DeVos has turned her Office of Civil Rights into its opposite

Under the direction of Betsy DeVos, the DOE has become little more than an engine for driving school privatization, religious fundamentalism, racism and gender discrimination. Trump's appointment of DeVos to oversee this country's public education system threatens a roll-back of every hard-won gain by the Civil Rights Movement in the past 70 years.

DeVos in turn, has named Candice Jackson to head the Office of Civil Rights and turned that office into its opposite. It should be renamed, the Office of Maintaining White Male Supremacy. Jackson's recent comments normalizing campus rape are but the latest indicators of the direction the DOE has taken in regards to civil rights enforcement. DeVos has also slashed OCR budget, basically neutering the office when it comes to enforcement.

DeVos claims she wants to focus on civil rights claims "individually" rather than on institutional racism and discrimination, thereby ignoring this country's legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and racial segregation and their impact on public education.

What this means in practice is often giving equal weight to or favoring the complaints of individual white men who feel discriminated against by race-based affirmative actions; to Christian fundamentalists who feel that civil rights laws impinge on their religious practices; and to men's rights groups who feel oppressed by feminists or by women who have accused them of rape.

All has brought DeVos into direct conflict with Sen. Patty Murray, ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. who's among 34 Democratic senators who signed a letter which read:  "You claim to support civil rights and oppose discrimination, but your actions belie your assurances."

They gave DeVos a deadline of July 11 to provide a list of all open Office for Civil Rights cases involving a transgender student, open cases involving sexual assault or sexual harassment, and cases that have been closed or dismissed since Jan. 1. DeVos ignored the deadline.

DeVos is also being sued by IL Atty. General Lisa Madigan and 18 other state attorneys general who want the DOE to hold for-profit schools (like Trump Univ.)  accountable for unscrupulous practices/ These include lying about accreditation and job placement, and luring millions of Americans to enroll in programs that ultimately leave them trapped in a lifetime of paralyzing student loan debt.

The problem with the Dems' is that the Department under Obama's appointee, Arne Duncan, was also weak on civil rights enforcement, especially in the area of school desegregation. Duncan proclaimed that he was opposed to "forced integration" recalling memories of 1950s southern segregationists. Other appointees, like former Asst. Sec. Peter Cunningham, have been outspoken in opposition to school desegregation being a front-burner issue.

It's telling that Sen. Murray and her Democratic colleagues never mention race or racism, English language learners, or students with disabilities in any of their polemics with DeVos and confine their criticisms almost entirely to issues of gender and transgender discrimination.

A serious blind spot.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"We want the USGA to dump sexist Trump because women and men deserve to make sure that they are safe and that sexual predators are not considered ambassadors of sports." -- Protesting Trump at U.S. Open

Catherine Rampell

Everything is a distraction from something much, much worse. -- Washington Post 

Walt Gardner 

It's so easy to scapegoat teachers' unions for all the ills afflicting public schools ("State of the Teachers Union," The Wall Street Journal, Jul. 6). Critics point to the success of charter schools, which are overwhelmingly non-union, as evidence.

But what these critics don't admit is that states like Massachusetts and Minnesota, which have strong teachers unions, also post high test scores. Is that merely a coincidence or is it evidence that the critics are wrong?  (Correlation is not causation.)  Moreover, not all charter schools post positive results by any means. -- Reality Check

 Jessica Valenti

 Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise from DeVos, who appointed Candice Jackson as a civil rights official in the education department – a woman who denounced feminism and claimed she was a victim of discrimination for being white. -- Betsy DeVos enabling rape deniers 

Fired Rauner staffer

“We fought for the governor [to hijack the state budget for two years] with our very last breath only to find out he was planning to fire us anyway. We gave him everything, blood and guts, and this is what we got. A kick out the door.” -- Sneed

Trevor Timm

 The Robert Mueller special counsel investigation into Trump and Russia could take years to complete. And it probably won’t directly lead to Trump himself being indicted. Mueller is likely to submit his findings on Trump himself to Congress for action rather than bringing an indictment. And if people really think Republicans are going to impeach Trump, they are kidding themselves. -- Guardian

The Grifters

Grifter family. https://t.co/n0KUaLfiEO

— Mike Klonsky (@mikeklonsky) July 13, 2017

This is the EXACT reason they viciously attack our family! They can't stand that we are extremely close and will ALWAYS support each other. https://t.co/1f7JqxScMr

— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) July 11, 2017

With school out and Trump and his grifter family sucking up all the media energy, it's been hard for this blogger to stay focused on education politics. Talking (on Hitting Left) and writing about even the hot ed issues, like charter schools, vouchers and testing madness, while the country is facing its worst constitutional crisis in half-a-century, sounds to many of my readers (rightfully so) like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It brings me little satisfaction or relief.

Like most of us, I've increasingly been turned into a spectator on RussiaGate, staring at times in disbelief, with eyes glazed over at CNN or MSNBC, spitting out invectives at the TV screen while the grifter family saga plays out with never-ending cast of talking heads. It's a parade of  Trump and anti-Trump lawyers, former and current CIA operatives, Republican pols abandoning ship, Democrats with little to offer except "we not Trump in 2018", and so forth -- dredged out to normalize political criminality and the greatest redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top, in history.

Where is this going? How do we as a nation, extricate ourselves from the rule of the most corrupt, anti-democratic regime since the Nixon era. Trump won't resign like Nixon. If he did, no Pence presidential pardon could save him and his grifter family from prison and loss of their empire because Pence himself is culpable. They all go down together.

Maybe pack all the grifters into Air Force 1, land at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow and request political asylum ala Edward Snowden? Not likely.

Impeachment? Possible, especially after Mueller's committee releases its findings. But that could take years.

25th Amendment? A "liberal fantasy" writes Politico's Jeff Greenfield. He's right.

Electoral strategy? Most likely, but problematic. Mid-term elections are coming up with a chance for Dems to take back the House and Senate. If this happens, Trump and his grifter family are toast. If not, 2020 seems like a sure bet. The problem is a Democratic Party split in half between neo-liberals and progressives, with nothing to offer the poor and working class on the most important issues. The DNC leadership continues to direct it's main blow at the Sanders left instead of the Republicans.

Check out Howard Dean, now, according to The Intercept, working for a health care lobbying firm to attack Bernie Sanders on single-payer.

"We're not Trump" may do it without the left. Or not.

Third party politics continues to be a bad spoiler joke with Greens (whites), liberal libertarians, and others invisible between elections. No base.

National Tenant March

A DISTRACTION? Some of my readers argue that all this Russomania is just a distraction, keeping us from talking about the important things like health care, education and racism. They have a point. But flipping the script for a minute, it's also meant death for the Republican agenda, ie. killing Obamacare, tax-"reform", etc... It has also left Ed Secretary Betsy DeVos, isolated and cowering over at the DOE.

Not to say there isn't great damage being done, especially a roll-back of civil rights gains won in the '60s. This includes restricting voting rights, which can only help Repugs in 2018 and '20.

Sound depressing? Snap out of it, I tell myself. As I'm writing this, thousands of tenants and housing rights activists are converging on Washington, D.C., for a National Tenant March. The march is protesting Trump’s "war on the poor", particularly his proposed $7.4 billion cuts to HUD, or the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees public housing in the United States. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is among the scheduled speakers.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

“I’m here because I oppose how education in Germany is structured, that they’re training us to be workers and not thinkers.” -- Hendro Myrow, 18, a student in Hamburg.

Sydney Chaffee, 2017 National Teacher of the Year

Let’s work to ensure that education represents liberation. Let’s keep our ears and hearts open to our students’ brilliance, even when it makes us uncomfortable. Let’s envision education as a time machine that helps our students travel to worlds we have only imagined — ones that are built on ideals of justice and equity and collaboration. -- National Education Association 

47th Ward Ald. Ameya Pawar, candidate for governor in IL

Ald. Ameya Pawar

"You have to have a progressive income tax. We owe what we owe [to state pensioners] and if I'm elected, we will make good on that promise...We can't allow the pension system to go belly-up and by extension, to allow the city to go belly-up. I have always voted to protect pensions. I don't know that everyone in the race can say that." -- Interview on Hitting Left with the Klonsky Bros. 

Rahm Emanuel's big lie

“What’s very, very important for the people in Chicago, all of the taxpayers and all of the employees and employers, all four of our pensions — police pensions, fire pensions, laborers pension and municipal employees pension — you have a secure retirement now.” -- Chicago Tribune 

French President Emmanuel Macron as G20 ends

“Our world has never been so divided.” -- Washington Post 

Pope Francis warns G20 about 'dangerous alliances'

 "The G20 worries me, it hits migrants in countries in half of the world and it hits them even more as time goes by." He said the greatest danger concerned immigration, with "the poor, the weak, the excluded and the marginalised" juxtaposed with "those who... fear the invasion of migrants". -- Reuters

Sen. Rob Portman's code word for Jews?

 “We aren’t going to allow a handful of Socialists, many of whom are from New York, to disrupt our ability to serve the needs of the Ohio constituents who contact us in need of vital services every day,” -- Washington Post  

Will IL legislators have enough spine to override Gov. Junk's veto?

Today's funniest quote comes from Gov. Junk himself: "The people should come first in Illinois, not Wall Street."

Push comes to shove today in Springfield when a group of Republicans, facing right-wing death threats,  may stand with Dems and do the right thing by ending the state's budget nightmare. IL is now in its third year of operating without a budget, mainly because a sociopathic, ideology-driven governor has been able to use his veto power over the Democratic majority to try and bust the unions and dismantle the state's social services. 

Gov. Bruce "Junk" Rauner, in true Trumpian style, and with special enmity towards Chicago's working poor, has intentionally pushed the city as well as the state to the brink of bankruptcy. He's forced excessive borrowing to pay pension costs and operating expenses at exorbitant rates, thereby reducing credit ratings to "junk" status and lining the pockets of Wall Street banksters with billions in high interest payments for years to come. 

But with elections around the corner and Gov. Junk's approval ratings in the toilet, a group of 15 Republicans, not wanting to go down with the sinking GOP ship, may break ranks and vote today to override Rauner's veto and keep the state, at least for now, from going under. 

I predict they will.

Ald. Ameya Pawar

Tune in to Hitting Left tomorrow at 11 (Chicago time) on Lumpen Radio when our in-studio guest will be Ald. Ameya Pawar, one of the Democratic candidates in next year's governor's race. I'm sure he will have plenty to say about today's budget vote and its implications for the race. 

Rahm's new grad requirements an 'empty gesture'

Jermiya Mitchell, 17, a rising senior at Morgan Park High School on the South Side, said she has had few interactions with her guidance counselor. “We never had that conversation about life after high school,” she said. “I would like to have a counselor that really wanted to know what I wanted to do after high school and would help me get there.” (Washington Post)

With black and Latino youth unemployment in the city running at over 50% and the cost of college putting it of reach for most students, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has decided unilaterally, that kids without a job offer or college acceptance can no longer graduate from high school.

Oh yes, there's one exception to the new rule. Enlisting in the military can fulfill the graduation requirement. Chicago is now in position to become the nation's number-one military recruiter.

The ill-conceived and unenforceable plan now being imposed from above, without input from parents or educators, comes in the wake of Rahm's cutting hundreds of counselor positions throughout the district. Counselors are now reporting caseloads of up over 400. Morgan Park High School now has three guidance counselors and a college and career coach for about 1,300 students in grades seven through 12.

The Washington Post reports:

Critics say Emanuel’s idea is an empty gesture that does nothing to address the fact that many teenagers are graduating in ­impoverished, violence-racked neighborhoods with few jobs, or that the most readily accessible community colleges are ill-prepared to meet the needs of first-generation students from low-income families. They also point out that the 381,000-student district laid off more than 1,000 teachers and staff members in 2016, and it is in such difficult financial straits that it struggled to keep its doors open for the final weeks of the school year.

They quote CTU Pres. Karen Lewis:

 “It sounds good on paper, but the problem is that when you’ve cut the number of counselors in schools, when you’ve cut the kind of services that kids need, who is going to do this work? If you’ve done the work to earn a diploma, then you should get a diploma. Because if you don’t, you are forcing kids into more poverty.”

The Post reveals that Emanuel's plan was suggested to him by none other that Arne Duncan. No surprise there. It was Duncan, during his time as Chicago schools CEO and then as Obama's Sec. of Education, who practically invented top-down school reform. He forced massive school closings and their replacement with hundreds of privately-run charter schools. His failed Race to the Top plan set the stage for current Trump/DeVos assault on public education.

Hopefully, legislation for an elected school board will soon be passed, replacing mayor control of CPS before Emanuel's plan is ever implemented.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Ken Franklin

Ken Franklin, Pres. of Local 308, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU)

[Transportation workers] are like the vessels in the heart. We feed the economic engine of the cities. That allows hundreds of thousands of businesses to operate and gives the people in the cities a way of life. -- Hitting Left with the Klonsky Brothers 

Rich Miller (Capitol Fax)

What is most obvious...is Rauner's passion for what he calls "economic freedom," which roughly translates to: "Kill the unions." -- Crain's

Pope Francis tells Italian union leaders...

"There is no good society without a good union, and there is no good union that isn't reborn every day in the peripheries, that doesn't transform the rejected stones of the economy into corner stones." -- America, the Jesuit Revies 

Paul Krugman on GOP health-care bill

So it’s vast suffering — including, according to the best estimates, around 200,000 preventable deaths — imposed on many of our fellow citizens in order to give a handful of wealthy people what amounts to some extra pocket change. -- New York Times

Lori Lightfoot

Lori Lightfoot, president of the Chicago Police Board

..."All you have to do is Google him [Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions] and ask yourself is the is the guy who's going to do the right thing about police reform in Chicago? The answer is a resounding no." -- Chicago Tribune

Kalyn Belsha

Changing the equation for English learners may well require a shift from the current approach that provides students with native language support solely to help them learn English. Many experts and parents of English learners favor dual language programs, which teach students to read, write and speak two languages with equal proficiency. -- Chicago Reporter 

Letter to Ed Sec. Betsy DeVos signed by 34 senators

"You claim to support civil rights and oppose discrimination, but your actions belie your assurances." -- TIME

Chicago in violation of state law on ELL. Charters worst violators.

Most of the worst violators of state law were charter schools. Fifteen were run by the UNO Network of Charter Schools; nine were run by the Noble Network of Charter Schools. Source: Chicago Public Schools

Congrats to Chicago Reporter's Kalyn Belsha whose story on CPS's failure to meet the needs of English learners was named among this week's top education stories by Atlantic Magazine.

Belsha reports on a recent review of CPS records which found that, of the 342 schools audited, nearly 71%, or 242, had bilingual programs that were in serious violation of state law. As a result, English learners go without legally required services, such as books in their native language and teachers who speak that language or have English as a Second Language training.

Most of the worst violators of state law were charter schools. Fifteen were run by the UNO Network of Charter Schools; nine were run by the Noble Network of Charter Schools.

In 2009, U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras lifted the consent decree ending three decades of efforts to integrate Chicago schools. The decree’s bilingual education provisions, according to Kocoras, duplicated protections in state law. The ruling came despite evidence presented by DOJ lawyers in court that the district repeatedly failed to enroll English learners in bilingual education fast enough or provide them with required services.

I would be remiss if I failed to point out once again, that it was former schools CEO Arne Duncan who successfully pushed Judge Kocoras to abandon the consent decree. Thousands of the district's English language learners and their families are still paying the price.

Will Dems dare to take advantage of GOP health care debacle?

“President Obama tried to move us forward with health-care coverage by using a conservative model that came from one of the conservative think tanks that had been advanced by a Republican governor in Massachusetts, Now it’s time for the next step. And the next step is single payer.” -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Yesterday was a smashing defeat for Trump and the Repugs in their attempt to loot Medicaid and gut healthcare for more than 22 million people. Their cynical revanchist move against Obamacare was seen by the great majority of angry and terrified citizens for what it was, another attempt at a major redistribution of wealth upward in the form of a trillion-dollar tax break for the 1% at the expense of the health and welfare of working and poor families. 

The factionalism and a shattering to smithereens of the GOP leadership cadre plus the mass revulsion for Trump and the GOP leadership felt by most voters forced Sen. McConnell to pull the bill (at least for now) or risk even more desertions. 

As a result, the climate is ripe for a Democratic take-back of Congress in 2018 and for the passage of a national, single-payer healthcare bill. But that would require a radical change at the top before Democrats would dare champion such a bill or back a slate of progressive candidates to run nationally with it. A progressive takeover or even a coalition with progressives are prospects that current party leadership appears to fear even more than a continuation of Trumpism. As a result, there may be little to excite the Democratic base beyond hatred for Trump, once again in 2018.

Dems seem locked into their defeatist strategy of running Republican-light candidates simply on the slogan of, I'm not Trump, in a transparent appeal to the moderate Republican base rather than to their own. Ossoff's defeat in Georgia in the most expensive rep race in history is a perfect example of the predictable failure of such a stand-for-nothing strategy and unfortunately an omen of things to come. 

Clem Balanoff (left) with Chuy Garcia and Bernie Sanders

In the absence of a nationwide powerful and independent, interracial mass movement of the poor -- the kind being organized by leaders like Rev. William Barber down in North Carolina -- it's once again left to Sens.Warren and Sanders to rally the troops and build on this Republican crash-and-burn.

LOCALLY, HERE IN ILLINOIS, it's the same story. Even after Sanders' near victory in his run against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary -- he pulled nearly a million (49%) of the votes -- we're once again forced to choose from a group of traditional Democrats in the gov's race against the universally-hated Bruce Rauner. 

That's one of the issues we will be discussing Friday on Hitting Left with our in-studio guest, Clem Balanoff who chairs Our Revolution Illinois/Chicago, the organization that grew out of the IL Sanders campaign for president. Tune in at 11 a.m. on Lumpen Radio. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Gov. Rauner brimming with success while IL burns

"“Well, I take long walks with our dog and ride my motorcycle. I head out alone and explore roads or find a little park to sit and think. Or a brew pub to strike up conversations. It’s really wonderful when people describing themselves as Democrats tell me to stay the course. That I’m doing the right thing. That energizes me and I know it sounds strange, but my wife tells me she hasn’t seen me this happy in 20 years. I feel totally honored and humbled to get the opportunity to improve the future of 13 million people.” -- Sneed

Trump on Obama

“He actually used my term: ‘mean’. That was my term,” Trump said. “Because I want to see – and I speak from the heart – that’s what I want to see, I want to see a bill with heart.” -- Guardian 

Suburban Supt. Raymond Lechner on NCLB redux

"That's what I'm afraid of — that it's going to be the same approach as NCLB, though NCLB said 100 percent," said Wilmette School District 39 Supt. Raymond Lechner. His affluent, high-scoring North Shore district, and others like it, likely will have a better chance than most schools to reach the 90 percent proficiency goal.

"In a district like ours, we'll be able to do that," Lechner said. "Definitely, some districts will. But mostly no — most districts will not be able to deliver that." -- Chicago Tribune

 Rachel Levy, teacher, writer, parent

We can take nothing for granted—power concedes nothing without a demand, and if the people don’t demand preservation of our public schools, power may concede them to those who won’t. -- The Progressive

Dave Zirin quotes Gould 

 "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." - Stephen Jay Gould -- FB 

Live in 10 on @LumpenRadio with @mikeklonsky & Fred Klonsky pic.twitter.com/p42B2x5QBs

— #intsxsurgeryispetty (@Pidgejen) June 23, 2017

Rethinking binary gender views on Pride Week

Klonsky brothers talking intersex with Pidgeon Pagonis on Hitting Left. 

After all these years, I find I'm still working to get unstuck from traditional, binary views of gender and sexuality and the power-laden and oppressive use of language that goes with it.

Thanks to Friday's in-studio guest on Hitting Left, intersex activist and artist, Pidgeon Pagonis, for schooling us. But the educational burden shouldn't all be on them. We all need to share in the work, educate ourselves, each other, and our students, not just to better understand our world, but to change it.

If you missed Friday's show, you can listen to it this week by clicking on the link above or to the podcast any time at http://hittingleft.libsyn.com/ .

SAVE THE DATE...Our Hitting Left Labor Day Bash is set for Sept. 4th at our beautiful Co-Prosperity Sphere Studio in Bridgeport, on Chicago's south side. We'll be partying, broadcasting live and raising dough for Lumpen Radio, all at the same time. Not easy. Don't try this at home. We're professionals. More details to follow.

Rahm's latest 'reform". Moving backward in Chicago.

Chicago recorded it's 00th homicide over Father's Day weekend. Among those killed was 17-year-old Tiara Viramontes, a student at Marine Leadership Academy. 

After a Chicago weekend with 50 more shootings of mostly young people, eight of them fatal, Rahm Emanuel responded symbolically by laying off 50 more Head Start aides on the eve of the last day of school. Then, pirouetting past the graveyard, the mayor boarded a plane to D.C. where he is set to take the stage at the National Press Club, touting his latest plan to make it more difficult for African-American and Latino students to graduate from ravaged Chicago high schools.

His speech, being billed ironically as “Moving Forward in Chicago,” will detail his plan to require all public high school seniors to provide a college or trade school acceptance letter, proof of military enlistment or a job offer in order to graduate. It's another one of those "reforms" that would be mocked to death if proposed in the rich white suburban schools Rahm attended or in the private school where he sends his own children.

Mainly poor, black and Latino Chicago students students will have to comply with the new mandates without the benefit of the hundreds of counselors and school social workers recently fired  by CPS.

The students, having persevered to overcome the devastating instability caused by Rahm's mass school closings, having been forced to shift from school to school, from teachers who know them to teachers who don't, having risked increased street violence just to make it to school every morning, will soon have another major bureaucratic hoop to jump through or risk being denied their earned diploma.

For those who can't afford spiraling college tuition costs or simply don't choose to enter college right now, or for those who through no fault of their own, can't find a job, let alone one that pays a living wage (Rahm opposes a $15/hr. minimum wage), their only choice is the military.

In other words, Rahm's plan could turn CPS into the nation's largest military recruiter. For many, Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria may even seem safer than the streets of the west side or Humboldt Park.

Here's hoping that members of the Press Club will ask the appropriate questions.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

‘Taking action is the best cure for despair.’  

Rebecca Solnit

A crisis, says one dictionary, is “the point in the progress of a disease when a change takes place which is decisive of recovery or death; also, any marked or sudden change of symptoms, etc.” This crisis could be the death or the recovery of a more democratic, more inclusive, more generous America. Where we go from here is up to us. -- Guardian

Profs  Christopher & Sarah Theule Lubienski

There is a disturbing disconnect between the predictable, negative effects that vouchers are having on students, and the continued enthusiasm policymakers show for these programs despite the growing consensus that they are causing harm. -- EdWeek

Exiled free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick

“My heart aches for Philando’s family... A system that perpetually condones the killing of people, without consequence, doesn’t need to be revised, it needs to be dismantled!” -- The Nation

Richard Pfeiffer, Chicago's Pride Parade coordinator

"There are so many issues on the front burner right now, and I think you'll see that reflected. Since the change in Washington in November, LGBT people and others have been marginalized verbally and in other ways. There's anger over that." -- Tribune

Eddie Bolden, a father wrongly imprisoned for 22 years

"When I stepped outside … there's a difference between stepping out on a prison yard and seeing daylight and stepping outside outside. I still can't explain it. It was like I stepped into a whole new world for real." -- Tribune

Cesar Chavez Charter School in D.C. finally has a union

A SmallTalk Salute goes out to the teachers and staff at Cesar Chavez Public Charter School at Chavez Prep Middle School in D.C. who voted 31-2 Thursday to unionize, the first time a charter in the District has taken such a step. The educators organized through the District of Columbia Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff, which is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers.

Staff at the school say they want to unionize to give teachers a voice in decision-making. Jenny Tomlinson, the school librarian, told WAMU in May that staff hoped unionizing would reduce teacher turnover, increase teacher input in the curriculum and attract more experienced teachers.

If you were listening to Hitting Left on Friday, you heard news of this victory from ChiACTS Pres. Chris Baehrend who was our in-studio guest along with CTU's Political and Legislative Dir. Stacy Davis Gates. If you missed it, you can still listen to the podcast where our guests discuss the planned merger of ChiACTS and the CTU Local #1. The Chicago Tribune recently referred to Chicago as the "epicenter" of charter school unionization.

When you think about it, it's kind of amazing that for all these years, there's been schools named after the renowned union leader, Cesar Chavez, that resisted unionization and collective bargaining rights for teachers. Detroit's Cesar Chavez Charter School was unionized back in 2013.

I'm remembering back 10 years ago, debating with anti-union charter school backers and "choice" advocates. I pointed out back then, the hypocrisy of naming a charter school after a great union organizer like Chavez, where teachers were working without a contract, without a real voice in educational decisions, or without union representation.

Stacy Davis Gates (CTU) and Chris Baehrend (ChiACTS).

They called our arguments "preposterous". DFER's snarky response was, "No one's holding a gun to their heads." In other words, if teachers really wanted a union they would have one, or if they didn't like the conditions at school like Chavez, they were free to leave and go elsewhere.

Turns out they really wanted one.

Their arguments ring even more hollow today and discount the years of charter operators' active resistance to teacher unions, including the use of high-paid union-busting consultants and claims that charters were actually "private schools"and that teachers weren't really considered by law to be public employees.

Yes, it's taken a while. But all that's changed now as charter unions are starting to take hold nationally. The American Federation of Teachers says it now represents 234 charter schools in 15 states, including Chavez in D.C.

Lots more are on the way.

Even Trumpsters can see holes in Rahm's school plans

Robeson H.S. on the chopping block. 

It's getting hard to tell who's worse on school issues these days, Donald Trump or Rahm Emanuel.

Trump's appointment of Betsy DeVos as ed secretary and his pumping $20B into so-called "choice" programs while making draconian cuts to public ed, certainly keeps his hold on the worst spot locked in for now. Arguably the worst ever.

But Trump still needs legislative and judicial support for his assaults on all things public while Rahm is able to carry out similar attacks through his autocratic control over CPS. The effects are just as chilling.

No need to rehash Rahm's devastating history of mass closings of public schools in Chicago's black community. He's still at it , like a one-trick poney, with 4 high schools in Englewood and the National Teachers Academy in South Loop now on the chopping block. They'll be replaced in theory by new, large, expensive megaschools.

Past school closings, where carried out by overriding mass opposition expressed in dozens of community meetings. The closing of every high school in Englewood  is now a fait accompli, without the benefit of community forums. A few are planned, after the important decisions have been made.

Mass closings in the past haven't saved much money for the district. They have created more neighborhood blight and added to the threat of more gang violence.

Then there's Rahm's new mandates for high school graduation which even the Trumpies can see through. Last month, Rahm's hand-picked school board approved making the class of 2020 jump through more bureaucratic hoops which include making them show proof they've been accepted into college or the military, or a trade.

This from Tuesday's Sun-Times:

WASHINGTON — [Anti] Labor Secretary R. Alexander Acosta panned Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s new high school graduation requirement, in which seniors will have to prove they are heading to college, the military, a trade or a job in order to get a diploma — saying Monday that a student should have a choice — not a mandate.

Acosta has some food for thought. Since Emanuel has no money to throw to CPS to help the 41 percent at-risk students figure out their post-high school plans, why deny them the high school degree they otherwise, under the old requirements, earned?

Good point, Acosta -- even though made on shaky ground since you are part of the reason there's no money "to throw" at public education. But there's no reason to make 17-year-olds "prove" they are going into the military, college or the job market in order to get their diploma. Especially now that CPS has fired hundreds of teachers and counselors and have done nothing to make college affordable and have one of the nation's highest black and Latino youth unemployment rates. 

CPS's job is to provide educational opportunities for all of its 350,000 students. It's not Rahm's or the board's job to serve as military recruiters or brokers of a cheap labor supply for Chicago companies.

Dialectics of school 'choice'

School "choice" groups have never been able to present a unified front. As with any reform movement, divisions are bound to occur and this confederation of corporate reformers and privatization advocates has long been divided around issues of class and race, charters vs. vouchers, unionization, and much more.

But since Trump's election and his appointment of Betsy DeVos as education secretary, those contradictions have burst into the open, throwing organization leaders into a state of panic as they try and keep their heavily-funded ship afloat. Many educators within the charter school networks are repulsed by Trump and don't want to be openly associated with vouchers or DeVos' attempt to privatize and Christianize the schools. And yet they still want a piece of Trump's $20B "choice" pie and a seat at DeVos' table.

Trump's recent budget request exposed that growing fracture by proposing more than $1 billion in new spending for a variety of school "choice" initiatives while also slashing public education funding by more than $9 billion, trashing dozens of education programs and making steep cuts to important social service programs, like food stamps and Medicaid.

According to an AP Wire story in the Detroit News:

...when a member of this elite group was elevated to education secretary, the appointment opened a philosophical schism that now threatens to shatter the alliance, turn billionaires against each other and possibly lead some school-choice advocates to join with teachers’ unions, their archenemies. 

Closed-door, off-the-record meeting... U.S. News reports:

...dozens of charter school leaders met in Washington, D.C., last week, just blocks from the U.S. Capitol, to discuss a number of pressing issues facing the charter sector – chief among them, how to navigate the politically thorny situation of opposing much of the Trump administration’s agenda despite that agenda including the expansion of charter schools.

The closed-door, off-the-record meeting, confirmed to U.S. News by several sources, comes at a precarious time for the charter sector and the broader school choice movement on the whole.

The current political landscape presents a particular quagmire for charter school advocates: The budget included $168 million boost to expand charter schools and a $1 billion boost to Title I that their schools could benefit from, but was rife with cuts to other programs deemed essential for the majority of students their schools serve. The budget also included $250 million for a private school voucher program, which, paired with increased visibility for private choice programs thanks to DeVos, some charter advocates see as a threat.

Yesterday, Trump brought a number of  school "choice" groups to the White House in an effort to consolidate his base among ed reformers. DeVos and other White House officials reportedly attended.

According to POLITICO: 

The purpose of the meeting is unclear. Aside from President Donald Trump’s budget proposal — which would invest $1.4 billion into public school choice, charter schools and private school vouchers — the Trump administration has yet to unveil a plan to completely fulfill its $20 billion campaign pledge to expand school choice. And the many groups interested in that goal are at odds over just how to get it done. The White House declined to comment about the meeting and the Education Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The purpose seems clear enough to me. Dangling $20B (which comes right out of the public education budget) over the heads of school "choice" groups may be enough to, at least temporarily. quiet dissension in the ranks. That approach certainly worked for the pro-"choice" muscle philanthropies like Gates, Broad, and Walton during the Obama administration. Arne Duncan's DOE also threatened the loss of federal dollars to keep states and school districts in line with his own "choice" agenda, ie. Race To The Top. 

One of the common threads holding "choice" and charter groups together until now, has been a disdain for teacher unions. But now, an energized union organizing drive among charter school teachers seems to be taking hold. The initial promise of charters included more autonomy and empowerment for teachers. But as large networks of charters are increasingly run by corporate-style boards with no teacher representation, charter teachers find themselves feeling more like delivery clerks of a pre-packaged curriculum. Without collective bargaining rights, they find themselves working for lower pay, without job protection, and minimal health care or retirement plans.

Chicago, according to a Tribune report, has become the "epicenter" of charter school unionization. After a weeklong vote inside dozens of local charters, ChiACTS Local 4343 announced late Friday that 84% of its voting members are in favor of unifying with the 28,000-member CTU.

The proposed merger could well be an omen of things to come nationally. What I like most about it, is that teacher unions are recovering their own purpose for being-- to organize the unorganized.

“This vote for unification is a vote for educators with both ChiACTS and the CTU to speak with a stronger collaborative voice for real educational justice for all of our students,” ChiACTS President Chris Baehrend said in a statement. “It is our identity as public educators – not our employers – that defines us, and our overwhelming vote for unity affirms that charter educators are educators first, and servants of the public with a shared commitment to the futures of our students across the city.”

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Chris Baehrend and the CTU's Stacy Davis Gates will be our in-studio guests Friday, 11-noon on Hitting Left radio, talking charter school unions, school closings and... Tune into to WLPN, 105.5 FM, streaming live at Lumpen Radio or download the podcast. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Organizers estimated between 50,000-80,000 participated in the Equality March on Sunday. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Rev. William Barber

“Rosa Parks didn’t just decide to sit down one day. We can’t choose the moment that the flame bursts out, but we can be the kindling.”-- New York Times 

Sen. Bernie Sanders 

 “The current model and the current strategy of the Democratic Party is an absolute failure,” Mr. Sanders said to booming applause, arguing that Democrats need “fundamental change.” -- At People's Summit

 CTU vice president Jesse Sharkey

“The CTU supports union rights for all educators in Chicago, including charter school teachers. Local 4343’s vote for unity takes a stand for using our collective power to support quality public education for the students we all serve.” -- ChiACTS Local 4343

Chris Baehrend, president of ChiACTS Local 4343

“This vote for unification is a vote for educators with both ChiACTS and the CTU to speak with a stronger collaborative voice for real educational justice for all of our students." -- Ward Room 

Mary Bouwense, president of the Grand Rapids Education Association

“The Christian schools in Michigan were set up to be separate from the state, and now [DeVos'] intent is to use the state to finance them. I know she says it’s about choice, but it’s really about funneling money to what she knows... I think her agenda is shaped by her idea of what God wants for the world." -- New York Times 

Coming of Age in California

At Dodger Stadium

The Klonsky Bros. are winding up our Hitting Left listening tour, combing L.A. for current and future listeners. Our search has taken us from ocean-front Santa Monica and Venice, through Topanga Canyon to the Valley, and back west with a stop in our old Silverlake hood for lunch.

Yesterday we touched base with potential listeners at Dodger Stadium while watching one of the great pitching match ups of the century between the Nationals' Stephen Strasburg and the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw. Dodgers won, of course, by a predictable 2-1 score.

Having come of age here in the '60s, I've had to come to grips with the reality that (for better or worse) this is not that California. Aesthetically it's so much worse. Politically, it's so much better. I grew up and went to college here in the Nixon/Reagan era when the state always went red in national elections and big ag and the defense industries ruled the roost. Republicans won the state in nearly every presidential election between 1952 and 1988.

But the expanding need for farm and service workers led to an explosion in California’s Latino and Asian populations which boomed in the 1990s and the GOP's racist and anti-immigrant stance became the party's achilles heel. It still is.

Since the party closely tied itself to Proposition 187, a ballot measure that denied public services to those without legal documents. Democratic candidates have won decisively in every election since 1992 by performing well in the most populous areas. Despite failing to win the presidency, Hillary Clinton won a higher percentage of votes than any candidate since Franklin D. Roosevelt. When Dems keep talking about how she won the popular vote by 3 million -- it was essentially California.

Is Gov. Brown the new leader of the "free world"? Politics in CA these days are a bundle of contractions. The state has become a leader in green technology and regulation of big polluting companies. Now its the information movers and high-tech that have the power and enormous concentrations of private wealth. Their globalists, not nationalists and they especially like their pan-Pacific partnerships.

After Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord, CA's Gov. Jerry Brown, stepped into the breech and took up the environmental banner. His recent meeting with top Chinese officials will lead to a massive expansion of cooperative business ventures. It also had Brown and Chinese President Xi Jinping sharply criticizing Trump's America First line.

According to the Washington Post:

Xi “has definitely given the green light for more collaboration between China and California and, I would say, other states through this subnational-level arrangement,” Brown said.

So while Trump's unilateral abandonment of the Paris Accord pretty much handed over leadership of the pact to China and Europeans, it also has opened up possibilities for states like California and cities to act autonomously or in concert, forming global partnerships for the new economy.


The other side of the California contradiction lies in the assault by a handful of billionaire corporate reformers, Republican and Democrat, on the state's public school system. What ties the likes of Democrat-leaning CA billionaires Eli Broad and Bill Gates to Trump and Betsy DeVos is their autocratic style, disdain for government regulation, dislike of public employee (especially teacher) unions and their ideological bent towards privatization, "choice", charters and vouchers.

Broad recently bankrolled successful pro-choice school board election campaigns in the most expensive board elections ever.  His dream is nothing less than the total replacement of L.A. public schools with privately-run charters, a la New Orleans.

But we will keep hitting left.

Tune in tomorrow at 11 CDT to Klonsky Brothers radio on WLPN FM,streaming live on the internet at Lumpen Radio to hear move about our west coast listening tour.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Art by: Furia ACK, a street artist from Portugal living in London.

Betsy DeVos

When reporters kept asking her about her own climate-change views, she responded: “Certainly, the climate changes. Yes.” -- Washington Post 

Chris Baehrend, president of ChiACTS on CTU merger

"What it does is it helps all Chicago teachers fight together on the same issues." -- Chicago Tribune

Chicago charter teachers march for union contract

Burnsville, MN Mayor Elizabeth Kautz 

"Let me tell you that the mayors won't quit, because for us - we live close to our people and we care about the environment." -- U.S. Conference of Mayors 

Vladimir Putin denies he has damaging material on Trump.

Putin noted that executives from perhaps 100 American companies were currently in Russia. “Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something? Have you all lost your senses?” -- Guardian

Sally Yates

And then I thought back to Jim Crow laws, or literacy tests. Those didn’t say that the purpose was to prevent African-Americans from voting. But that’s what the purpose was.” -- New Yorker

Do you notice we are not having a gun debate right now? That's because they used knives and a truck!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2017

Durrati

 Um, the reason we’re not having a gun debate is because it’s like 6:30 in the AM, dumbass, and the only debate most folks are having are whether to fire up the coffee pot or roll over. But when everyone is fully awake we can discuss how much worse last night’s attack would have been if the militants in the U.K.  had been legally allowed to obtain sidearms at a swap meet or out of a gumball machine like they would be here in the good ole USA... Daily Kos

 @GabbyGiffords

Mr. President, every day we are having a gun debate because every day 90 people in our country die from gun violence. Many of them are kids. 

Glad to hear Trumka speaking out on Paris pull-out

Yesterday's protest in Chicago against Trump's Paris pull-out.  (M. Klonsky pic)

AFL-CIO Pres. Richard Trumka, responding, I suppose, to pressure from Democratic leadership, spoke out Thursday, against the U.S. pull-out from the Paris Climate Agreement.

“Pulling out of the Paris climate agreement is a decision to abandon a cleaner future powered by good jobs. A deteriorating environment is not the only thing at stake here. When our leaders isolate America from the rest of the world, it hurts our ability to raise incomes for working families and achieve fairness in the global economy.”

But Trumka's statement rings a little hollow after already selling out the labor movement and the Standing Rock water protectors on the Dakota Access Pipeline and XL for pipeline jobs. While Trumka has been a strong critic of Trump's who supported Clinton in the election, he has also indicated to POTUS that he's open to dealing for pipeline jobs.  Trump was happy to oblige after making some demagogic promises to keep West VA's coal operators in business and keep companies like Carrier from exporting jobs to Mexico. He was lying on both counts. 

He succeeded in repressing the movement at Standing Rock and gave the green light to Energy Transfer Partners to restart operations that were temporary held up by the Obama administration.

Before the pipeline has even become fully operational, hundreds of gallons of oil have already been leaking out in North and South Dakota. Keystone XL spilled 540,000 gallons last year.

Even without Trumka's support, other unions have been consistent in speaking out for climate defense and many union folks provided support for the NoDAPL movement and are speaking out on Paris.

Within  the AFL-CIO itself. National Nurses United (NNU) has had members on the ground at Standing Rock protests and others around the country have participated in a national day of action. Nurses are worried that among the deadly consequence of climate change is the spread of dangerous diseases.

NNU isn’t alone. Workers of America (CWA), the Amalgamated Transit Union, the United Electrical Workers, SEIU and other public employees unions have have been speaking out on climate change and in support of NoDAPL and NoXL back under the Obama administration.

“By withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, President Trump and his self-interested political allies are killing the creation of new industries and jobs,” Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, said. “Already, in the United States, clean energy jobs vastly outnumber fossil fuel jobs, with solar and wind energy at the forefront.”

I'm glad to hear Trumka's oppositional voice on Paris. But his vacillations on climate protection, reveal the corruption of what's left of an American labor aristocracy, still tied to backwards productive forces, and the stark divide between parts of American labor and today’s social justice movements.

Yes, job protection is a central part of the role of the unions. And we can't just write off, for example, the 51,000 workers employed in the coal industry. They and others working in fossil-fuel sectors, need a federal safety-net, jobs and job retraining in green energy production at a livable wage, as we as a society make the transition from the second-wave economy.