (@Salon) November 6, 2014

Voting Happens In Between Elections - TheJLVMail - http://t.co/fqjyfflJGx
— Jose Vilson (@TheJLV) November 7, 2014

In congressional races nationally, Democrats won Latino vote by a margin of 62% to 36% http://t.co/uS2MLDLA0M pic.twitter.com/p0ioNniUfJ
— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) November 7, 2014

How'd the GOP Win? By Running Left http://t.co/6k1fV1Qbp2
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) November 9, 2014

There are no permanent losers in politics, but there are permanent insiders http://t.co/8JLxeAjUSQ
— BillMoyers.com (@BillMoyersHQ) November 9, 2014

Will Rauner pull the plug?

This from today's Trib --

When the freshly elected Rauner assumes the Illinois governorship in January, he will gain control of the education bureaucracy of a state that, like most others in the nation, has set Common Core as a benchmark to gauge student achievement.

If Rauner tries to pull the plug, as he appeared to suggest, he could anger education reformers who think the program is a solid way to improve education. If he doesn't, he risks the wrath of a conservative political base that expected him to do otherwise.

And that's the least of his problems

The Name of the Game

Yes, I'm being facetious, but stay with me for a minute anyway..

The IL gov's race was basically bought by billionaire Bruce Rauner at $30.50/vote. Pension-buster Quinn lost to Rauner by 170,000 votes but spent only $17.31/vote. Does this mean that if the IEA and other unions had diverted the half-million or so they gave to Republican Kirk Dillard in the primary and to the Libertarian (Whatshisname?) to Quinn/Vallas, that extra million or so have bought another 170,000 votes?

Probably not, but it may be worth a rethink of IL union campaign strategy. Instead of pissing good money away after bad, how about some real real strategic support to progressive candidates, where a few mil could really make a difference? Like anti-Rahm candidates, Chuy Garcia and Bob Fioretti, as we head towards February?

As for SEIU Local 73, I hope Boardman's $25,000 check to Rahm's bloated campaign war chest, bounces higher than the interest rate on my daughter's student loans. Slavish union 'crats have donated more than $1 million to Emanuel since last year.

Union money spent smartly did help win an important victory in California, where pro-public school Tom Torlakson beat heavily-bankrolled Marshall Tuck -- the corporate suck -- for state school supe and in Pennsylvania where a strong parent-led coalition was able to knock out reactionary Gov. Corbett. 

It hurts to even mention WFP's endorsement of Gov. Cuomo in N.Y. who now swears that he will destroy the "public education monopoly". 

It's still worth remembering that the real power behind school privatization and the erosion of public space and decision making, can't be taken out in elections. They don't run for public office. As Caroline Howard at Forbes points out:

 Mark Zuckerberg has no term limit; no one can dethrone Gates or dismiss Bill Clinton.

Speaking of which...

Ald. Fioretti on the Lucas Museum:

"It looks like a palace for Jabba the Hutt. I was wondering what planet we are on." 

Dems didn't put out for Quinn/Vallas

No car today. I had to cab it home from basketball practice this morning. Yes, I know I said I retired from coaching last year. I lied. But anyway, the cabbie Jesus, who moved here from Mexico a few years ago, is also the janitor at a CPS high school. Plus he works in a restaurant downtown at night. He tells me that his CPS boss, Aramark has fired lots of his co-workers, leaving the school with three custodians. He says, there's no way they can keep the whole school clean with only three people.

He shared some stories about his home town. I talked privatization and asked him if he knew about his namesake running for mayor. He didn't. But he does now.

 Rahm and Rauner outside the Paradise Valley Grill near Livingston, Montana

Please don't blame progressives, African-Americans, teachers, or my brother Fred (he was in Mexico) for the Quinn/Vallas defeat. They earned  it on their own because they couldn't excite their own base.

Never, at least in my memory, has there been a worse pair of candidates who pissed away more than $30 million, trying to match billionaire Rauner's negative ad for negative ad instead of spending enough time and resources on voter turn out in Chicago's south and west-side wards.

Quinn sent his own aide in a chicken suit to stand outside Rauner appearances, while Rauner swiped back by campaigning beside actual chickens. And that was the high water mark of the campaign. Quinn certainly had nothing to offer black and Latino voters or union rank-and-filers besides chicken poop.

I would suggest it was the party's support for pension grabbing (Quinn) and union-busting privatization (Vallas) that kept lots of folks home on election day. They were also done in by a total abandonment of the campaign by Rahm Emanuel's own ward organization machine and lost the downstate Democratic counties of St. Clair & Jackson.

By now everyone knows that the  Rahm/Madigan gang hates Quinn and Vallas and feels much more comfortable playing let's make a deal with Rauner running the state. Greg Hinz at Crain's writes:

What counts now is that the Big Dance has begun, in which winner Mr. Rauner and General Assembly leaders Michael Madigan and John Cullerton take each other's measure.

While the turnout was low, there were enough registered Democrat voters statewide to elect Quinn/Vallas -- if they wanted to. For example, Sen. Dick Durbin was elected easily over his Republican opponent, and got over 100,000 more votes statewide than did Bruce Rauner. But the same voters who punched Durbin's ticket didn't vote Quinn/Vallas. Why not? Isn't it obvious that IL Dems didn't really put out for them?

It's true, Durbin wasn't running against Rauner but his clone, the Oberweis dairy magnate. But still.

BEST ELECTION TWEETS

Dems will always lose when they imitate Republicans and take their base for granted. People want a true alternative
— Pedro Noguera (@PedroANoguera) November 5, 2014

Democrats Need to Fight for the Working Class/Poor as Hard as Republicans Fight for Billionaires. #UniteBlue #p2
— TheNewDeal (@TheNewDeal) November 5, 2014

I survived 8 years of W. I endured 6 years, 16 days of Governor Blagojevich. I will make it through 2,102,400 minutes of Commander Carhartt.
— Matt Farmer (@mifarmer) November 5, 2014

U.S. election results resonate globally, with fears of a deepening void. My story with @annafifield http://t.co/tJ0l6Dbjky
— Griff Witte (@griffwitte) November 5, 2014

Democrats Need to Stop Being Afraid of Being Progressive. How Did Running Away from Obama Work Out Last Night? #UniteBlue #p2
— TheNewDeal (@TheNewDeal) November 5, 2014

Obama doesn't see the election results as a reason to back off. He sees them as a reason to push harder: http://t.co/ssJqRyqNhS
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) November 5, 2014

ILGov-elect Rauner, who labeled Dem Gov. Quinn as "corrupt" and "failure" during campaign, now thanks Quinn for service to state.
— Rick Pearson (@rap30) November 5, 2014

Why the cavalry didn't come to save Quinn/Vallas

If Gov. Quinn is still waiting for cavalry from inner-city Chicago to arrive and pull out the election for him, he's going to be waiting a long, long time. From here it looks like there was little in the Quinn/Vallas campaign that excited either the black community, young voters, teachers or much of the union rank-and-file even while running against the worst person in the world. The Rauner scare just wasn't enough.

That's understandable given Quinn's self-description of "born for pension reform" and Vallas' practically single-handed elimination of New Orleans' public schools. The barrage of negative T.V. ads by both sides had little popular appeal and Quinn/Vallas ads spoke not a word of hope or offered anything in the way of programs or policies for black or Latino neighborhoods or for the state's poor and working people.

From an early look at things, most either held their noses and voted after standing in long lines in poorly-run polling places or stayed home. It's also pretty clear that Gov.-elect Rauner's wine-drinking pal and erstwhile Quinn supporter, Rahm Emanuel had little if any interest in gearing up the machine for this one and that many aldermen and precinct captains, with a few exceptions, sat this one out.

Despite the obscene amount of money (over $100 Million) spent by both candidates on this election, turnout in Chicago was down as much as 10% from four years ago. Rauner ended up spending about $30.50/vote while Quinn spent $17.31. Not exactly a grass-roots, populist campaign by either side.

________________________________________________

BLAME Brother Fred for Quinn/Vallas losss? OK.

__________________________________________________

In predominantly African-American wards, turnout was not only was down but the GOP margin was up. For instance, Rauner got 10% of the vote in Cook County Board President Tony Preckwinkle's 4th Ward. The final numbers show that only 36.4% of registered voters in Chicago hit the polls on Tuesday. Chicago's 15th Ward has the lowest turnout at 22.2%. Turnout was also way down in the 3rd, 6th, and 8th wards. And all of that despite repeated trips to Chicago to stump for Quinn/Vallas by Pres. Obama, Joe Biden, and Michelle.

____________________________________________

ONE OF THE BIGGEST questions of the night: How did Gov. Pat Quinn drop nearly 100,000 votes Tuesday night in the city and suburban Cook compared to 2010 numbers? -- Natasha Korecki

 ____________________________________________

Bottom line is Quinn/Vallas lost by about 5% of the vote. We can only wonder how badly an authentic progressive Democrat (not just two pension-busting white guys) might have spanked Rauner and left his overpriced campaign and the IL Republican Party buried neath the neighborhoods, schools and union halls of Chicago.

More on the battle ahead coming up as Rauner tries to reach an accommodation with Boss Madigan, who still owns a veto-proof majority in the legislature and as progressives try and run a different kind of campaign to unseat Rahm in February.

As S-T columnist Mark Brown put it: "If he chooses to make the rights of working people his first target, though, he can expect a long four years."

Luis, Luis -- Rahm's got to go

Rep. Gutierrez is backing his pal, Rahm, for mayor. 

Rep. Luis Gutierrez has pulled another flip-flop, endorsing Rahm Emanuel after first attacking him as an enemy of the unions. No one should be surprised.

In his book, Overhaul, Obama's former "car czar" Steven Rattner offers an insider's account of the Obama administration's rescue of the auto industry. Rattner depicts then White House Chief of Staff Emanuel as a bully who disparaged unions and who could also be spectacularly blunt, once telling Rattner during a meeting about GM and Chrysler's massive problems and potential bankruptcies:

"Why even save GM?" When Rattner adviser Ron Bloom noted that tens of thousands of autoworker jobs were at stake, Emanuel huffed, "Fuck the UAW," referring to the United Auto Workers union.

Such Rahm outbursts were common in those days. Remember when he called progressives “fucking retarded” for contemplating primary challenges against conservative Democrats?

Now fast forward to 2010. Rahm has left the White House and returned to take over the Democratic Machine in Chicago and run for mayor. At the time, Rep. Luis Gutierrez was also contemplating a run. Luis went ballistic when he heard that then AFSCME Pres. Gerry McEntee had come out and endorsed Rahm.

 "I'm shocked that Gerry McEntee would endorse Rahm Emanuel, considering what Rahm has done to working people," Gutierrez told me. "This is the same Rahm Emanuel who said 'Fuck the UAW!'" Gutierrez characterized McEntee's endorsement of Emanuel as "a disgrace to the labor movement. ... What about all my years paying dues as an AFSCME member or all those year walking picket lines as Congressman? I guess that counts for nothing," Gutierrez continued.

Luis' outrage was understandable. Many of us felt the same anger a few months ago when we learned that SEIU Local 73 Pres. Christine Boardman had donated thousands to Rahm's over-stuffed campaign war chest. Didn't she know what Rahm had done to working people?

Gutierrez has been chastising Rahm for sabotaging immigration reform. Emanuel once infamously called immigration reform "the third rail of American politics." Gutierrez charged that  Emanuel--when he chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee--had convinced House Democrats in close races in 2006 to support legislation that would have actually given law enforcement agents incentive to turn undocumented immigrants over to federal authorities.

So what are we to make of Gutierrez' own endorsement or Rahm last week over his former progressive ally, Jesus "Chuy" Garcia.

It boggles the mind how opportunist politicians can turn on a dime. But none of us should have been surprised by Luis' endorsement of Rahm. Remember, he had backed machine candidate Toni Berrios against progressive Will Guzzardi in the 39th Dist. race. Luis claimed then, that anyone who opposed the daughter of machine boss Joe Berrios was trying to "silence Latino voices."

Luis, Luis...

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

“I am convinced the city is going in the wrong direction” and that it needs “real leadership that is both accountable and accessible.” -- At CTU dinner

Jeremy Haile

But we don’t just punish people for being poor. In some cases, we punish them for being punished. -- The Sentencing Project

Mary Landrieu's great understatement

"...the South "has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans." -- TPM

Rich Miller

 I don’t know who will win the election. But I sure know who lost. You. -- Capitol Fax.com

Beachwood Reporter to Ald. Deb Mell 

.@debmell Are you going as an alderman who wasn't installed by her father? #justjoking #happyhalloween
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) October 31, 2014

School rankings: The more things change...

Guess what? 
After nearly two decades of mayoral control, testing obsession, and top-down, corporate-style reform of Chicago schools, the more things change, the more they remain essentially the same. Student test scores still correlate most strongly with parent income and the top and bottom ranked schools, with few exceptions, still correspond most closely to the number of high-scoring kids they recruit.

Community protests new charter across street from Prosser.

Today's Sun-Times reports:

Once again, Chicago’s elite high schools dominate the top of state’s high schools, with selective-enrollment schools taking the top four statewide spots. But 28 of the state’s bottom 40 schools are Chicago neighborhood or contract public high schools, according to a Sun-Times ranking of state standardized test scores.

The top open enrollment neighborhood high school, Lincoln Park High School, sits in Chicago’s wealthiest neighborhood, though its scores on the Prairie State Achievement Examination have dipped slightly from last year.

The same held true for the city's elite elementary schools which easily outscored the rest of the state. Behind them are the state's wealthiest suburban schools.

Jennifer Johnson, a former LPHS teacher and now special projects coordinator at the Chicago Teacher Union, summed it up best:

 “We already know that the selective-enrollment students have to meet a higher bar to get into those schools in the first place on standardized assessments. High test scores correlate with family income and the neighborhood in which students live.”

One interesting exception is Prosser Career Academy, in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood, which is the top scoring high school that serves nearly all low-income students, according to the S-T rankings. I know Prosser well. I coached basketball there until last year.

But despite Prosser's gains, made by a great group of teachers, under the leadership of Principal Ken Hunter (now on leave), and despite ongoing community protests, CPS has approved a new privately run charter school being built right across the street. Even before the new Noble Street charter is constructed, there are already attempts to recruit away Prosser students.

Byrd-Bennett promised a better school.

Then there's the so-called "welcoming schools", which received lots of extra resources and funding in the expectation that students from the 50 closed schools would attend. Many of them never showed up, leaving those schools with extra money and fewer kids. CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett had promised that every child whose school had been shuttered would end up in a better place.

But the S-T report finds the receiving schools "a mixed bag at best."  Some of the city’s largest drops in Illinois State Achievement Test scores happened at some of these “welcoming schools.”

Charter schools weren't included in the S-T analysis. But my own quick scan of the charters found none among the top-ranked schools. More to come on this.

Finally, the report found --get this-- much of the the data being used by CPS to evaluate school progress, is full of errors and unreliable. It's a lot like Supt. McCarthy's crime data. So proceed with caution at your own risk.

THE BEN & JESSE SHOW

Ben and Jesse

Ben Joravsky had lots of good questions for acting CTU Pres. Jesse Sharkey at last night's Take Back Chicago event, organized by Parents 4 Teachers.

We were greeted outside the Luther Memorial Church by organizers from both the Fioretti and Garcia campaigns asking us to sign their petitions. What a dilemma! You can't legally sign both. Luckily, my daughter Joanna was with me, so we each signed one, avoiding my existential crisis. What a silly law.

Sharkey didn't speak directly to the union's endorsement in the upcoming mayor's race, but made his feelings clear that the more progressive candidates in the race, the better chance of forcing Rahm into a run-off. That comment drew the biggest response from the audience. The only announced mayoral candidate I saw in the room was long-shot Amara Enyia. I hope she does well.

Sharkey also made clear the union's support for a host of candidates running in ward elections and optimistically predicted an end to Rahm's super-majority in the City Council. He also predicted success for an elected-school-board initiative ultimately getting on the ballot.

I'm still struggling with this image for some reason. 

Joravsky had a busy day, yesterday. Aside from prepping for last night's forum, he also banged out some wit and wisdom in this timely Reader post, A reminder to Mayor Rahm's 2015 opponents: It's a runoff, dummies!

My point is that once Mayor Rahm fires up that propaganda machine to turn himself into the second coming of Abraham Lincoln, the best bet to beat him is to encourage as many people as possible to vote against him. No matter who they're voting for. And it's kind of hard to do that if Chuy's bashing Bob, and Bob's bashing Chuy, and so on and so forth, thus turning everybody off.

Phil Huckleberry's post at Gapers Block, Chuy Garcia Jumps In, Realignment Begins, has a similar, but slightly different ring than Ben's make-love-not-war plea to progressives. Huckleberry is realistic enough to know that the struggle for a runoff spot is bound to be intense. But he still sees a way for a common progressive strategy against belt-holder, Rahm.

What we see emerging is a classic WWE triple threat match. (If you think that high-stakes politics has little in common with professional wrestling, then you're probably not very familiar with either phenomenon!)

I'm not a big wrestling fan, but I get the point.

Gloomy Ben kept asking Jesse for some good news. Here's some. Everybody (including some 1%-ers) hates Rahm. Most polls I've seen, show the mayor's negative ratings up around 55%. Even Rahm's own hired gun David Axelrod, calls him a son-of-a-bitch. Only Axelrod thinks, that's a good thing.

S-T's Chad Merda writes:

And that's backed up by his dismal public support; an Early & Often poll showed he only had 29 percent support overall and 8 percent from African-Americans. “Thank God the election is not today," Emanuel said in August.

God's not on your side, Rahm. See picture above.

Latest polls show Rahm very beatable.

Chuy Garcia at UIC today says, "I'm a serious mayoral candidate, not just a protest vote." (Sun-Times)

I'm hoping my old friend (going back to the Harold Washington days) Chuy Garcia is able to gather enough signatures over the next 3 weeks to officially get on the ballot. His potential vote total, along with challenger Bob Fioretti's, together would likely be strong enough to deny Rahm Emanuel a first-round victory like the one he enjoyed in 2011, when he got 55% of the vote.

I'm no expert on polling, but neither am I blind. The latest polling I get from Fioretti's camp shows the Alderman trailing Rahm by just 4 points in a head-to-head contest. The Garcia camp has yet to do any polling.

Rahm - 38, Fioretti - 34,  Unsure - 28  (Margin of error = 1.4%)

This modeling survey of 4,797 voters shows a two-way race with the mayor’s support essentially unchanged from what we saw in a three-way race a month ago. Of course, this latest poll was done after Karen Lewis dropped out and before Chuy dropped in (he still hasn't officially). 

But it seems to indicate (at least to me) that Rahm has a hard ceiling of 40-45% no matter how much he spends, and a strong showing by Chuy (or even a moderate one) will throw this thing into a run-off with the combined support of the progressives likely beating the incumbent in the final election. What's unclear is who has the best chance to finish second in the first round -- Bob or Chuy?

Rahm's negatives are solid. 42% of those surveyed give the mayor a positive job rating. Over half (55%) give him a negative one. 

Now the election is only 3 months away and a lot can happen in 3 months, as we've seen in the last few weeks. We don't know if the progressive candidates can tactically focus on defeating Rahm instead of trying to cut each other's throats (wouldn't be the first time). I've been assured by activists in both camps that they're each focusing their fire strictly on the mayor. 

Even given all the potential black swans lurking in the reeds, prospects for a Rahm defeat in the final round still seem strong. But so much depends on how the two progressive candidates--and their supporters--play it. 

Waukegan teachers hanging tough. Cuomo vows to break public schools 'monopolies'.

At last night's board meeting, Waukegan board member Victoria Torres blows it. Tells angry striking teachers and parent supporters, "Sit down and shut up!" Probably not the best way for elected official to open dialogue. Meeting up for grabs. Quickly adjourned. At 10 p.m. teachers union releases a statement calling Torres’ behavior “abhorrent” and calling for her immediate resignation. Statewide support is building for teachers who are in 4th week of strike for a decent contract.

While N.Y. Gov. Cuomo is busy playing political games with quarantined Ebola health workers, he still finds time to attack public education with a broad brush. According to this story in the Daily News, Cuomo has vowed to break the public schools “public monopolies” and replace them with more privately-run charter schools.

That's really hard to understand since Cuomo has always been a big fan of monopolies. Take for example his love affair with Pearson Publishing, the British conglomerate that monopolizes Common Core and the standardized testing industry.

According to Alan Singer, writing at Huffington,

 Pearson is already creating teacher certification exams for eighteen states including New York, organizing staff development workshops to promote Pearson products, and providing school district Pearson assessment tools. In New York, Pearson Education currently has a five-year, $32 million contract to administer state test and provides other "testing services" to the State Education Department. It also recently received a share of a federal Race to the Top grant to create what the company calls the "next-generation" of online assessments. 

“Gov. Cuomo has laid clear plans to expand his frontal assault on our public schools through high stakes testing, starving our public schools and privatization,” says Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education.

“It’s not that shocking when you look at the enormous pile of cash he has raked in from the Wall Street billionaires who are investing in charter schools. He is rewarding his financial backers at a devastating cost to our children.”

Please tell me again why the Working Families Party (WFP) thought it a good idea to endorse this guy? The Nation's explanation only makes me dizzy.

AFT Prez Randi Weingarten Tweets this follow-up to this week's teacher-bashing TIME cover:

85,000 have signed @AFTunion petition asking @time to apologize for it cover which was a sucker punch to teachers everywhere #TIMEfail
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) October 29, 2014

'Chuy' is running for mayor

Between now and February, we are in for a ride. Cook County Commissioner, former Alderman, State Senator  and old Harold Washington hand, Jesus "Chuy" Garcia announced last night that he is running for Mayor.

Emanuel’s nearly $9 million campaign fund dwarfs the $15,000 Garcia has in storage. He’ll need, he says, $3 million to be competitive.

“I think by the time that I register as a candidate we will be at least half way there,” he said. He is working he said with long time political strategist Don Rose, who helped Jane Byrne defeat Michael Bilandic in 1979. -- Ward Room

Chicago progressives have spent the past couple of weeks walking around in darkness with heads hanging over Karen Lewis' departure from the race. Now that Rahm is going to be hit from two sides by Garcia and Bob Fioretti, the likelihood of a runoff looms large. Both will be looking for community and union support -- and money. Buckle up.

All eyes are on Waukegan. The teachers strike in its 4th week. Against tremendous pressure, teachers are still united and hanging tough. Now is the time for the rest of the state's union movement to rally behind them and win this thing.

Thanks to Edushyster, I mean Jennifer Berkshire, for her guest appearance in my class last night. Jennifer is in town talking to all the right people, to get her Chicago story right.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Dave Zirin

Dave Zirin

"This is about the rot of for-profit amateurism... [It's] educational money-laundering of young black men...the organized theft of black wealth... Having the NCAA investigating the North Carolina scandal is like having Tony Soprano come in to deal with the neighborhood drug dealer." -- Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC

Nicholas Kristof

A new Pew survey finds that Americans consider the greatest threat to our country to be the growing gap between the rich and poor. Yet we have constructed an education system, dependent on local property taxes, that provides great schools for the rich kids in the suburbs who need the least help, and broken, dangerous schools for inner-city children who desperately need a helping hand. Too often, America’s education system amplifies not opportunity but inequality. -- N.Y. Times

Jitu Brown

Jitu Brown

“It is a testimony to the commitment from people that live in this neighborhood who not only developed a full academic plan for the school in absence of a vision by the district, but also demonstrated, turned out to town hall meetings and showed their overwhelming support of Dyett. It is not the result of elected officials". -- Early & Often

 UTLA president Alex Caputo-Pearl 

“You had him [former L.A. Supt. John Deasy] supporting this community movement that had been brewing for about 10 years around positive behavior support and restorative justice. But he didn’t invest resources into the staffing, training or school reform that would be needed to really bring those things into practice.” -- Capital & Main

More on the Sun-Times 'Breach in the Wall'

In this morning's post, I asked what Dave McKinney's brother and sister S-T reporters were going to do in response to, what Mark Anderson called, "the breach in that wall between owners and the newsroom." By this afternoon I got my answer.

McKinney's fellow reporters have asked S-T owners for reassurance that they won't seek to influence editorial content. The request comes in a petition that supporters can sign, posted on the reporters' union website. It reads:

Mr. Michael Ferro and Mr. Timothy Knight: 

We are deeply troubled by the situation leading up to Dave McKinney’s resignation. It raises incredible questions about whether Sun-Times reporters risk retaliation from management after writing stories unfavorable to a politician or our company's investors.
We have basic concerns about whether we will be able to do our jobs moving forward without interference. 

We want to know: did a politician or someone tied to that politician lodge a complaint with Mr. Ferro over a story? If there was indeed a breach in the firewall that is supposed to exist between owners and the newsroom, how do we know that will not reoccur? Would you or Mr. Knight address the newsroom to answers these questions and others?
Respectfully, Chicago Sun-Times Newsroom and supporters

I just signed it.

Now the question is, what will Rauner/Rahm pals who own the S-T, do to salvage its integrity and prevent an all-out rebellion on the part of its staff? The ball is in the court of Ferro and Knight.

A 'breach in the wall' at the Sun-Times. How will it play out for Rahm?

The Ward Room's Mark Anderson has the best take on the Sun-Times/Rauner/McKinney debacle. He's smart enough to look beyond its immediate impact on the (I know I am, but what are you) gov's race and see how things might play out for S-T editorial board pal, Rahm Emanuel in February's race for mayor.

SmallTalk salute for Dave McKinney

Anderson points out how the S-T editorial board sold its soul and the paper's credibility by doing Rauner's bidding, throwing ace reporter David McKinney under the bus and then endorsing Rauner over Quinn.

McKinney deserves a SmallTalk Salute for his resignation letter to Rauner-puppy-dog bosses, Ferro, Knight and Kirk. He's right on time when he writes:

Readers of the Sun-Times need to be able to trust the paper. They need to know a wall exists between owners and the newsroom to preserve the integrity of what is published. A breach in that wall exists at the Sun-Times. It’s had a chilling effect in the newsroom. While I don’t speak for my colleagues, I’m aware that many share my concern. I’m convinced this newspaper no longer has the backs of reporters like me.

I'm waiting to see what McKinney's brother and sister S-T reporters are going to say in an attempt to salvage their own professional and political integrity. Here Carol Marin's Tweet:

Dave McKinney. Honorable, ethical, eloquent. http://t.co/pXiQxgPBdB
— Carol Marin (@CarolMarin) October 22, 2014

As for the upcoming mayor's race, Anderson writes:

The mayor has deep ties to a number of Sun-Times board members, just like Rauner. Members of the board, including Michael Ferro Jr. and Michael Sacks donated heavily to Emanuel’s 2011 campaign. The mayor parties with members of the board. Michael Sacks has been described as the mayor’s “go-to guy” on everything from the city’s parking meter deal to economic development.

That’s not to say a mayoral endorsement from the Sun-Times will be done in anything but the most transparent, above board way possible. But what if it’s not? This one certainly wasn't. There’s little doubt both the city and the state are facing an abundance of critical and difficult problems right now. Voters and concerned citizens need institutions like the Sun-Times to fulfill their role as unbiased, unimpeachable reporters of truth—even in the messy world of politics.

Did he really paint a scenario where Rahm is trailing in the race by double digits? I doubt it, but I like it.

The very thing that makes them strong, makes them weak.

And speaking of no credibility... I'll let Brother Fred's take on the new Time cover say all that needs to be said.