WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Chris Christie and Rahm Emanuel share a laugh during a segment attacking Medicare for All on ABC's "This Week." 

MapLight reporter Andrew Perez

"Rahm says no one at a bunch of Michigan and Wisconsin diners told him to take their health care away which is probably somewhat true since who in a diner would start talking to him at all." -- Common Dreams

Lori Lightfoot to Ted Cruz

But don’t you dare lecture us with half-truths, cherry-picked statistics and debunked rhetoric designed to score political points with your base and your donors while you, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the other Republicans in charge of the Senate sit in dereliction of your duty day after day, shooting after shooting. -- Washington Post

Amanda Kass

 “I think highlighting that there are lots of police and fire pension systems that are underfunded is accurate,” said Amanda Kass, associate director of the Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois-Chicago. “I don’t think it’s accurate to indicate that the majority are on the brink of insolvency.” -- Sun-Times

Rich Miller

But President Donald Trump, who had problems everywhere in suburbia, only won McSweeney’s district by a mere 1.6 percentage points in 2016. And then Democratic Comptroller Susana Mendoza won it last year by 2 points. Trump isn’t doing much to improve his popularity in the suburbs, so 2020 could be even worse for Republicans in that part of the world. -- Capitol Fax

Tom McNamee, Sun-Times Editorial Page Editor

The last sentence of the editorial made the point. The words were mine, but the clarity of thought was all Marca’s: “When we fully understand, as a society, that school nurses are not ‘extras’ — because kids with disabilities are not ‘extras’ — we predict this chronic shortage of nurses will magically disappear.” -- Marca Bristo made us all listen...

As Democrats increasingly unite around solutions as big as the problems we face, the media still puts up panels featuring politicians with little relevance like Rahm Emanuel and Chris Christie solely to attack the progressive energy in our party. pic.twitter.com/oJmLQI4N7j

— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) September 8, 2019

Trump: “Who will pay for the Wall?”
Audience: “Mexico will pay for the Wall!!” “Mexico!!”#BrokenPromise

— Diane Ravitch (@DianeRavitch) September 6, 2019

A 'Mussolini' for the schools?

Take your pick. Mussolini, Ivan the Terrible, or Rahm. 

An editorial in Friday's Trib calls on CPS to put a turnaround expert at the top of the school system, with "Mussolini-like powers to execute and implement."

Two things -- First, it's probably not workable. Don't we already have an autocrat running the schools? Rahm may not be a turnaround expert, but he is the Little Emperor. Does the Trib board want another dictator under the mayor? Who would dictate to whom?

Secondly, who was it on the editorial board that thought the Mussolini reference was a good idea? I mean, did one of the board members actually say: "Hey, I've got a great idea. Let's recommend that the schools be run by someone like Hitler. No...that might be pushing it a bit. How about Mussolini?"

They could have just said, "You know. We really need an education czar," and no one would have blinked. Czarism is still very popular in this country, even after the dismal performances of the White House drug czars, energy czars, healthcare czars, economic policy czars, and even the ebola czar, to name but a few. Here's a complete list of White House appointed czars.

How about someone like Ivan The Terrible to run the schools? Enough of this child-centered crap. Right?

A final thought... Mussolini didn't really make the trains run on time. And even if he had, I would gladly have waited a few extra minutes and been late for work, rather than endure fascism. Wouldn't you?

Labor vs. Labor: WFP's Endorsement of Gov. Cuomo stinks

Cuomo at pro-charter rally in Albany, joins with charter hustlers & hedge-funders in attack on Mayor de Blasio.

“It’s very simple at these political conventions: you either win or you lose. Uh, and I won...” -- Gov. Cuomo

The ability of the system to buy-off some union leaders is nothing new. It's been going on since unions were invented. But it's still stunning to watch the process unfold as it has this past week in New York and Chicago. 

N.Y. union leaders, including the UFT's, threatened to blow up the Working Families Party unless the group endorsed Gov. Cuomo for re-election. WFP delegates took the warning seriously and  endorsed Republicrat Cuomo over progressive challenger Zephy Teachout, 59%-41% at Sunday's WFP convention. They did so at the risk of doing irreparable damage to the movement that had won impressive victories in N.Y.C. and Newark mayoral races in the past year and an important school board victory in Connecticut. While it's electoral strategies may not be applicable everywhere, WFP is seen by progressives nationally as a model for united, independent alliance of community groups, led by organized labor (an oxymoron?).

Cuomo didn't even attend the meeting for fear of being booed off the stage. He didn't have to. He had already cut his deal with his labor lieutenants by promising to do nothing more, as Diane Ravitch put it, than to act like a Democrat. And it only took a few hours before he was even hedging on that promise.

In a post-convention statement, Teachout said:

“This week a number of leaders in the Working Families Party struck a deal with Governor Cuomo,” she said in a Sunday evening release. “I do not support the deal because I believe that New Yorkers deserve much, much more. Because Governor Cuomo’s record shows that he is untrustworthy. And because I believe that in democracy you should never let a primary—or power—go uncontested.”

Brother Fred

In Chicago, it was a similar story with S.E.I.U. Local #73 leaders dropping $25,000 of their members' hard-earned money into the already bloated campaign war chest of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Readers might remember how Local 73 leadership tried to undercut the CTU by signing a contract a month before the Chicago Teachers Strike of 2012 and having their members cross CTU picket lines.

Two days later, Rahm showed his gratitude by dropping the pension bomb on their members.

It's the new, improved Rahm. 'Doesn't believe in personal insults...'

Here's Blaine Principal Troy LaRaviere laying it all out on Chicago Tonight.



PARTY LINE...You can always tell when the line comes down from the 5th floor at City Hall. It's picked up quickly and echoed down the halls and through the cubicles at Clark Street -- "That LaRaviere guy and those other principals are in league with Karen Lewis and the teachers union."

But by the time flack Sarah Hamilton's message reaches the end of the line, it doesn't always come out the way it was intended. Yesterday it was first mouthed clumsily by Rahm's attack dog, John Kupper who came right out and called CPA Pres. Clarice Berry, "a CTU shill". Yes, and that was the message coming from Hamilton's newly-created version of the warm, fuzzy ("I welcome principals' concerns and ideas") Rahm.

After Berry fired back with both barrels, Rahm made Kupper apologize.

“I regret my reckless remark and offer Dr. Berry my public apology,” Kupper wrote in an email to the Sun-Times.

BTW, Berry's full statement, which appeared in an earlier version of Fran Spielman's E&O report is now gone. But you can read it in full, here.

In a separate emailed statement, Hamilton wrote:

“Mayor Emanuel does not agree with what John Kupper said nor the sentiment behind it, and he believes personal insults have no place in public debate." 

Wait, what? Rahm doesn't believe in using personal insults in public debate? That's right. This is the new, improved Rahm. Not the one who dropped the F-Bomb on Karen Lewis. Not the one who called a group of liberal activists "f—ing retarded." Not the Rahm who repeatedly insulted Chuck Todd, suggesting he was ignorant about charter schools, was "backward" looking, and that being in Washington had affected "your brain." Not the Rahm who threatened to kill  Energy Sec. Stephen Chu if he talked about climate change.

C'mon Rahm. Don't wuss out on us now.

Next came this toned-down version of the line from gadfly blogger Alexander Russo. No he's not on staff but he's a quick study.

I keep wondering whether LaRaviere is an independent mind speaking out against CPS and anyone else who gets in the way of making Chicago schools better or whether he's one among many who've come to loathe the Mayor so much that he's allied himself with the union across the board.  

Yes, he was just "wondering."

LOVE THIS...Thanks WBEZ, Young Chicago Authors, Free Write Jail Arts and the Chicago Community Trust for helping Louder Than a Bomb give voice to the brilliant young poets locked up inside the Cook County Detention Center. And be sure and check out these amazing WBEZ photos by By Bill Healy.

Stay dry and have a great Rahm-less weekend.

Rahm's attack dog, Kupper is on the loose

No sooner had Rahm tried to reinvent himself as a gentle, warm and caring ("I welcome principals' concerns and ideas") mayor, than his CPS plantation ignited once more. The arsonist this time was Rahm's own attack dog, John Kupper who in one single mouth-fart, attacked both the Sun-Times for giving too much play to the mayor's critics and Chicago Principals Assoc. Clarice Berry, for being a "CTU shill."

Chicago principals leader Clarice Berry

Here's Pres. Berry's response:

“I am appalled at the demeaning and disrespectful characterization by Mr. Kupper and, by extension, to my principals. That man does not know me. He’s never spoken to me. He has no idea what my relationship is to the CTU or Karen Lewis. We are colleagues. We respect each other and we’re friends,” Berry said.

“I want the mayor to direct his employee to make a public apology to me and to my members, whom he insulted in public. I hope the mayor reprimands him. He should work on the political side — not the education side. We want the politics out of our job.”

Berry accused Kupper of “engaging in the same kind of intimidation and repression of principals” that her organization and its members have been complaining about for the last week.

“We have every right as citizens of the United States to exercise our First Amendment rights to say things are upsetting us,” she said.

“What credentials does he have to assess that my principals’ complaints don’t have validity just because he works for the mayor? l invite him to shadow a principal in an urban school to see how tough the job really is.”

 If it's any consolation to Clarice Berry, she's not attack-dog Kupper's only target. He was actually brought on staff to plan the mayor's slime attack on Toni Preckwinkle in case she decides to take him on in 2015.

Standing room only for Karen Lewis at the Hideout

The Hideout

Last night was political junkies' standing-room-only night at the Hideout. CTU President Karen Jennings Lewis was on stage, being interviewed by Reader writers Ben Joravsky and Mick Dumke. What a step up from last month's show when former Ald. Dick (aptly-named) Mell hijacked the conversation and left me double-tasting my beer.

Lewis had just come off her roof-raising speech at the den of inequity they call the City Club, where she tore the mayor a new rear end. That's not hard to do these days when all you've got to do for fresh material is pick up the Sun-Times, DNAinfo, the Trib or turn on WBEZ. Yesterday it was about Rahm's limo speeding through red lights in school zones (was he flipping the bird out the window to passersby?). Or was it his snub of Whitney Young's Lady Dolphins? Using $60 million in TIF funds (Joravsky's favorite topic) to open another selective-enrollment high school (Barack Obama College Prep) for his Lincoln Park base? Or maybe the resignation of his deputy comptroller hired by Rahm's former money man and convict on-the-lam, Amer Ahmad.

Or you could have just settled for another Tribune Rahm is an arrogant asshole story.

Emanuel has stretched the continuum in opposite directions. His arrogance is oversized for the record he has amassed. He's beyond bossy. He's a walking personality disorder. But his audacity exceeds his accomplishments. That's a dangerous combination.

Could he beat Rahm?

We need to throw a pity party for the army of Rahm flacks who have the 24-7 job of damage control. Even another round of Chicagoland won't do the job. Not when every driver in Chicago (especially me) is yelling "F*CK YOU RAHM!" as hub caps fall off and axles crack as they bound over another unfilled pot hole. I wish I had a piece of Pep Boys' action.

All this and more led to Karen's best line of the night. After being asked about the prospects for the 2015 election and assessing the chances of Preckwinkle (She would mop the floor with Rahm) or Fioretti (Has a more difficult challenge but could also win), Karen cracked: "Bozo the clown could beat Rahm!"

She's right.  Problem is, Bozo hasn't announced yet. I think he's waiting until after the November election.

Let's not lose sight of most dangerous racism

EYES ON THE PRIZE... A great point was made by Rev. Jesse Jackson re. Sterling/Bundy racism. Let's not lose sight of where the real problem lies. The Supreme Court and Congress are making changes in the law that will deprive millions of opportunity and equal justice. We should keep our eyes on the prize, and hold on.

The gang of five conservative justices on the Supreme Court has disemboweled the Voting Rights Act, making prior review more difficult. This comes as right-wing governors and legislators are passing harsh laws designed clearly to make voting harder ­— limiting when the polls are open, demanding official ID, purging voter files, abandoning same day registration, outlawing voting on Sunday, when black churches could organize parishioners to take their “souls to the polls.”

CICS teachers get organized.

GOOD NEWS...Another privately-operated Chicago charter school chain has moved closer to unionizing, putting it in line to becoming the 29th charter school in the city to join the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff. Employees at a fourth Chicago International Charter School (CICS) campus have moved closer to forming a union. Most teachers and staff at ChicagoQuest, a CICS middle and high school that opened in 2011, voted in favor of union representation during an informal election held in December.

The non-profit CICS holds the charter to operate Chicago Quest and 14 other schools in the city, but contracts out the management responsibility to five providers. One of the providers is Civitas Schools, a for-profit, limited liability corporation set up by CICS that manages operations at the three CICS schools that unionized in 2009. -- Catalyst

OUTLAWS...  Pakistani authorities said Wednesday they have jailed and intend to charge Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s former city comptroller Amer Ahmad after taking him into custody Monday with a fake Mexican passport, a forged visa to enter their country and a large amount of cash. --- PE&O

Then there's Former Illinois State Rep. Keith Farnham who was one of the Dems who voted for the great pension theft. Turns out that was his upside. At least while he was voting to steal retirees' money, he wasn't out raping little girls. Farnham was charged Monday with using both personal and state-owned computers to trade hundreds of images and videos depicting child pornography and engage in graphic online chats in which he allegedly bragged about sexually molesting a 6-year-old girl.

BURNING BRIDGES? I sure hope not. But be sure and follow the running dialogue between  me and my friend Deb Meier at Bridging Differences. It's her turn next.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Captain Clarion Tweet: "When does that dammed trickle down start, already?"

ANON

"In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in
practice, there is. " -Anonymous

NEW CHARTER STUDY

 “The results showed that they were virtually identical,” Mazany said of the 2010 study. “I found that surprising because charters are based on a model that they have greater freedom, opportunity to be innovative and be more flexible. So I would have intuitively expected they would have been performing much better than the neighborhood schools they were pitted against.” -- Terry Mazany, president and CEO of the Chicago Community Trust

"Stark raving Rahm"

PROGRESSIVE MAG INTERVIEWS RAHM

IC: What do you think when you hear the word “gentrification”? 

RE: I know there are a lot of bad connotations. High rents and people being forced out who have been there for years. And there is a reason it has that connotation. But if we are smarter about it, we can do things that allow improvements. -- Stark Raving Rahm

LSC ELECTIONS

 “If these people in the charter school movement see the importance of that local empowerment of the community and the parents and the teachers, why don’t they duplicate it within their own schools?” -- CTU's Michael Brunson  

TORTURE

“If he [Dick Cheney] doesn’t think that was torture, I would invite him anywhere in the United States to sit in a waterboard and go through what those people went through, one of them 100-plus-odd times." -- Sen. Angus King (I-Maine)

SCHOOL FUNDING

“Illinois will never succeed by starving its schools.” -- Gov. Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson.

At the Hideout

The Hideout

We stopped by one of my favorite watering holes, The Hideout, last night to hear the great Ben Joravsky and Mick Dumke do their political schtick. But ducked out when it looked like it was being turned into the Dick Mell Show. All the repartee with that smirking racist machine bastard was making me nauseous. When he started blaming last month's low-voter turnout on bloggers and tweeters... or maybe it was when he began boasting about how rich he had become and all the houses he owned in Sanibel Island and Lake Geneva, that was it for me. Maybe next month.

Petcoke

SPEAKING OF HIDEOUT POLITICAL SCHTICK... Please tell me again how Rahm isn't beatable in the next election.

The mayor just cut a deal with Beemsterboer Slag Co. opening the door for greater use of the deadly high-sulfur, high-carbon refinery byproduct petcoke in the city after first claiming he was the new environmental sheriff in town. Petcoke is a major part of KCBX, and Koch Industries, owned by the notorious Koch Bros.

This on top of this week's polls showing him beatable indeed and last week's poll showing that 90% of Chicagoans consider this city a bastion of corruption. What we need now is a candidate to step up and speak truth to power about Mayor 1%.

Rahm's allies duck out on his pension raid

Fred Klonsky art

The word on Clout Street is that Rahm's own allies and machine pals are distancing themselves from the mayor's pension-busting plan. The latest to duck out of the pension raiding party seems to be Ald. Patrick O’Connor who is usually Rahm's ramrod in the City Council. O'Connor basically admitted yesterday, that Rahm's proposed pension cuts and property-tax increases won't produce the revenue needed to pay the required benefits for retiring cops and fire fighters.

Now even Rahm, who last week was boasting how close he was to an agreement with the CTU and other unions (he lied) is ducking for cover and is even denying that his proposal cuts pension benefits. Ludicrous!

Emanuel said his proposal has support from employee unions, but so far they’re not publicly embracing it. The Service Employees International Union, which represents about a third of the current workers who would be affected, is neutral. “We’re not going against it,” said Adam Rosen, spokesman for SEIU Local 73, “but we’re not supporting it, because of the impact on current retirees.”

By Tuesday, he was ducking questions about whether he would seek a delay in Springfield this spring to put off the "police and fire pension problem".

I think what they're really worried about is having to line up behind another pension-busting scheme while SB1 is still in the courts and as election day approaches. Lots of aldermen have cops, fire fighters and teachers living in their wards. Rahm's strategy also plays into the hand of Bruce Rauner in the governor's race and makes Democrats take ownership of anti-union policies. Rauner's opponent, Gov. Quinn, who signed the state's unconstitutional pension busting bill SB1, is already on the shit list of union voters around the state.

Murphy's Law...Rahm's joke...DFER's $$$

A good question
Georgia parent asks Pres. Obama, "Why don’t private schools adopt your test-based school reforms?" -- Washington Post

Murphy's Law
Jim Broadway, who publishes Illinois School News Service, has a good post on voucher supporter, Matt Murphy's (R-Palatine) bill SB 3533, that would supposedly "give public school students a choice of who will teach them - a teacher in their local schools or a "provider" in a remote location, even in another state." The bill, which is not likely to pass, is backed by ALEC.

Jim refers to my blog when describing ALEC. Thanks Jim.

 You've read my views about ALEC before. Here's how Mike Klonsky, one of my favorite bloggers, sees ALEC: 

"The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) represents the most reactionary, anti-people, anti-teacher, racist sector of the corporate establishment.... They are strongly anti-union and have pushed legislation nationally to dis-empower teacher unions and take away collective bargaining rights of all public employees."

[Okay, if you clicked the link on Klonsky's name you might have read the thrashing Mike gave to Sen. Kirk Dillard, whom we have endorsed for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Mike makes good points, but we'll stick with Kirk.]

When Jim says "we have endorsed", I think that's the Royal We, not any organization. I understand Jim.

DFER union busters headed for Chicago
Crain's reports, the privatizers are coming in with a big wad of bills ($1 million+) to try knock out the  few progressives on the City Council and anyone else critical of charter school expansion.

The organization had been all but moribund since it was formed in 2011, but suddenly has kicked its fund-raising into high gear, pulling in $60,000 in the past two weeks, including donations from industrialist Jim Crown and his wife Paula Crown, Jennifer Steans from the politically active Steans clan, and the Texas-based Arnold Foundation.

Jay Travis

DFER is also bankrolling Christian Mitchell's campaign against progressive Jay Travis in the 26th Dist. Rep race. Mitchell has already taken money from the corporate "reform" group, Stand For Children.

You can stand up to these creeps by casting an early vote for Jay if you reside in the district and sending a check even if you don't.

Check your watch, deBlasio.

Rahm's joke?
At Axelrod's conference at the U of C, L.A.'s Garcetti, getting in a plug for his city's mild weather, joked that he touched Chicago's snow — which he said hurt — and wasn't sure what it was.

"It's water," Emanuel deadpanned in a reference to California's drought. "We'll sell it to you at a big price." 

Garcetti goes, "he he" but knowing Rahm, whose famous line is, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste", he must have been wondering, was that a joke?

DATA ERRATA

Quote from CPS IG Jim Sullivan -- "The system has incentivized how performance is evaluated based on data, and much of that data is created and can be manipulated at the school level."  

Rahm & charter landlord Jenkins

SHOCKING!
I'm shocked, just shocked to hear that Rahm's pals are the landlords for the new proposed charter schools.

The Rev. Charles Jenkins, its pastor, touts on his church’s website how he “filled a key role” on Emanuel’s transition team when the mayor was elected in 2011. Jenkins gave the invocation at Emanuel’s swearing-in. He is an Emanuel appointee to the City Colleges of Chicago board and a board member of the private group New Schools for Chicago, which helps fund new charter schools.

BACKING QUINN?
How bad does Quinn have to be to offend AFL-CIO leaders? Gov. not only signed unconstitutional pension-busting bill, he bragged, "I was born for this."

And the nod for Quinn should put to rest the constant media speculation that all of organized labor is angry with him - although you gotta figure that AFSCME and the teachers weren’t too pleased with this move. -- Rich Miller, Capital Fax

They not only endorsed Quinn, they backed Republican  Judy Baar-Topinka for state comptroller. Topinka supported the pension-busting bill. A slap in the face to Sheila Simon who broke with Quinn and opposed the pension deal.

DINNER CHAT WITH RAUNER

 As might be expected, he celebrated their [charter schools] high test scores, and I responded that they get those scores by excluding students with serious disabilities and English language learners, as well as pushing out those whose scores are not good enough. Surprisingly, he didn’t disagree. His reaction: so what? “They are not my problem. Charters exist to save those few who can be saved, not to serve all kinds of kids.” My response: What should our society do about the kids your charters don’t want? His response: I don’t know and I don’t care. They are not my problem. -- Diane Ravitch's Blog

Pension wars and Moore

Puerto Rican teachers strike: "No somos criminales, somos maestros." "We're not criminals."

The attacks on public worker pensions, especially teachers' pensions, has become a centerpiece of corporate reform strategy aimed at degrading the teaching profession, eroding public space and undermining union contracts. It's a response to the growing public-sector debt crisis that avoids taxing the corporate sector and puts the entire burden on the retired (or soon to be retired) public sector workers. But with it has come with growing resistance across the country and now in Puerto Rico. Since December 19, members of Puerto Rico's teachers union and their supporters have been protesting both inside the island's Senate chamber and outside its Capitol, including a 2-day strike, against the so-called "pension reform" legislation advocated by governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla.

Look who's defending Rauner

No surprise here. It's the Trib's Eric Zorn. He identifies with the Republican billionaire's clout problems.

I didn't have to play that game with my elder son, who easily tested into Payton in 2004, but I can't blame many of those who did. "Nothin' wrong" with asking for a favor, after all, when favors were going to be doled out anyway.

 Was it seemly for Bruce Rauner to then drop a quarter-million dollar donation on Payton Prep Initiative for Education in December 2009? Yes. Given the timing, not just seemly but generous, creditable and consistent with his charitable outreach to schools.

Does Rauner have anything to apologize for, other than dropping his "g's" to try to sound folksy? No. He didn't break the rules in place at the time and no one broke them on his behalf.

Has Ald. Joe Moore become a complete lap dog for the Mayor?

Yes he has. He ran as a progressive, but now has become an enemy of the teachers union and the leading Rahm apologist in the City Council. Moore argued Tuesday that City Hall spent $7.2 million on salt after the New Year’s Eve storm that preceded a polar plunge — and “wasted” tons of it — because it was trying to meet the “unrealistic” expectations of a demanding Chicago electorate. He may be right about the salt, but not about blaming Chicagoans' for their expectations. His was a conscious diversion from the real issue that has neighborhood folks so pissed off. While downtown and Boule Miche were plowed clean enough to eat off the streets, neighborhoods were barely touched. Dangerous potholes are everywhere in the neighborhoods. None downtown. It had nothing to do with salt. 

Congrats to ALEC, Brookings, Gates... on their Bunkum Awards 

“Congratulations, Brookings! You just won the Bunkum’s Grand Prize for shoddiest educational research for 2013.” -- NEPC

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Daley doesn't know what he knew.

Classic Daley under oath

 “I don’t know what I knew.” -- Sun-Times

Diane Ravitch

NPR says Rahm Emanuel gets a “mixed” grade at midterm. On education, his grade is not mixed. It is a big fat F.  -- Grading Rahm Emanuel 

IL Sen. Pres. John Cullerton

The state's massive public employee pension debt is not a "crisis," but instead an issue being pushed by business-backed groups seeking lower income taxes at the expense of retiree benefits. -- WGN interview 

John Dewey

D.C. whistle-blower principal, Adell Cothorne 

I was a principal in a Washington DC public school when IMPACT was being rolled out. I knew of other principals who had their secretaries fill out the complex teacher rating systems for them. In other words, there were no safe guards to ensure that the system wasn’t being manipulated. How can we justify a rating system that can be gamed? -- EduShyster

John Dewey

"Democracy needs to be reborn in each generation, and education is its midwife." -- Chicago Tribune Commentary

Jeb Bush's "Mystery Guest"

What's Mayor 1% doing in Boston? Why he's the "mystery guest" at Jeb Bush's Education Forum of course. Throw in his support for Republican Bruce Rauner in the upcoming governor's race and it's pretty easy to see what kind of "Democrat" is running our schools and our city. Plus the Mayor always seems to be out of town when his shit hits the fan.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER
From left: Quinn, Rangel, Madigan, and Burke.

HOW HIGH WILL IT GO?

The Bond Buyer reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the UNO Charter School Network for potential securities violations apparently tied to its October 2011 $37 million bond issue.

The network issued $37 million of mostly tax-exempt new-money and refunding bonds in 2011 to help fund its ongoing expansion. The Illinois Finance Authority issued the bonds on the not-for-profit's behalf. Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc. and Cabrera Capital Markets LLC served as underwriters with Kutak Rock LLP acting as bond counsel.

CPS oversees UNO's charter and provides funding support for the organization despite UNO's BBB-minus rating from Standard & Poor's, the lowest possible investment grade level. Standard & Poor's reports noted the state support of $98 million. UNO's school network has a total of about $67 million in debt.

The Sun-Times reports that Gov. Quinn has once again, pulled UNO's state funding. Good move. Although he's withholding only $18 million of their $98 million and he still has UNO egg on his face. Remember, Quinn, under pressure from (Quinn fundraiser) Ald. Eddie Burke, Mike Madigan and Rahm, restored the state funding in early June, saying he was "confident UNO had implemented reforms." Last month, Chicago "businessman" Martin Cabrera Jr. — whose appointment as UNO chairman, replacing Juan Rangel, was cited by Quinn as an important reform — resigned.

Now we'll see if the board will pull UNO's charter or run the risk of being legally complicit.

CHARTER HUSTLERS GOING AFTER PROSSER

Even while feds are all over the UNO charter school scandal, the Noble Street Charter network hopes to pull off a similar scheme, using state money and connections with the Rahm and Rauner to do their real estate deal. They want zoning restrictions changed so they can build a new, expensive building to house a charter school across the street from Prosser Career Academy.

Yesterday, Rahm's hand-picked Chicago Plan Commission, which includes Burke as an ex-officio member and is chaired by none other than Cabrera himself, approved a zoning change that allows the Noble Network to build their new school and to try and recruit students and the money that follows them, away from Prosser.

That’s despite a boisterous protest outside City Council chambers by supporters of Prosser High School — including Ald. Nick Sposato — and of other neighborhood schools in Belmont Cragin whose budgets have undergone deep cuts this year.

 The protesters — mostly from the groups Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools, and Communities United for Quality Education — pointed to a projected decline in high school-aged population in the Belmont Cragin area over the next four years, the presence of four CPS high schools within a 1.5 radius of the proposed site, and budget cuts at existing area schools totaling some $6.4 million. -- Sun-Times

Ald. Sposato

Sposato, whose ward will inherit Prosser High School in 2015 when ward maps are redrawn, called the plan “a recipe for disaster here to have two public high schools across the street from each other.”

“I worry about the impact on Prosser,” he said. “I worry about the safety of children.”

As usual, it's the Reader's Ben Joravsky who has the best take on the Noble Street Charter hustle.

With 14 schools and 9,000 students, [Noble founder Mike] Milkie's to charters what Ray Kroc was to fast food. If he keeps it up, he'll have an outlet on every block... But, c’mon, Mayor Emanuel—it's not like we're hard up for vacant lots in which to put your charters. There are hundreds and hundreds all over the city. Why stick a charter across the street from Prosser, which is a perfectly good, high-functioning school?

Taking back Chicago

I'm looking forward to next Tuesday, October 15th when a coalition of union and community groups will come together to "Take Back Chicago." Several thousand people are expected to take part in this community meeting at the UIC Forum. Things will start with a 5 p.m. march and rally and continue on with a forum.

With local elections on the horizon, the goal of TBC will be to forge a common vision for the city's future and then to hold candidates accountable to that vision. High on the agenda are school closings, the continued destruction of families, public housing, social services and employment opportunities.

The convening Grassroots Collaborative includes:

Action Now • AFSCME Council 31 • Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation • Brighton Park Neighborhood Organization• Chicago Coalition for the Homeless • Chicago Teachers Union • Enlace Chicago • Illinois Hunger Coalition • Kenwood Oakland Community Organization • ONE Northside • Pilsen Alliance • SEIU Healthcare • Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation • SouthsideTogether Organizing for Power • Southwest Organizing Project

You can sign up to take part in Take Back Chicago on Facebook.  I did.

Buying an Election

There's nothing grassroots about the coalition Rahm is building. It's focused solely on buying the next mayoral election.

Today's Sun-Times reports:

In the face of a rancorous year at the city’s helm, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has hauled in nearly $1.4 million in larger campaign donations in the last three months — and with nearly a year and half before his re-election, he already has $5 million cash on hand.

Griffin

Nearly $120,000 of the donations in the last period came from employees at investment giant Citadel or from the hedge fund manager Ken Griffin himself. Griffin is reportedly Chicago's second richest man (behind Sam Zell) and a major player in Chicago's corporate-style school reform. He's a big backer of anti-teacher-union groups like Stand For Children, one of the sponsors of the notorious Senate Bill 7. Stand for Children also dropped $10,000 into Rahm's war chest.

The law firm of Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP that employs former Mayor Richard M. Daley and Daley’s best friend Terry Newman was a big contributor. So was the law firm of Kirkland Ellis and the financial firms CTC, and Grosvenor Capital Management LP, whose CEO and chairman Michael Sacks is vice-chairman of World Business Chicago and Emanuel’s close friend and business adviser.

Rahm's 'Fog Machine'

“Their decision to modify their promise of a five-year moratorium on school closings is a smack in the face to the parents, teachers and students who are working so hard to secure vital resources for their neighborhood schools.” -- CTU's Stephanie Gadlin

If her lips are moving, Byrd-Bennett is lying.  Becky Carroll is lying even when her lips aren't moving. Crain's Greg Hinz calls it Emanuel's "fog machine."

There is no transparency at CPS or anywhere around City Hall. Everything said in Rahmville -- and make no mistake, CPS is square in the middle of Rahmville --has to be interpreted through the haze. 

Usually, it's CPS Liar-In-Chief Carroll framing the message. But this time around, it was Rahm's toadie BBB who was made to go in front of the cameras and assure an outraged community and teachers' union that there would be a 5-year moratorium on Chicago school closings once she was allowed to close 50. This despite the fact that 20,000 parents and community members came out to series of citywide hearings, demanding a stop to the closings. Or that even BBB's own hand-picked panel of VIPs advised against the closings.

Now as fractured and demoralized neighborhoods try and pick themselves up from the rubble, and some 30,000 children cautiously navigate their way through so-called Safe Passage zones just to get to school each morning, BBB is dragged out again. This time to tell us, "Remember what I said about a 5-year moratorium?..." 

Dizzy with success, they've come out with new "guidelines" which open the door to the hundreds more school closings they always wanted. 

Union V.P. Sharkey tells DNAinfo: 

"The intent of their message was if you put up with all this big instability you can appreciate a period of stability for the next five years. And now it turns out they're saying, well, no, we thought of some exemptions." 

Can they pull it off? We'll see. 

But Rahm's pulling-it-off track record is pretty dismal, says Hinz. He and a sector of the business community appear to have grown dissatisfied with the mayor's big talk accompanied by little do. Take the much vaunted Investment Trust for example:

 "...the one that was unveiled here in the presence of no less a personage than former President Bill Clinton [and AFT Prez Randi Weingarten -- m.k.]. A year and a half later, it's produced nada..."

As for Rahm's running of the schools, Hinz writes:

Remember all the promises about making teachers work more and extending the school day? Well, the school day was extended — and the Board of Education had to pay for it, despite a $500 million budget hole. And all of that promised "enrichment" in the form of more time for foreign language instruction and the arts and so forth? When the board ended up laying off hundreds of teachers, many schools lost that very same enrichment.

All politicians like to brag and strut their accomplishments, write Hinz. Mr. Emanuel is pretty good at it.

The problem is that none of that real-world reality ever seems to affect Mayor Rahm Emanuel's patented public relations fog machine, which works overtime to sell stuff that, in the end, far too often fails to deliver on the promise.

Hinz's column could easily serve as campaign talking points for a mayoral opposition candidate.

Breaking -- Oh heavens! Somebody may have overpaid for school desks

Forget about the great UNO charter school rip-off. That was small potatoes.

Forget Rahm's great $150 million basketball arena scam. Puny by comparison.

Forget about Rahm's hiring of convicted crook Amer Ahmad as his comptroller. Mistakes happen.

Forget about Arne Duncan hiring a child molester/pornographer to help him run the schools. The guy had a guy. 

You can even forget about the current RTA scandal and Mike Madigan's son-in-law who he placed as an RTA top exec and who is now under investigation over allegations involving sexual and racial harassment of RTA staff. (Anyway, he's not actually a blood relative).

 Yes, you can forget about all these petty mini-scandals because Chuck Goudie and his ABC7's derring-do I-Team have torn the cover off the biggest scandal of them all. That's right, it's "Operation Desk Job."

"The Desk Job" found evidence that the Chicago Public Schools overpaid for desks and other classroom furniture that was less quality than ordered.  

Egad! Say it isn't so, Chuck.

As a result of the I-Team's amazing revelations, CPS has announced that it is centralizing all future furniture purchases. Yes, that'll do it.

Furniture orders can only be initiated by the CPS Operations Department. This allows for oversight of contract compliance. Previously, individual departments, including schools, were allowed to purchase directly from the furniture vendor.

Kevin Cooney

But wait.

The Frank Cooney Company was the approved vendor (and will be again after a voluntary 18-month hiatus) for CPS furniture. In other words, the well-connected company wasn't hired by the local schools but rather by the CPS bureaucrats themselves.

Headquartered in Elk Grove Village, the company has been run by Kevin Cooney for more than 20 years. During that time, he managed many of CPS' construction projects as well as some for suburban districts. You can bet, Cooney is connected. He has a guy.

After first telling ABC News that this was nothing more than a squabble between "rival" contractors, cps has done a 180 and begun a full audit of all furniture contracts. And now, an unnamed "top CPS administrator" who signed off on contract changes has stepped down (Fired? Or just moved to another department?).

Actually, Goudie's I-Team was covering old ground. The Cook County State's Attorney had long ago subpoenaed contract records of CPS furniture deals, looking into whether the Frank Cooney Company met minority contract requirements. In 1999, Kevin Cooney was found not guilty on charges he used a phony minority front to obtain Chicago school district furniture contracts. I don't know why they needed a trial. You can tell from just a quick look at Cooney's team that it's minority-owned and operated.

It has taken nearly a quarter of a century under mayoral control, but the central office bureaucracy's counterrevolution is now nearly complete. Now, about those few remaining functional Local School Councils... Quick call the I-Team.

Good news, rich people

There are still openings for your extra-special child at the new, 9-story, Oman-based Gem Academy (and a gem it is) downtown on S. Water St. And if you apply now, tuition is only about $30K. Caviar lunch is extra.

Rahm Emanuel is at it again. His game plan is to blame every school budget cut, every teacher he fires and school he closes -- and now his latest proposed property tax increase -- on those elderly and infirm who are resisting cuts to their pensions and health care. Trib reporters, Hal Dardick and Rick Pearson say that along with taxing home owners, Rahm wants to once again postpone city pension payments until 2022, "three years into what would be Emanuel's third term, if he decided to serve that long and was able to win re-election." But you can bet those greedy pensioners won't put a crimp into Rahm's $92M South Loop South Loop project at Cermak and Michigan that will feature a DePaul basketball arena and a Marriott Hotel.

CTU's Martin Ritter says that after a brief hiatus, the union is stepping up its voter registrar training. The next training session is planned for 5pm on Tuesday October 1st, at CTU Headquarters on the 4th floor at the Merchandise Mart. Public transportation is encouraged. If you're interested in participating, please RSVP directly to Marty at martinritter@ctulocal1.com.

Crain's Greg Hinz says a Springfield fight is resuming over whether to require publicly traded corporations to disclose how much they pay in state income taxes, and "it could be a doozy". Indeed. A similar bill was defeated in the same committee last year after clearing the Senate, where business groups have less influence. "The long-held benchmark of our tax system has been confidentiality," said Mark Denzler, vice president and chief operating officer of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association.

Mayor one-term?

The Ward Room's Mark Anderson (Chicago Needs a Mayoral Challenger. Or Five) offers up a rather gloomy picture of democratic possibilities for Chicago.

The next election for mayor in Chicago little more than 18 months away, and it’s time to face a hard fact: When it comes to mayoral politics in Chicago, democracy could be dead. 

I'm a little more hopeful. From my view, Rahm Emanuel's once-powerful political base appears to be coming apart at the seams. Polls I have seen, show Rahm faring poorly in head-to-head races against a number of potential candidates. His support in the black community is eroding. His disastrous school budget cuts, school closings, and mass teacher firings have brought the entire public school system to its knees. Throw in his attacks on the pension funds and Rahm has created a potential army of public employees, including cops, fireman, school teachers, parents and staff who could be the foot soldiers working against him in the next campaign.

School closings, primarily in the city's African-American neighborhoods on the south and west sides, threaten to further blight many of those communities, lead to more unemployment, neighborhood instability and more violence. Rahm can't go many places in the community these days, without being greeted with a chorous of boos.

Which brings up Rahm's biggest problem, the image of Chicago as an uncontrollable, corrupt and violent city -- bad for business. Sneed reports that a CNN national security adviser just called Chicago “the Mogadishu of the United States.” (BTW Sneed, Mogadishu is in Somalia, not Iraq). 

“All of these things that happen in Chicago go viral. People hear about it all over the world and we need to limit that because tourism plays such a big part in our economy, says Ald. Walter Burnett.

The images of thousands of school kids having to navigate "safe passage" routes and police and security cordons just to get to school and back each day, have shocked the world. The recent Cornell Park shootings  may have been a back-breaker for Rahm and Chief McCarthy's spin on the city's supposed drop in crime.

On top of all this, you have a widening rift with with the old Daley machine and an emerging split in the state Democratic Party as seen by the withdrawal from the governor's race by Lisa Madigan and Bill Daley and sub rosa support for Republican billionaire candidate Bruce Rauner coming from Rahm, Daley and even Hillary Clinton.

I could go on. There's Rahm's costly blown attempt to privatize Midway. There's the seemingly never-ending press accounts of major corruption scandals most recently involving UNO's Martin Cabrera and the hiring of comptroller Amer Ahmad. There's the shady DePaul basketball arena deal. And on and on it goes.

Despite his seemingly overwhelming advantage against any potential candidate in terms of money-raising ability, the possibility of a low voter turnout, and his (tepid?) support from Obama's camp, there are lots of reasons to believe that Rahm's political machine is a paper tiger, and that the mayor can be had in 2015 -- provided that there is a viable and willing opponent. And that's a big if.

My sense is that the deep dislike of the Mayor, the erosion of his base, especially among his typical north-side neighborhood supporters, plus an emerging movement of mainly young, urban voters (not just in Chicago) could shift the balance and run Rahm out of office. But there's a lot at stake and as we learned back in the Harold Washington days, the machine won't fall unless we hit it.