Death by 1,000 cuts at CPS

"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them." -- Frederick Douglass

Donald Trump thinks Frederick Douglass is still alive. In one sense (certainly not the one intended) he may be right. Douglass' words, his warning, that if we don't resist oppression, we will get it's full measure, are alive and as relevant today as they were more than a century-and-a-half ago. They were ringing in my head this week as I watched our Trumpian Gov. Rauner veto a bill that would have put $215M back in the schools.

We're now in our third year without a state budget and Rahm Emanuel's schools CEO Forrest Claypool has just announced another $46M in cuts at CPS and I'm asking myself just how much more of this death by 1,000 cuts of public space are we willing or able to endure?

The cuts have created more chaos throughout the system, forcing principals to re-engineer their budgets in the middle of the school year and give up as much as half of discretionary money for textbooks, field trips, technology and hourly workers who staff recess and after school programs. CPS is also cutting $5 million in teacher professional development funds.

As expected, Claypool put all the blame for the cuts on the more-than-deserving, "Trumpian" Rauner. But Claypool, Rahm and the Democratic Party leadership in Springfield have blood on their hands as well. They've acceded to Republican demands for more and more cuts with little more than a whimper, and Sen. Pres. John Cullerton is currently colluding with Rauner in the Grand Plan to loot the pension fund and weaken the unions.

They are also unwilling to tax the state's wealthiest for badly-needed revenues and instead are considering other ways to save money, including shortening the school year. How ironic, considering that Rahm made the unfunded, compulsory longer school day the centerpiece of his first campaign for mayor.

Taking the biggest hits...As I scroll down the list of CPS schools to see which ones are affected the most, something jumps out at me. It's how Claypool wielded his sword in favor of the mayor's pet selective-enrollment high schools, which were hardly touched. Compare for example, Walter Payton (.049% of its budget was cut) or Northside Prep (0.13%)  with Clemente (4.20%) or Juarez (4.14%). Newly opened Dyett, the product of a community hunger strike, took a 5% hit.

I haven't seen the list yet of charter schools. I've read that charters could see their funding cut by a total of $18 million in April to match the spending freeze and furlough days imposed on district-run schools. But charters are also benefiting from outside funding streams that remain inaccessible to most public schools. The also pay their non-union teachers less and push out veteran teachers in favor of less-experienced, lower-paid TFAers.

I know in some cases, I'm comparing apples and oranges here, due to size of the schools and their overall budgets. For example, Lane Tech, the city's largest high school, stands to lose about $890,000, by far the largest of any school. But Lane also had the largest pool of discretionary funds to begin with. Forty other elementary and high schools are targeted for an average of $300,000 for cuts.

But percentages and sizes of cuts are still indicators of the two-tier system of schooling Rahm is building, by attrition and subtraction, here in Chicago, where privately-run charters and selective-enrollment continue to supplant community-based schools according to policy.

Back to Frederick Douglass -- The heart of the resistance is still the public employee unions, AFSCME, CTU and SEIU, along with parent and community groups.

The CTU used one of Claypool's 4 forced, unpaid furlough days to protest the cuts and call for his resignation. AFSCME #31 is taking a strike vote as I write this.

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis summed it all up nicely,

"Rahm and Rauner are both to blame, There's no separation between their intention to destroy publicly funded, public education in Chicago."

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The imminent death of a public school system. Rahm brought in ax-man Claypool to chop CPS.

Rahm's ax-man, Forrest Claypool. 

The mayor's announced 40% budget cut could be the final nail in CPS's coffin. And make no mistake, this is exactly what he brought in ax-man Forrest Claypool to do.

According to the Sun-Times:

The district says principals have to “plan for the worst — higher class sizes, loss of enrichment activities, and layoffs of teachers and support staff” while waiting for the General Assembly to take action on proposed pension help or revising the state’s funding formula, spokeswoman Emily Bittner said.

The base per-pupil rate will drop from $4,088 to $2,495 if the proposed budget becomes final. It includes an equivalent cut for charters, too, she said.

According to a report in EdWeek, by the end of the school year, in late June, the Chicago school district will have just $24 million in cash—enough to support two days of operations.

As for the state, its declining "investment" in K-12 and post-secondary education, coupled with (self-inflicted) deficits from the city's mounting pension liabilities and debt service, have put Chicago's schools more than $6 billion in long-term structural debt. Last year, the school board approved a budget with a $480 million hole in it, hoping state lawmakers in Springfield would come up with, what they're calling a "bailout". They didn't. It seems that bailouts are reserved only for the big banks.

Question: Will this also mean a 40% reduction in PARCC testing? Doubt it.

You might call the assault on the nation's third-largest public school system, a joint venture or bipartisan effort on the part of Rahm Emanuel and his current nemesis, but long-time drinking partner, Gov. Rauner. As always, Rahm is playing the role part of victim, blaming all the city's ills, from it record-high murder rate to great sell-off of public space on the previous administration or on Springfield. And of course, there is plenty of blame for mismanagement to go around, including lots for the Daley administration and Daley's school chief, Arne Duncan.

Yesterday's union rally against Gov. Rauner's agenda. 

But even while House Speaker Mike Madigan holds firm (for now) against Rauner's assault on the state's schools and Senate Pres. Cullerton at least offers up a plan (a cockamamie plan with no added revenue) to equalize state school funding,  Rahm and Claypool have been too busy attacking the unions or firing dissident principal Troy LaRaviere, to offer up more than token resistance to the governor.

While Madigan was speaking at the rally in Springfield, fist held high in the air... [Sorry, still LMAO] ... Rahm was nowhere to be seen.

Rahm is the worst kind of autocrat. He holds total power over the school system, but wants no transparency or  accountability for the mismanagement, corruption seeping into CPS from City Hall.

In fairness to the mayor, he's put himself in such a weak position, nobody in Springfield really gives two sh*ts anymore what he thinks. Even long-time pal Hillary Clinton, who's in townhttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-hillary-clinton-chicago-park-ridge-fundraisers-20160518-story.html and in the burbs today raising money, won't come within blocks of him.

Now it's up to the teachers union, principals, parents and community groups to stop the 40% budget cuts and demand that Rauner release a budget with adequate funding for all state school districts and special education.

It's now or never for CPS.

Life In the Clay Pool

Rahm Emanuel knew what he was doing when he brought educational know-nothing, Forrest Claypool over from the CTA to run the schools. Claypool, who like Rahm, sends his kids to private school, didn't come to CPS to lead an educational transformation. With apologies to Shakespeare, he came to bury public ed, not to praise it.

While stalling contract negotiations with the CTU, he's contracted (no-bid of course) with his old firing squad from CTA to help him engineer the mass firings of thousands of teachers and staff.

In the midst of budget cuts and mass layoffs at the board, Claypool gives no-bid contracts to two highly-paid CTA cronies to help him plan the next round of mass teacher firings. 

Carol Rubin was chief administrative officer at the CTA and the Park District while Claypool ran those entities for Daley and Rahm. Rubin has been working with Sally Csontos, another former CTA and Parks staffer who’s married to John Filan, once a budget director for former Gov. Rob Blagojevich and another longtime Claypool associate.

This is the same way Claypool ran the CTA. Readers may remember back in 2014 when he hired Jimmy D'Amico to help "manage the CTA's rail maintenance" even though D'Amico has no railroad experience.

I'm anticipating that one day, Claypool may even share a cell with Blago.

This week's layoffs of 227 central office staffers was billed by Claypool as a way of avoiding classroom cuts. But most of those laid-off were the very staffers (lower-paid) who deliver direct services to schools, many in the area of special education. His central office is stocked with high-paid patronage hires or former CTA cronies. They were untouched by the lay-offs.

CPS claims it is "reorienting" its special education services "around a bottom-up approach, replacing the formulaic, centralized operation that had been in place with a focus on schools to keep resources in classrooms."

But Access Living's Rod Estvan makes a good case against the "bottom-up" approach when it comes to funding special ed.

“Those people are critical. The school itself isn’t an island for special ed. … These kids have evolving needs. They may need more support like an aide, they may need more technology." 

Kids who have behavioral issues can’t just be removed from schools, he said. Managers must observe them before they can even consider a move to another program.

“No rational school district is going to give each individual school the right to make those decisions, because you will make the decisions that are right for your school not necessarily right for the kid or for the law. These kinds of issues require that human interface.”

Gov. Rauner placed the blame for the state's budget crisis on Democrats who have a veto-proof majority in both houses. If his point is -- Dems are too cowardly to really take on a psychopath like me -- he's got one. Sen. Pres. Cullerton continues to play footsie with Rauner. He's still trying to make a deal with the guv on a new (unconstitutional squared) pension-theft bill while distancing himself somewhat from Rauner's virulent union-bashing rhetoric. See Brother Fred's post this morning for more on Cullerton's budget shenanigans. 

At the City Winery last night, the great Steve Earle paid tribute to Bernie Sanders before singing his anthemic "The Revolution Starts Now". Packed-house crowd of loyal fans gave serious applause. 

Warning: Be careful who you embed with

em·bed

əmˈbed/ verb 1. fix (an object) firmly and deeply in a surrounding mass.

No, my warning isn't directed at Charlie Sheen's "goddesses". Probably too late for them. It's also too late for GOP current poll leader Ben Carson whose ignorance on foreign policy just got exposed (as if we hadn't noticed) by his "close adviser" and professional embedded "journalist", Armstrong Williams.

So just consider this a warning to everyone who feels they may need it -- AFT, NEA leaders?

Armstrong Williams

For those too young (or too old) to remember, William's approach to journalism was to embed himself with the Bush administration and in particular with Bush's ed secretary, Rod Paige. In January 2005, USA Today reported that documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that Williams had been paid $240,000 to promote No Child Left Behind. USA Today found that Williams was hired "to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same".

Now Armstrong has betrayed Carson. I guess Dr. C must not have left enough money on the nightstand.

Not to say that politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, or shouldn't. Just a reminder to use protection.

Case Studies... Billionaire Rauner is now the most hated governor in IL history. His budget terrorism and banning of Syrian refugees have been met with hostility and resistance across the state. But who will step up in this fight to save public education and salvage what's left of social support networks in the state? And what kind of deal will Sen. Cullerton and House Speaker Madigan try and cut?

I know CTU is watching to make sure we don't get sold out again on Cullerton's "compromise" SB318 like we did on the unconstitutional pension-theft bill.

Brother Fred says that the Supremes' latest oral arguments indicate that their next ruling will help insure us against another pension grab.

When the Court rules again in favor of our pension rights, as it is expected to do, it will now include what it did not have the opportunity to rule in SB1. They will not only protect us from the elected pension thieves in Springfield and City Hall. They will protect us from sell-out union leaders as well.

Ald. "Slow Eddie" Burke is still quick enough to know which way the wind is blowing on this one. He knows Rauner will take a beating on the refugee question, especially here in Chicago. For one thing, the governor doesn't have the authority to stop refugees from settling in Illinois. But he can push the legislature to cut funding for refugee aid.

So Burke is introducing a city council resolution reaffirming "Chicago’s historic role as a place of sanctuary and refuge". Co-sponsors are Marty Quinn (13th) and Progressive Caucus member, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th). Should pass easily.

Ald. Waguespack

From Natasha Korecki at Politico -- 9:30 a.m. Progressive Caucus presser at City Hall. From a release:

"Members of the Progressive Reform Caucus will join Access Living Chicago in support of a resolution calling for hearings regarding the impact of financial cuts to special education programs in Chicago Public Schools. To date, Chicago Public Schools has cut approximately $32 million dollars in special education programs, and the budget cut announcements are not over."

-- Expect Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) to introduce a resolution calling for public hearings on special education funding cuts. "This resolution asking for hearings by the Education Committee will provide CPS an opportunity to clear the air and tell the public exactly what the state of funding and support for special needs students is at this point in time and throughout the year," Waguespack said in a statement. "The system supporting special needs students needs to be fully funded and CPS has an obligation to fulfill that duty today."

In case you missed the interview with Kim Foxx, candidate for Cook County State's Attorney on Chicago Tonight. Watch it here.