The good ones are leaving us too soon.

Our living room was packed on a summer day in 2014 for our Bagels With Karen fundraiser.

As everyone has heard by now, former CTU Pres. Karen Lewis passed yesterday, leaving a tear in my eye but also great memories for me to hold on to. Some of my fondest include our (Susan and my) occasional breakfast meetings at Meli's on Wells Street just to touch base and have a few laughs. 

Another was from an event we held for Jonathan Kozol back in 2012. Kozol had the crowd on its feet, applauding as he talked about the inspiring effect the Chicago teachers' strike was having on teachers and supporters across the country. Kozol said he first heard news of the strike at a book tour event in Los Angeles. When a teacher in the audience announced that teachers in Chicago had walked out, “the roar of the crowd delayed the program for several minutes.”

But the loudest prolonged ovation that evening was reserved for Karen Lewis. It broke out spontaneously as she entered the sold-out Thorne Auditorium and Northwestern Univ. Law School. Karen spoke briefly, introduced Kozol, and then embraced the author in a show of unity. 

Jonathan and Karen at Maggiano's in 2012

After the event, a group of us went out with Jonathan and Karen to grab a bite at Maggiano's. I don't remember the dinner conversation at all. But what I do recall was the stream of random folks who instantly recognized Karen and wanted to shake her hand. One woman spotting Karen from across the large room raced over to our table to give her a bear hug. She turned out to be a suburban teacher who wanted nothing more than to tell her fellow teachers that she had met the great Karen Lewis. 

R.I.P. ED PEARL... Another sad moment came yesterday when I learned that an old friend from my L.A. days had died. Ed Pearl was the owner of the Ash Grove, the place where the music and the movement all came together for me back in the '60s. Regulars there included: Ry Cooder,  Lightnin’ Hopkins, The Byrds, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Howlin Wolf, Albert King, Freddie King, Big Mama Thornton, Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Johnny Guitar Watson, Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, The Chambers Brothers, Maria Muldaur, and many others.

Ed was also a political activist who used his club and his resources to support civil rights and anti-war movement organizers as well as struggling artists and musicians. He will be missed. 

A question for all my old great friends and comrades out there. Where the hell are you all goin'? What's the rush?

Karen Lewis on Hitting Left (archives show) today

Karen Lewis with the Klonsky Bros. on Hitting Left, March 3, 2017. 

Brother Fred and I are taking the day off. Retirement has exhausted us both. Instead of our usual live show on Fridays, today we will be rebroadcasting a show from the Hitting Left archives, March 3, 2017, featuring in-studio guest, CTU Pres. Karen Lewis. As most readers know, Karen, suffering from failing health, resigned from her position last month.

Tune in at 11 a.m. today at WLPN, 105.5 FM or catch the livestream at www.lumpenradio.com to hear Karen at her most upbeat and feistiest self. Or, you can listen to the whole show on podcast.

The latest word from Karen is, she's still in the fight. 

“I want my members to know first that I’m not abandoning them, I just will be an emerita,” Lewis said. "I will be around to help do things, I’m not disappearing anywhere and I’m going to be here for whatever people want to do with me.”

Lewis said she also planned to be involved with the city’s upcoming mayoral election, and revived her past criticism of Mayor Rahm Emanuel as he faces a crowded field of challengers.

“My plan is to try to get somebody to unseat Rahm,” she said. “I think we can do better than that.”

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

@realamberheard

Karen Lewis

For those of you who may not know, I submitted my retirement papers in Friday. Not only did I retire from CPS after 30 years, I have retired from CTU. Please Google glioblastoma and note, I've already beaten the odds. I'm not done fighting. Good luck to the officers and staff, especially Jesse Sharkey, who's been doing 3 jobs...since my illness. -- Facebook 

Roseanne Barr 

 'I'm not a racist, I'm an idiot' -- CNN

Rahm's City Hall spokesman, Adam Collins

“When he was in the private sector, for a few months, the mayor explored a potential business agreement with Mr. Pecker, but it did not ultimately come to fruition.” -- Sun-Times

“Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron

At a ceremony for the “Hank Aaron Champion for Justice Awards” in Atlanta, Aaron said that he would not visit the White House if an invitation came from the mouth of Donald Trump. “There’s nobody there I want to see." -- Nation

Columnist Neil Steinberg

 I don’t know about you, but I want to look back and say I did all I could and spoke out, loud and clear, again and again. Donald Trump is a racist appealing to our country’s worst instincts. He will lead us over a cliff to disaster unless he’s stopped. -- Sun-Times

Cong. Luis Gutierrez moving to Puerto Rico

With the move, I will in a better position to “connect the experience of the people of Puerto Rico, the devastating effect of the hurricane and the lousy, inhumane response of Donald Trump to the tragedy.” -- Sun-Times

Today would have been #TamirRice’s 16th birthday. He should be alive and celebrating. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/ZBLWIJ71dL

— Legal Defense Fund (@NAACP_LDF) June 25, 2018

'School killer' Rahm still on the hunt

Rahm uses Chief Ed Officer Janice Jackson to push his latest school closing scheme. 

Rahm's latest scheme calls for the closing of at least 7 more high schools in Chicago's black community. I know, I know -- he promised the community a moratorium on school closings after blighting the neighborhoods with his 50-school closings four years ago. But now he's promising the Englewood neighborhood a brand new, consolidated $76M large, shiny new high school to mollify the expected opposition.

The mayor's using the same old "underutilization" argument to board up more south-side schools. And it's true that there are about 15 predominantly African-American high schools in the city with enrollments of under 250 students. But there's several things missing from discussion of the consolidation plan (assuming that the decision hasn't already been made and the discussion isn't just for show).

1. Why is enrollment dropping? The obvious answer has more to do with the whitenizing of the city, including the push-out of more than a quarter-million African-Americans over the past few decades, than anything about the schools themselves. It's about neighborhood gentrification and switching neighborhood populations. Disinvestment, loss of jobs, combined with the closing of schools, businesses and community social-services have left these neighborhoods blighted and dangerous. The Chicago Reporter attributes the enrollment declines and eventual school closings to "a legacy of disinvestment and segregation".
2. What's the downside to more mass high school closings? Past closings, done despite massive community opposition, haven't saved the city or the school system much, if any money. After a previous round of closings, internal documents leaked to the press showed how school administrators failed to inform the public of associated transition costs for closing and consolidating a proposed 95 public schools. The cost of maintaining the buildings and problems of reuse often led to even greater debt for the city. Four years after the last round, two-thirds of the closed buildings are still vacant. Closings also failed to improve measurable learning outcomes for those students affected by the closings. But they have disrupted the lives of thousands of students, destroyed relationships between students and teachers, and exacerbated the threat of neighborhood gun violence and gang conflicts. 
3. What's wrong with consolidation? It lessens parent and community participation in school affairs. It creates a larger, more anonymous, more highly tracked learning environment. It leads to lost jobs on the south side for teachers, staff, janitors, clerks, and in adjacent businesses. There's also a greater threat of violence with more students having to cross gang territory lines just to get to school. 
4. What are the alternatives to more mass school closings? Smarter usage of existing buildings for adult education, housing badly needed community health and other surrounding services. Shifting city high schools to a (non-charter) small-schools model as we have been advocating for 30 years. 

Dyett hunger strikers

In a statement Wednesday night, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said: 

“The Mayor and his handpicked cast of school killers are proposing new obstacles to high school graduation with zero resources. And once again, he’s proposing a new round of school closings in one of the most violent spaces in this city. He continues to prove that he has zero capacity for sound and compassionate leadership. He’s gone from bad to worse.”

Can Rahm's school-killer plan be stopped? Yes it can. Remember how a small group of committed parents and community activists went on a hunger strike and saved Dyett from closing? Just imagine what a much larger and equally committed movement to save our schools could do.

It's Int'l Women's Day and Chicago charter school teachers are finding their voice

Marines Martinez from Chicago ACTS Local 4343 tells media that ASPIRA charter teachers are willing to go on strike to “take a stand for our students and our larger communities.” 

BREAD & ROSES...It's International Women's Day and what better way to celebrate than to show some solidarity with Chicago's, mostly women of color, fast food workers who are filing EEOC complaints today against Burger King. The filing will be followed by a protest in front of a downtown Burger King restaurant to demand an end to the rampant sexual harassment and workplace violence happening in their stores.

Fast food workers at BK stores across the city have experienced physical and verbal abuse along with intimidation from general management at several locations owned by the same franchisee. One under-aged woman worker was fired for not consenting to specific sexual requests.

Contact Deivid Rojas, Communications Director Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago,
Fight For 15 Chicago for more. 312.219.0008.

THE KLONSKY BROS. will be talking plenty of IWD stuff and more with 10th Ward Alderwoman Susan Sadlowski Garza on Hitting Left radio, Friday at 11 a.m. on WLPN 105.5 F.M., streaming live at Lumpen Radio. Don't miss.

A SMALLTALK SALUTE goes out to charter school teachers at ASPIRA AND Nobel charters who are unionizing and fighting the good fight on behalf of teachers and students everywhere.

ASPIRA teachers have set March 17th as their strike date unless a last-minute agreement is reached. If they do strike, it will be the first strike of charter schools in the nation. ASPIRA runs four publicly funded Chicago charter schools, serves 1,400 students - who are mostly Latino - and has 106 educators.

Teachers said at a press conference Tuesday that ASPIRA schools were not allocating money correctly, letting basic school building needs - like clean bathrooms and stalls - are falling by the wayside. Educators posted photos on Facebook from inside the high school of leaky ceilings, water marks and bug traps in the building.

"We want to make sure that ASPIRA tells us where they are spending their money. If you walk into our schools... I've been with ASPIRA for five years and every year it seems like conditions are getting worse and worse," said Marines Martinez, an ASPIRA teacher.

 Parents agree. They said teachers put much of their own money into classrooms and need a raise.

"The school needs a lot of things. He knows that. I ask him for minor things and the school don't have it. This school doesn't have a gym, doesn't have anything," said Louis Mendez, an ASPIRA parent.

TEACHERS AT NOBLE, Chicago’s biggest and most heavily funded charter school network, have set out to form a union, a move that if successful would create the largest charter school union in the nation. Founded in 1999, Noble operates 17 campuses across the city, educating more than 12,000 students. They are the darling of Gov. Bruce Rauner who has one of their schools named after him.

As of Friday morning, 131 of the roughly 800 Noble teachers and staff across city had signed on in support of the union. Union organizers told The American Prospect on Monday that they have received many more signatures since then, but could not say exactly how many because online signatures are still being tallied.

Mariel Race, a Noble teacher involved in the organizing efforts, says her charter network has long focused on expansion, but now operates so many schools that it’s time to shift gears towards retaining strong teachers. 

“We’ve given our feedback on teacher retention for many, many years, and I don’t feel like it’s really being heard,” she told The American Prospect. “There’s not a whole lot that’s being done about it. I think that having a teacher perspective at the table is a huge piece, and I think in order to be heard, with legal backing, and collective backing, it needs to be a union.”

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis, also voiced support for the Noble Street teachers.

“The Chicago Teachers Union stands in complete solidarity with the courageous teachers and staff in the Union of Noble Educators, and personally, I am extremely proud of their desire to strengthen their collective voice to better advocate for the students they serve,” she said in a statement.

Karen Lewis is our guest today on Hitting Left.

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis will be our in-studio guest this morning on Hitting Left. Be sure and tune-in at 11 a.m. (CST) to Lumpen Radio, WLPN 105.5 FM to listen live. You can download the app here. 

My brother Fred and I will be talking to Karen about (what else?) teaching and politics. Our two favorite subjects.

Karen knows a thing or two about teaching and learning. She taught high school chemistry in the Chicago Public Schools for 22 years. She is a product of Chicago Public Schools, having attended Kozminski Elementary School and Kenwood High School, until accepting early admission at Mount Holyoke College. She later transferred to Dartmouth College, where she earned the distinction of being the only African American woman in the class of 1974. Mrs. Lewis comes from a family of educators — her father, mother and husband, John Lewis, who is now retired, all were CPS teachers.

As for politics, if health issues hadn't stopped her from running, she'd likely be Mayor of Chicago right now. I'm not sure if she considers that a curse or a blessing. I'll ask.

Chicago schools facing triple trauma from Trump, Rauner, Rahm

The real question now is whether or not CPS can withstand the latest three-pronged assault it faces from Operation TRAUMPMA That's the acronym I put together for Trump, Rauner and Rahm who are each playing their role in the trauma and erosion of public education and ultimately all public space and decision-making in this city.

Pres. Trump and the Republicans, representing the center prong of the trident, have made the cities their target. Trumponomics, the shift of billions of federal dollars into military spending and away from education, social services and infrastructure repair projects will have a devastating effect on city schools and neighborhoods.

His appointment of Betsy DeVos as education secretary represents nothing less than a declaration of war against urban education. Like her Democratic predecessor at the DOE, DeVos seems bent on using the very federal authority and resources she decries to push school re-segregation, privatization and aggressive implementation of so-called "choice" policies of vouchers and privately-run charters.

Gov. Rauner continues to hold the state budget hostage as a way of forcing austerity, unconstitutional pension "reform" (theft) and an end to collective bargaining for teachers and all public workers.

Earlier this month, five families sued the state on behalf of CPS, claiming that the state has violated the civil rights of their children by giving Chicago schools less funding than other districts. But suits like this usually end up languishing in the courts, sometimes for years, offering little int he way of relief for struggling families.

WHITENIZING CHICAGO...
Mayor Emanuel and his appointed schools CEO Forrest Claypool have put up only token resistance to the Republican assault, protecting their wealthy patrons from tax increases, spending lavishly on downtown and gentrifying neighborhood projects that benefit the 1%, while implementing draconian and racially discriminatory cuts on the city's resource-starved schools and neighborhoods.

The mayor is up to his old tricks again, taking away a lot and then giving a little back when faced with community resistance. After a revolt from 16 members of his Latino advisory committee, Rahm agreed to restore $15M of $46M budget freeze he ordered earlier this month. But the move was purely a piece of cosmetic surgery, an effort to blunt criticism that cuts disproportionately affected schools with mostly poor, minority students and English language learners.

CPS's $5.41 billion budget still has a $111 million hole to fill before the fiscal year ends on June 30.

Karen Lewis

Now Rahm is threatening to close schools three weeks early, a move that would only further decrease school revenue, while putting nearly a half-million young people at risk, out on dangerous city streets all day with jobs and no place to go. What could possibly go wrong?

How ironic coming from a mayor who ran for office on the promise of a longer school day and year, once elected, forcing the plan on resistant schools and teachers, without any accompanying additional funding.

While Rahm and the CTU agreed to a new contract, narrowly avoiding a teachers strike in November, Rahm and Claypool continue to impose cuts and furloughs on city teachers. How will the CTU and other city unions respond? This is one of the questions we will be posing to CTU Pres. Karen Lewis who will be our in-studio guest Friday at 11 a.m. (CST) on Klonsky Bros. Hitting Left on WLPN 105.5 F.M..  

The best way to listen live is to download the Lumpen Radio app here.

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."

### 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

CTU members Maria Cosme, left, and Nancy Serrano count ballots (Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune) 

CTU Pres. Karen Jennings Lewis on CTU's strike vote

"But here's the deal — and this is the truth, period, the end — I don't have to work under this contract. They do. So it seems like, to me, that the people that have to work under the contract should have the most ability to say yes or no to things." -- Chicago Tribune

Jesse Sharkey 

"I fully expect that by (this) week we'll have successfully authorized a strike, and then it will be up to the delegates to talk about where that leaves us and what makes sense for a deadline. We're looking to move this toward a conclusion. All of our options are on the table, including a strike deadline."  -- Tribune

Pres. Barack Obama

And so this national museum helps to tell a richer and fuller story of who we are.  It helps us better understand the lives, yes, of the President, but also the slave; the industrialist, but also the porter; the keeper of the status quo, but also of the activist seeking to overthrow that status quo; the teacher or the cook, alongside the statesman. -- At the Dedication of the National Museum of African American History and Cultur

Bruce Springsteen on Trump

"It's a rich environment unfortunately for a demagogue." -- Swedish talk show

Monica Navarrete of Lawrenceville, Georgia

"I told him I'm going to vote for him and Hillary so my parents can stay here longer." -- Politico

Trump on using nuclear weapons

[MSNBC, March 30, 2016] Trump said he was open to nuking Europe because it’s a “big place” 

MATTHEWS: OK. The trouble is, when you said that, the whole world heard it. David Cameron in Britain heard it. The Japanese, where we bombed them in 45, heard it. They`re hearing a guy running for president of the United States talking of maybe using nuclear weapons. Nobody wants to hear that about an American president.

TRUMP: Then why are we making them? Why do we make them? -- Think Progress

Just wanted to get him on record...

Robby Mook: “I still think that we can win this election by a wide margin" https://t.co/gDAcCZQIyQ | Getty pic.twitter.com/UAjRZefb5e

— POLITICO (@politico) September 26, 2016

Following layoff of 1,000, Rahm demands 'more sacrifice' from teachers.

Rahm to big Chicago banksters -- Don't worry, you'll be first in line to get paid. 

Rahm to teachers and staff after laying off 1,000 -- Don't Strike, "Be Part of the Solution."

And by part of the solution, Rahm means teachers should accept a 7% pay cut to cover pension costs and bear the burden of years of the city and state missing required contributions to the pension fund.

According to the Tribune:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday joined his Chicago Public Schools chief in calling on teachers to start contributing a chunk of their salaries toward their pensions." 

Who at City Hall thought telling teachers to give up a chunk of salary, was a good idea? Are they trying to provoke a strike? Or is this the kind of bullying needed to appease Gov. Rauner in exchange for a budget deal?

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis dismissed schools chief Forrest Claypool's pledge of a budget with "no gimmicks," saying, "Was his mouth moving when he said it?"

Patricia Scott

Dark day for homeless students. I remember Patricia Scott from my days coaching at Prosser.

This from Mark Brown's column in today's S-T.

At the end of this past school year, Prosser counted 68 homeless students among its 1,400 enrollees, 26 of whom were seniors. “They all graduated,” Scott told me Wednesday. “I’m very proud of that.”

That group of 26 seniors will be the last class of homeless students Scott shepherds to their high school degree at Prosser.

On Friday, she was among 1,000 Chicago Public Schools employees to learn they were getting laid off.

Just multiply Ms. Scott's story by 1,000 and you begin to feel the impact the layoffs had on students and their families.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

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

Parent organizer Sherise McDaniel 

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

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis

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

Author Samuel Abrams

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

Author Tony Schwartz

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

Slain Baton Rouge officer, Montrell Jackson

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

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

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) July 17, 2016

Blog Fodder Rahm admonishes his alderman: 'Will yuze guys, keep some decorum?'

You've heard of the Godfather. Well for me, Rahm Emanuel is the Blog Fodder. He's the gift that keeps on giving for us bloggers and Tweeters.

Here's his latest. I know he's now residing at the bottom of the ratings food chain and trying to clean up his image. But really? Scolding Chicago aldermen for -- wait for it -- using profanity in public?

You all know what a high-class joint the Chicago City Council is. Right?

Fran Spielman writes:

Is the Chicago City Council “slouching towards Gomorrah,” as former federal appeals court justice Robert Bork once famously put it in a 1996 book by the same name?

You might think so from some of the debate at Wednesday’s City Council meeting. It prompted Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is famous for his use of profanity, to admonish aldermen to maintain “decorum.”

 Emanuel has kept his tongue in check in public. But, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis has accused the mayor of telling her, “F— you, Lewis” during their earliest meeting.

Then there was the time when Rahm, as Obama's chief of staff, said "F--- the UAW." I read that in Steven Rattner's 2010 book "Overhaul."

Or that time when he told Attorney General Eric Holder to "Shut the F--- Up" about gun control.

I guess Rahm means, don't use profanity unless your talking to black women or about unions.

I actually liked it when Rahm, in 2006, after Dems took back the House, told Republicans to "go f---themselves." The way I look at it, it was just his way of reaching across the aisle.

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

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

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

Strauss writes:

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

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

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

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

Good stuff, Valerie.

The union makes us strong

Karen Lewis not only was re-elected by acclaim by CTU's House of Delegates, she out-polls the mayor 3-1.

Congratulations to CTU President Karen Lewis and her fellow CORE-slated candidates on being re-elected by acclamation (no opposition slate ran against CORE) as leaders of the teachers union for another term. The re-election of the slate is testimony not only to broad teacher support and respect President Lewis enjoys, but also to the need felt by union members for unity of action in the face of anti-union attacks.

If not for last year's health problems, President Lewis would likely be Mayor Lewis today. She and the union continue to out-poll Rahm Emanuel citywide, offering hope that an end of mayoral control of the schools is on the horizon.

That unity and discipline were also on display on April 1st, when some 30,000 teachers and staff took to the streets in a one-day strike, demanding fair and adequate funding for public education. This in response to the board's violations of their own contract agreements and Gov. Rauner's ongoing hostage-taking of the state's school budget.

In the weeks leading up to the strike, teachers faced threats of punishment from CEO Forrest Claypool. Local media sent reporters out desperately searching for teachers willing to scab on their striking union brothers and sisters. They even found a couple. But when it came to the Day of Action, nary a scab could be found.

Leading up to the strike, there were obvious internal disagreements within the CTU over tactics. In the end, the vote by union delegates to authorize the strike won by a margin of 486-124.

Hooray for internal struggle within a democratic union. The national AFT could learn a thing or two from the way the CTU struggles out its differences. Once dissenting voices were heard and the vote taken within the union's House of Delegates, union members closed ranks and their strike drew citywide support. It offered a powerful show of union and community strength and is most likely a harbinger of things to come in May if teachers are still forced to work without a fair contract.

CPS is now claiming that 247 CTU members crossed union picket lines.

S-T's Lauren Fitzpatrick writes:

 The bulk of them, 173, were teachers, CPS spokeswoman Emily Bittner said. She had no details of where those workers reported or how CPS counted them.

I have my doubts. But then I don't believe anything CPS' Liar-In-Chief Emily Bittner says. Since schools were shut down tighter than a drum and parents kept students home or out on the picket lines, the question is, what were these 173 out of 27,000 teachers supposedly doing that day?

In any event, even if these reports are true, that's a minuscule number of strike-breakers.

Let the dogs howl. The union makes us strong.

One final note from an old hand.

S-T's Mick Dumke reports today that Chicago undercover cops are being diverted from dealing with the city's gun violence pandemic and are being sent instead to spy on protest groups.

The police department already had been monitoring the actions and online postings of protest groups in the aftermath of the 2014 shooting of a black teenager by a white cop in Ferguson, Missouri. Then, in October, the records show Ralph Price, the police department’s top lawyer, signed off on a plan to send undercover cops to “monitor” meetings of four additional groups. They included Black Lives Matter activists, as well as churches and philanthropic organizations. 

A month later — after the court-ordered release of police dashcam video showing a white Chicago cop, Officer Jason Van Dyke, shooting and killing a black teenager, Laquan McDonald — a top Emanuel aide went to the command center of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications to keep tabs on protests organized by the Black Youth Project 100, one of the groups spied on by the police.

FBI Chief Hoover and Pres. Nixon launched COINTELPRO.

Back in the day, I and thousands of other Chicagoans were victimized and had our civil liberties violated by similar programs of spying, disruption and intimidation. Operation COINTELPRO and the Chicago Red Squad were central to the plan, which wasn't limited to spying, but included more heinous acts, including the assassination of Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton. The Red Squad and FBI spread misinformation, gossip and rumors among and within various organizations in their efforts to sow division and destroy social movements.

I was part of a lawsuit that resulted in an agreement by the city to disband the Red Squad and cease and desist the spying on protest groups.

After 11 years of litigation, a 1985 court decision ended the Chicago Police Department's Subversive Activities Unit's unlawful surveillance of political dissenters and their organizations. In the fall of 1974, the Red Squad destroyed 105,000 individual and 1,300 organizational files when it learned that the Alliance to End Repression was filing a lawsuit against the unit for violating the U.S. Constitution. The records that remain are housed at the Chicago Historical Society. The public requires special permission to access them until 2012. (Encyclopedia of Chicago)

I visited the Historical Society's archives this week to review my own files.  It's a great site for a school research project.

Looks like Rahm is back at it again. Be careful out there.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis

"This is not a moment," CTU President Karen Lewis said to a raucous rally in the campus commons at Chicago State University. "Brothers and sisters, this is a movement." -- Tribune

Drew Faust, president of Harvard University

 “Although we embrace and regularly celebrate the storied traditions of our nearly 400-year history, slavery is an aspect of Harvard‘s past that has rarely been acknowledged or invoked. Harvard was directly complicit in America’s system of racial bondage from the college’s earliest days in the 1700s until slavery in Massachusetts ended in 1783.” -- Harvard Crimson

Yohuru Williams, Fairfield University professor

“Choosing to opt out is one way of fighting back against the tide of corporate education reform with its emphasis on high-stakes testing, which has had a traumatizing effect on young people. We have a moral responsibility to demand that the government attack the real source of inequality in American society, which is poverty, rather than promoting schemes that discourage rather than encourage social justice.” -- Answer Sheet

Adam Hochschild, asked about the title of his new book

It comes from a quotation from Albert Camus, which I should know by heart by now but don’t. But it goes something like—he said it some nine or 10 years after the [Spanish Civil] war: "Men of my generation have always had Spain in our hearts. There we learned that you could be right but still be defeated, that courage was not its own reward." -- Democracy Now

With supporters like Ben Carson...

"Donald Trump has major defects. Are there better people? Probably.” -- Huffington

Thank you @CTULocal1 - you do this for all of us. #fightforfunding pic.twitter.com/l8GkWv6arh

— Helen Gym (@HelenGym2015) April 2, 2016

Strike morning

 Oscar DePriest  teachers load up the picket signs.

After stopping at Dunkin's for a bucket of coffee to bring with us, Susan and I are heading down to Telpochcalli Elementary school in Little Village later this morning to walk the picket line with my daughter Jennifer and her CTU brothers and sisters.

BTW, thanks to Spoken Cafe on Montrose for their offer of free breakfast to teachers heading to the strike line.

It's the logical school for me to walk the line because I've been a part of that small (by design) neighborhood school since it was founded by teachers as part of the early small-school movement. And the school's been a part of me.

Jennifer has been a teacher there from the beginning. My grandson Oscar went to Telpo and I'm forever grateful to his teachers for the loving care and support he received there. He's my pride and joy,  16 now and a high school sophomore.  So maybe, we should spend some time picketing at the high school as well. We'll see how things go.

The one-day teachers strike for school funding and fiscal reform comes in response to the continuing violations of the contract by the board and Gov. Rauner's hostage taking of the state's school budget. Rauner is using his hold on the budget to fulfill his dream of a Republican-led state takeover of Chicago's public schools and the busting of all public employee unions, especially the CTU.

His manufactured budget crisis even threatens to shutter predominantly-black Chicago State University on the city's south side.

The strike is drawing support from parent groups, several of the city's unions -- including SEIU Local 1 which led its own one-day strike of airport workers yesterday out at O'hare -- and from community organizations from across the city. If the weather holds up, this afternoon's rally and march should be huge.

This despite threats directed at teachers by CEO Forrest Claypool and a vicious and misleading, anti-union media offensive, the likes of which I haven't seen in years. Both papers and CBS News have even sent reporters out, beating the bushes, with little success, to find one or two teachers willing to scab on their colleagues.

The worst, as you might expect, was an editorial in the Tribune calling the strike "Tantrum Day" and calling on teachers to "rebel" against their own union. Remember, it was the Tribune board that recommended "Mussolini-like" command and control over CPS.

The Sun-Times hasn't been much better with articles referring to CTU Pres. Karen Lewis as a "boss" and hoping against hope that some teachers will cross the line.

Crain's Greg Hinz offers his own unsolicited tactical advice, telling teachers that their efforts amount to just "noise" and are bound to fail.

Fail or not, it's better to stand up and fight than sit passively and hope that our sociopath governor and autocrat mayor concede out of the goodness of their hearts.

Today's strike is just another step in a long struggle to save and transform public education. If things don't change, a bigger and protracted strike in May is on the horizon.

April 1, 10 AM: @BYP_100 joins @ChicagoState for a day of action, with teach-ins & a march https://t.co/LKIbCpVrfH #ShutDownChi

— BLMChicago (@BLMChi) March 31, 2016

WEEKEND QUOTABLES '¿Que bolá Cuba?

Pres. Barack Obama

U.S. policy toward Cuba hasn’t worked “since I was born,” Obama said in an interview with CNN en Espanol last week. Giving Cubans more access to commerce and the Internet may bring about bigger changes than the embargo ever could, Obama said. In relation to the rest of Latin America, he said, it means removing “this one lingering irritant or perception that somehow the United States was trying to big-foot smaller countries in the region.” -- Bloomberg

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis on planned April 1 walkout

"I've had some people say this harms the kids, so my question back to them is: 'What do you want to do? Tell me what it is that you want to do.' You have to ask people questions if they have reservations," Lewis said Friday. -- Tribune

William Lee on black exodus

But few discuss the toll that black flight is having on Chicago, long a beacon for progress and employment for African-Americans stretching back to the days of slaughterhouses, steel mills and Pullman porters. -- Tribune

Donald Trump's dreaming of a white riot

“I don’t want to see riots. I don’t want to see problems. But, you know, you have — you have millions of people who we’re talking about,,,. -- Huffington

Rich Miller

 Almost $4.2 million was raised for or spent on Dunkin's campaign, almost all of it by Rauner's allies. That works out to about $1.4 million for every precinct Dunkin won. -- Capitol Fax

¿Que bolá Cuba? Just touched down here, looking forward to meeting and hearing directly from the Cuban people.

— President Obama (@POTUS) March 20, 2016

Claypool blinks on pension pick-up. Militant "showdown" action still planned for April 1st.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them. Frederick Douglass
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/frederick_douglass_2.html

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them. Frederick Douglass
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/frederick_douglass_2.ht

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis calls for a "showdown" on April 1st.

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 Douglas

Another way to say it is, if you don't hit it, it won't fall. Well, Karen Lewis and the CTU hit hard at Forrest Claypool's threatened dropping of the 7% pension pick-up, and it fell, at least for now.

 Unilaterally dropping the pension pick-up, especially in the middle of contract negotiations, was a serious enough contract violation that the union was prepared to strike on April 1st. On top of that, Claypool announced more lay-offs at CPS and then ordered a 3-day unpaid furlough across the entire system.

But faced with an imminent strike, which would have certainly been another, maybe the last, nail in the mayor's political coffin, Rahm pulled back the leash on his attack dogs yesterday and Claypool announced he was withdrawing his threat.

But CPS is still going ahead with the staff lay-offs as well as 3-day furlough. So while a strike may not be called, the union is still planning for militant action of some kind on April 1.

Regarding the strike, Lewis said, “It’s still on the table, just like the 7 percent pension pay cut is still on the table.”

“April 1 would be an unfair labor day of action,” Lewis said. “It’s a showdown.”

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them. Frederick Douglass
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/frederick_douglass_2.html

After more than a year of stalling, finally a serious contract offer to the CTU

A SmallTalk Salute goes out to Karen Lewis and the CTU for forcing Rahm/Claypool's hand and finally getting a serious contract offer. This comes after a year of CPS stalling and forcing teachers to work without a contract.

Of course, the offer still has to be voted on by the union's Big Bargaining Team, the House of Delegates, and ultimately ratified by the membership itself if a strike is to be avoided. This is what union democracy looks like.

The details of the offer aren't being made public. But Lewis says that the "basic framework calls for economic concessions in exchange for enforceable protections of education quality and job security." She says those losses could include the end of the city's practice of picking up the bulk of teachers' required contributions to their pensions. But she says that the union would not bend on another key issue, incremental pay increases known as "step and lane" bumps that are doled out based on seniority and experience.

If accepted, the contract agreement would be a big blow to Gov. Rauner, who's been holding the state's education budget hostage and even threatening a state takeover of CPS, in an attempt to pressure Democrats into busting the CTU and the state's public employee unions.

An agreement and lessening the threat of a teachers strike may also take some political heat off the mayor, especially with the IL Democratic primary coming up in March. A strike would surely be another giant nail in his political coffin.

The next test will be whether the unions, battered social service agencies, and community organizations can keep the pressure on Sen. Pres. Cullerton and House Speaker Madigan to keep them from selling out to Rauner's demands. Cullerton is already showing his willingness to coalesce with Rauner on another pension-theft bill, even after the last one was declared unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Rahm at press conference: "I agree with Karen Lewis..."

Karen Lewis

"It's just that simple, it's not rocket science, it's negotiations. Nobody's going to be happy, completely happy, with the outcome," she said. "They're going to have to give a little, we have to give a little. That's what contract negotiations are, but we're doing fairly well." -- Chicago Tribune

Forrest Claypool on stalled negotiations with CTU

"Our priority is not saving money by a week or two paying teachers. Our priority is to allow the current union negotiation process to come to a positive conclusion, and so buying time is the prudent thing to do in that regard." -- Tribune

 Lobbyist on Rauner's failed Chicago takeover attempt

"It's like taking kids away from the junkie mother and giving them to the alcoholic father." -- POLITICO

Sheriff Tom Dart

 “Lutheran provides essential services to the very people government is supposed to care for in times of distress. For the Governor to allow these programs to wither way is simply deplorable. Without Lutheran’s diversion programs, my Cook County Jail population will rise, costing taxpayers significantly more in both the short-term and long-term.” -- CBS

Kent Redfield

“Frankly, as much of a public presence as [Diana Rauner] had in the last year, she might as well have been in the Witness Protection Program.” -- CBS

Chicagoans march for Bernie

Greg Sargent, Plum Line blogger

Sanders is not arguing that the sheer force of persuasion can win over Republicans to compromise, a key element of Obama’s promise of transformation. -- Washington Post

Sarah Palin (after the teleprompter froze)

 'The man can only ride you when your back is bent,' she said, as audience members looked at each other quizzically. 'So strengthen it! Then the man can't ride you, America won't get taken for a ride, because so much is at stake.' -- Daily Mail

Don't ask kids what they want to be when they grow up (career.) Ask them what problem they want to solve (lifelong learners!) #educon

— Jaime Casap (@jcasap) January 24, 2015

Someone should interview Rauner's clout kid. She's an adult now. Wonder how she feels about the kid who didn't get in Payton because of her.

— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) January 24, 2016