Quotables

Bolivians take to the streets in support of overthrown President Evo Morales after the U.S.-backed military coup. The placard reads: ‘Evo you are not alone.’ 

Trump hails the coup

 Calls it “a significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere”. -- Guardian

 A twisted view of the latest U.S.-backed military coup in Bolivia

For a socialist president who was until recently hailed as the great success story of the Latin American left, this unseemly end serves as a cautionary tale of what happens when world leaders remain in office for too long. -- New York Magazine

Chesa Boudin

S.F.'s District Attorney-elect, Chesa Boudin

Many of Boudin’s policies, though, are even more progressive than those of Gascón, who was one of the country’s most liberal district attorneys. One departure, Boudin said, is he will no longer charge gang enhancements, which greatly increase the penalty for crimes if a defendant is found to have participated in a street gang. The law has faced criticism over the disproportionate number of black and brown people who are charged with gang crimes. A 2016 audit of the state’s gang database found that only 8% of documented gang members are white. -- San Francisco Chronicle

 CTU Pres. Jese Sharkey 

...leaders knew it was time "to start thinking about ending the strike and counting up what we had achieved. We began to realize that we had gotten as much out of CPS as we thought that we were going to get," Sharkey said on the union’s podcast, CTU Speaks!

The CTU later published a series of tweets about the veteran pay issue and implied some people “are looking to manufacture a crisis" about it. -- Tribune

R.I.P. Noel Ignatiev

In time his view that whiteness is a social and political construction — and not a phenomenon with a biological basis — has become mainstream. The resurgence of white identity politics and white nationalism in recent years made Ignatiev’s arguments relevant to a new generation of readers who argued the notion that race is more about power and privilege rather than about ancestry, or even identity. -- L.A. Times

...Only if we start with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.

"‘Can we just get rid of the judges? Let's get rid of the f-cking judges,’" Trump fumed one morning, according to an anonymous senior administration official's new book. "‘There shouldn't be any at all, really.’" https://t.co/VJ8DNGc2eV

— The Hill (@thehill) November 11, 2019

Breaking...NY’s poor causing congestion, says de Blasio

Mayor on NYPD arrest of churro seller in subways: "The facts are she was there multiple times and was told multiple times that’s not a place you can be and it’s against the law and it’s creating congestion and she shouldn’t have been there.” pic.twitter.com/sniorGb7Ns

— Yoav Gonen (@yoavgonen) November 11, 2019

Big gap in turnout predictions. Are they looking at the same race?

Rahm hoping voters will stay home. 

“It's a slight increase in interest in the election,” said Chicago political consultant Don Rose, who is involved in the mayoral campaign of Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. “Everybody seems to be under the impression that this is going to be a low-turnout election. I am not sure of that.”

The Mayor's praying for a low turnout on Tuesday. As his people see it, that would be his only hope for avoiding a runoff and loss of control of the City and schools. If you believe the Sun-Times' Fran Spielman, Rahm may get his wish.

If early voting — or the lack of it — is any bellwether, Chicago could be headed for a record-low turnout in Tuesday’s election... Majority Hispanic wards that traditionally record the lowest election day turnout chalked up some of the lowest early vote totals. That can’t be good news for mayoral challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.

But if you read Thomas Corfman at Crain's, you get a completely different assessment.

Chicago voter registration has risen 3.9 percent, to more than 1.42 million, since the November election, reaching the highest level in almost five years despite a mayoral race that has lacked fireworks.

Registration for the Feb. 24 municipal election has not only slightly surpassed 2011, when Rahm Emanuel first ran for mayor, but also has exceeded the 2012 presidential election that featured Illinois favorite son Barack Obama, according to figures compiled by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.

Wow! Record high and record low. Are they both looking at the same race?

It's Spielman who sounds most bewildered by her own early voting data. She may be getting her information from machine ward bosses. But even if, she adds this:

 The biggest total was the 2,205 early votes recorded in the 19th Ward, home to scores of police officers, firefighters and teachers who are not enamored with Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

 A close second was the 2,092 early votes in the 41st Ward, where homeowners have accused Emanuel of turning a deaf ear to their skyrocketing complaints about O’Hare jet noise.

My own opinion? Low turnout or high -- it all depends on who can turn out their base. I can't imagine that the undecideds are undecided about Rahm, It may be that he can be stuck in the 40% range whether the turnout is high or low.

Warren & de Blasio

Here's an intriguing assessment from today's Washington Post:

Garcia, a Cook County commissioner, has picked up the torch of the economic populist movement embodied by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Emanuel is being cast as part of the establishment that includes Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton and has been accused of being too cozy with Wall Street and big banks at the expense of average Americans.

There’s little doubt that Emanuel will finish well ahead of Garcia and three other challengers in Tuesday’s election. But polls show him at risk of falling short of a majority and being forced into a six-week runoff campaign, probably against Garcia. Liberal activists are relishing the opportunity to extend the race.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

 “Given the ongoing inspector general investigation, I am unable to comment.” -- Sun-Times

John Kass

The Tribune reported on Rahm's golden circle of campaign contributors — with about 100 of them ponying up almost half of the $30 million political war chest he's built since 2010. These aren't neighborhood guys. These are the oligarchs that run things. -- Tribune

Ta-Nehisi Coates

If you are truly appalled by the brutality of ISIS, then a wise and essential step is understanding the lure of brutality, and recalling how easily your own society can be, and how often it has been, pulled over the brink. -- Atlantic

Carmen Fariña 

Norm Fruchter 

“I think that her appointment had a very reassuring effect on the line educators who actually are at the core of the system. I think they feel like she knows who they are, she understands what their job is, she understands what the challenges are and she’s got their back.” -- NYT

Alice Hu

The current resistance to college-in-prison is founded upon political rhetoric rather than any factual evidence. -- Harvard Political Review

'Right to Work'

First a clarification. The phrase “right to work” is a misnomer that has little to do with the right of a person to seek and accept gainful employment.  -- Robert Bruno, Sun-Times

Chuy's support growing in the black community

Civil Rights veteran Timuel Black leads parade of endorsers for Chuy Garcia

THIS MORNING... more than 100 African-American community leaders and activists endorsed Chuy Garcia for Mayor and helped celebrate the opening of the campaign's newest office. Perhaps there's hope after all.

NYPD: Arrest only when you "really have to"

“He [Mayor de Blasio] is not running the City of New York. He thinks he’s running a f- -king revolution,” said Lynch, head of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, during the private gathering in Queens last Friday. -- NY Post

Ah, if only it were so. After years of scandal, corruption and police shootings, a revolution within the department is precisely what's needed.

The aptly-named head of New York's police union, Pat Lynch now says the city's cops are striking back with a counter-revolution of their own, aimed at the citizens of New York, especially those in the black community, hands-up, don't-shoot marchers and their elected mayor who got 73% of the vote. How are they going to strike back? Well, it's kind of a work stoppage.

The New York Post reports that NYPD officers are making arrests only "when they have to," leading to a massive drop in their response to low-level crimes.

It all makes you wonder -- Who and why were they arresting before this change of heart? And if they had only implemented the arrest-only-when-necessary approach, would Eric Garner and dozens of other young black men still be alive today?

Stovall

DAVID STOVALL TELLS IT ALL

Chicago is a hyper-segregated city. Despite rampant gentrification in certain areas, Chicago is not a city of neighborhoods but a city of universes. People can spend lifetimes here never experiencing certain parts of the city due to age-old demarcated lines that live in our minds and bodies.

 To uproot massive numbers of people without any accountability is criminal. But as we say around here, it’s the Chicago way. -- Cities in Revolt: Chicago

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mary Mitchell

The way Mayor Rahm Emanuel reacted publicly to misconduct allegations against Chicago Police Cmdr. Glenn Evans shows he doesn’t have a clue about what it will take to rebuild trust between cops and the black community. -- Sun-Times

Rep. Luis Gutierrez

"Well, first of all it's clear that playing it safe is what is going on at the White House and among Democratic circles. And playing it safe means walking away from our values and our principles." -- Lynn Sweet, Sun-Times

Bill Gates

“We didn’t know when the last time was that somebody introduced a new course into high school. How does one go about it?" -- So Bill Gates Has This Idea for a History Class ... NYT

Diane von Furstenberg

Clearly, there is work to be done. “I am sure we will seduce the new mayor, too.”  -- NYT Style section, The Courtship of Bill de Blasio 

Former Duncan Press Sec. Peter Cunningham

Education Post also will have a “rapid response” capacity to “knock down false narratives” and will focus on “hot spots” around the country where conflicts with national implications are playing out, Cunningham said.” -- No, Education Post Is Not About Conversation, Curmudgucation 

Independent movement carries Ras Baraka to victory in Newark

Speaking to the crowd, Baraka wished his mother a happy Mother's Day and said he knew his father, who died in January, was "in the room tonight." He urged the crowd to "be the mayor" and work for positive change, a reference to one of his campaign slogans, "When I become mayor, we become mayor." -- AP Wire

Yesterday's historic victory of Ras Baraka over corporate-backed Shavar Jeffries, following on the heels of progressive mayoral wins in New York, L.A. and a string of other cities, has meaning way beyond Newark. Harold Meyerson, writing on Bill Moyers' blog calls it, "the revolt of the cities." Baraka, who served as principal of Central High School, in addition to his duties as councilman, made opposition to school closings and corporate reform an integral part of his platform.

Despite millions of dollars being poured into Jeffries' superPAC by panicked DFER and other corporate school reformers, Baraka was able to ride the power of an independent Working Families movement, built on an alliance between organized labor (teachers and public sector workers in the lead) and the black community. Believe me when I tell you that with the 2015 mayoral race approaching, we here in Chicago are watching Newark closely and hopefully drawing the appropriate lessons.

DUNCAN SILENT...Funny, I don't hear Arne Duncan even mentioning mayoral control these days. Remember when it was his no.1 priority? Now with Corey Booker out, Chris Christie under investigation, Cami Anderson's "One Newark" plan for school closings and charter school proliferation in the toilet, and Chris Cerf gone to work for Murdoch,  the DFER heldge-fund reformers must be in a state of shock and awe.

Max Blumenthal ‏@MaxBlumenthal Tweets:

Baraka's biggest line of the night: Today is the day that we say goodbye to the bosses... We have to keep the schools open. #BelieveInNewark

Lewis: ''We don’t have a pension crisis, we have pension shortfall and a crisis in leadership'

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis' speech Monday, at the City Club

Our members don’t want to wind up in poverty because somebody who just rode into town wants to take away their livelihoods. It’s as if the 1% isn’t satisfied with having most of it. It seems they want it all... [They]  manage by chaos and carnage. These are among the city’s fathers who are calling for our pensions and the destruction of our unions.  Instead of engaging in a public good and being real heroes, by dramatically funding neighborhood schools, helping to ease student debt, and ensuring teachers and other public employees have the resources they need to give our young people a 21st Century, world-class education, our leaders see opportunity in crisis and so they manufacture a great deal of them. 

Karen took it right to 'em. She called for a tax on stock trades and other transactions to help close a pension gap without cutting benefits for retired teachers. She also threw cold water on Rahm's dream of an early contract settlement and reminded everyone that another teachers’ strike could be looming during next year’s mayoral campaign. Chicago isn't N.Y. and Emanuel is no Bill de Blasio. Even there I'm hearing lots of dissatisfaction among rand-and-file teachers, with the recent contract deal between the mayor and the UFT.

"Maybe it's time we send him into early retirement," Lewis said in a luncheon speech to the City Club of Chicago after pointing out the Emanuel administration had overseen the loss of 3,000 educator positions over the last three years... I think all elections need to be contentious, because it means people are involved and engaged in a real democratic process.” -- DNAinfo

Read or watch the entire speech here.

Let Teachers Teach!...Moses, Ayers, Ravitch, Cunningham...

At yesterday's Let Us Teach rally in Pilsen protesting CPS threats to punish teachers who support parents and boycott useless standardized testing (h/t Michael Harrington)

Moses... Good news from DePaul College of Ed Dean Paul Zionts. Civil Rights leader and Algebra Project founder Bob Moses will be this year's commencement speaker.

THANKS to Bill Ayers for being an inspiring guest speaker in last night's final class of the quarter. Congratulations are also in order for Bill who has been voted to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the upcoming AERA convention in Philly on April 4 at 6 pm. Bill says he's worried that such awards mean you're at the end of the line. But I think his best is yet to come.

Last week's NPE Conference in Austin ended with Diane Ravitch's call for congressional hearings on the misuse and abuse of standardized tests used for high-stakes purposes. The Washington Post's Valerie Strauss reports that at a conference in Austin this past weekend, just before the start of SXSWedu, Diane picked up surprising support for her call from Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s former communications director, Peter Cunningham, as well as from AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten.

Diane Ravitch calls for congressional investigation at SXSW.

Speaking of Ravitch... Diane posts at Huffington that the smear campaign against N.Y. Mayor Bill de Blasio is continuing full blast. She does a fact check to counter the B.S. coming directly from charter school hustler and former mayor Bloomberg's pal, Eva Moskowitz.

De Blasio did not abandon charters or evict children from charters. The attacks on him are a power play by charter operators, specifically Moskowitz, to restore the good old days of the Bloomberg administration, when her requests were never turned down. This blowup is also intended to send a message to de Blasio not to mess with charter schools. While it is true that they enroll only 3 percent of New York state's children and only 6 percent of New York City's children, their boards contain the city's financial elite. They can pay millions for a media campaign; they can make $800,000 in campaign contributions to Governor Cuomo, but they refuse to pay rent.

New York public school teacher Brian Jones, who co-produced The Inconvenient Truth behind Waiting For Superman, held his own last night on Chris Hayes' show, defending the Mayor's charter school policies, in a debate with James Merriman, CEO of the N.Y. Charter School Center. You can watch it all here.

Check out the results so far from MSNBC's poll on charter schools. The poll question: Poll: Should more resources be devoted to charter schools? 92% vote NO.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"Obamacare makes you lazy!" - Roy Blunt, US Senator, who will only work 126 days this year.

Lorna Brett Howard, N.Y. Democratic activist

...dismissed concerns that the tax increase [for Mayor deBlasio's proposed universal Pre-K] — a difference of $530 for every $100,000 in income over the threshold — was burdensome. “That is one trip on your private plane to St. Bart’s,” she said. -- NY Times

80,000 at N.C. protest 

Rev, William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP

“You may have thought you were going to discourage us, but instead you have encouraged us. The more you push us back, the more we will fight to go forward. The more you try to oppress us, the more you will inspire us.” -- The Nation

Marybeth Beller, a political scientist at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va.

“I don’t think we’re going to have too many people running in 2014 in West Virginia who are going to be talking about anti-regulation.” -- NYT, One Month After Toxic Spill, West Virginians Face ‘Crisis of Confidence’

 Kathleen Ann, Freelance writer from New England 

I used to have a house. I used to go on vacations. I used to shop at department stores, get my hair done and even enjoy pedicures. Now, I don't. I'm a member of the American "Used-to-Haves." -- Huffington

To be attacked by Eric Cantor is a good thing

Eric Cantor's ratings in the dumper.

Cantor's attack shows that Mayor de Blasio is on the right track. The wing-nut House Majority Leader is simply going to bat for his hedge-fund school reformer friends in N.Y. who have been riding high and raking in public dough under Mayor Bloomberg.

Cantor fancies himself a r-r-revolutionary storming the anti-government barricades in the name of privatization of all public space. He obviously wishes he was old enough to have experienced the '60s.

“America is in the midst of an education revolution," he tells the Brookings Institute, referring to the unfettered growth of privately-run charter schools and school vouchers going to private and church-run schools.The real irony has this self-proclaimed anti-Washington, anti-gummint, local-control advocate trying to bully a city mayor and a local school district.

He's really upset about BdB's promise to make charter operators pay rent for use of public school space. "This move could devastate the growth of education opportunity in such a competitive real estate market like New York City,” he moans.
Cantor appears to have suddenly joined the war on poverty. While working to block every piece of anti-poverty legislation in Congress over the past 6 years, Cantor now claims that,

 "School choice is the surest way to break this vicious cycle of poverty and we must act fast before it is too late for too many.”

He threatens de Blasio:

“Our committees in the House will remain vigilant in their efforts to ensure that no one, no one from the government, stands in the schoolhouse door between any child and a good education.” 

Umm, Cong. Cantor, aren't you "from the government"? What the hell are you doing, coming up from Dixie  telling New Yorkers how to run their schools? You would do better to stay at home in Va. where your party's candidates are currently railing against school desegregation and where your own approval ratings have fallen to 27%. 

And the "schoolhouse door" reference, calling up images of Gov. Wallace really won't fly. Cantor is currently touting the Louisiana Scholarship Program, a school voucher initiative championed by Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) that was the target of a lawsuit by the Justice Department over claims that it impeded desegregation efforts.


BdB has the right answer for Cantor.

“The Republican agenda in Washington doesn’t even scratch the surface of the inequities facing more than a million children in our public schools,” he said in an e-mailed statement. “It’s a dangerous philosophy that turns its back on public education — and it has failed many times before. What public school parents want — and I know because I’m one of them — are real investments that lift up all our kids. That will take big, bold, progressive ideas. And that’s exactly what the people of New York City just voted for.”

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"Hobnobbing with masters of the universe has its limits..." --  Crain's

Greg Hinz

The prototype for the Emanuel mayoralty was Michael Bloomberg's New York: rich guys, bicycle lanes, central control, the whole schmear. Mr. Bloomberg's popularity waned dramatically after his first two terms and his successor, Bill de Blasio, is a liberal who has good relations with unions and minorities. The message to Mr. Emanuel is clear: Hobnobbing with masters of the universe has its limits, however good their advice seems. Running a city takes a wider reach. -- Crain's Chicago Business

Times Editorial

Studies have shown that suspensions and expulsions do nothing to improve the school climate, while increasing the risk that children will experience long-term social and academic problems. Federal data also indicates that minority students are disproportionately singled out for harsh disciplinary measures. -- Zero Tolerance, Reconsidered

Bill de Blasio

 “We start with our values. We start with the positions we took and made public throughout the last year. We will drop the appeal on the stop-and-frisk case, because we think the judge was right about the reforms that we need to make. We will settle the Central Park Five case because a huge injustice was done.” -- N.Y. Times

Carmen Fariña 

“Once I was about to visit a principal who told me, ‘You’re going to love coming here because you can hear a pin drop.’ I said, ‘I better not come because that isn’t going to make me happy.’ ” -- N.Y. Times

Waiting for a Chicago de Blasio?

Interesting piece in yesterday's S-T, "Chicago lefties look for their own Bill de Blasio". Dan Mihalopoulos obviously has his ear to the ground.

A nation — or at least the left-leaning activists of this one big city — is eager to turn its lonely eyes to someone who can take on the Chicago mayor whom lefties deride as “Mayor 1%” and the quintessential DINO (Democrat in Name Only).... Meanwhile, all the talk from the East Coast about combating income inequality, reining in charter-school expansion and other leftist issues has warmed Chicago lefties who see de Blasio as the sort of mayor this city needs instead of Rahm Emanuel.

But Mihalopoulos must understand that it's not just "lefties" or the CTU who want to take out Rahm. His positive ratings are lower than snail shit and there's even a significant section of Chicago's ruling class who have grown tired of the chaos, violence and corruption that have marred the city's image.

Mihalopoulos is right on top of things when he focuses on the lack of a unified labor movement in Chicago. Many of the city's union leaders are still tied to the Democratic machine by a thousand threads. Patronage rules the city council with the exception of a small but energized Progressive Caucus. BdB rode to victory on the strength of an independent political movement, the Working Families Party, led by organized labor. The WFP not only won for de Blasio, it elected dozens of councilmen as well. De Blasio's victory was also mirrored in Rochester with the election of Lovely Warren.

Mihalopoulos writes:

By the end of 2014, we will know whether the self-styled real Democrats of Chicago can transform such rhetoric into action. Before there can be a Chicago incarnation of de Blasio, one or all three of the big anti-Rahm labor groups could have to convert public discontent with Emanuel into the actual political muscle that would support a legitimate challenger, whoever that may be.

What he doesn't say is that there's much more involved in winning City Hall. Big money rules modern day elections and no independent candidate can possibly match Rahm's war chest, filled to the brim by a gaggle of billionaire cronies. But if there is any hope for the 99% in Chicago, it rests with the building of a WFP-style movement with an independent election strategy.

Mihalopouls' piece recalls for me the title of Clifford Odets depression-era play, "Waiting for Lefty" as well as the horrible teacher-bashing film, "Waiting for Superman". Rahm and many of his city council toadies can be had in 2015. But we can't wait for a de Blasio.

Why Duncan had it in for Starr

Starr opposed Duncan testing madness

Here's more on Arne Duncan's direct interference in de Blasio's selection of a schools chancellor. Duncan and his assistant, Jim Shelton (the man from Gates), pressured BdB against the selection of Montgomery County Schools Superintendent Joshua Starr. WaPo education writer Valerie Strauss explains why Duncan felt so threatened by Starr.

Starr, who runs Maryland’s largest school district, just miles from the White House, became nationally known last year when he made a call for a three-year moratorium on high-stakes standardized testing, a central component of Duncan’s school reform policies. Starr said the country should “stop the insanity” of evaluating teachers according to student test scores, calling it a flawed method.

Let's Make a Deal
Having lost the battles, both to prevent de Blasio's election and then to get him to pick a Michelle Rhee-type schools chancellor, N.Y. corporate reformers are now calling for a "truce". Charles Sahm from the right-wing Manhattan Institute writing in the Daily News, calls on the de Blasio administration to "drop its anti-charter plans and rhetoric," make teachers work a longer day for less money and a cut in benefits, and avoid Fariña's "progressive" curricular leanings.
That's not a "truce". It's a surrender.

Outlaws in America

Edward Snowden "has done his country a great service," says yesterday's New York Times editorial."When someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government." I agree.

On de Blasio's Choice

Pedro Noguera

“Mayor-Elect de Blasio has made an excellent choice in picking Carmen Fariña to lead New York’s public schools. For the first time in many years the nation’s largest school system will be led by an educator with a keen understanding of curriculum and instruction, who is committed to actively supporting our public schools.” -- Gotham Schools

Diane Ravitch

 It is a new day in New York City. The era of punishing, blaming, and shaming professional educators is over. De Blasio announced that he will immediately scrap the A-F grading system that Mayor Bloomberg picked up from Governor Jeb Bush. He will initiate a moratorium on school closings and charter co-locations. Watch for more changes in store. This is a great turn of events, not only for New York City, but for the nation. -- Ravitch blog

Working Families Party

 WorkingFamiliesParty @WorkingFamiliesCarmen Fariña - exactly the Schools Chancellor we need to put an end to a corporate, high-stakes testing approach to education -- Tweet

 Northwestern Prof Nadav Shoked

The Chicago experience under Mayor Rahm Emanuel reveals that there is no reason for business interests to lose sleep. Business need not worry, and those opposed to business should rein in their hopes. The structures of American local government law assure that "transformative" mayors will not transform much. -- Chicago Tribune Business Opinion

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

E.L. Doctorow (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

E.L. Doctorow at National Book Awards

We in this room especially have to appreciate metaphor. We're the descendants of writers who saw the sun as Helios' chariot riding across the sky. And yet... when was the last time, hearing the word mouse, that you thought of a small gray rodent? Or heard the word web and thought of a spider? -- "The Promise—and Threat—of the Internet" 

N.Y Times on de Blasio's pick

The choice [of Carmen Farina] reflected Mr. de Blasio’s desire to depart radically from the educational policies of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, including his emphasis on data and his policy of shuttering low-performing schools. -- "Veteran of City School System Is Said to Be Next Chancellor"

Carmen Farina

CUNY Prof. David Bloomfield

“Clearly the teacher evaluation system will be on the table immediately. That would be my day one activity if it hasn’t started already.” -- Carmen Farina to head D.O.E

TFA & KIPP Teacher

 "Five weeks was not enough to create the type of magic that Teach For America describes in its vision. Training was like leading us to the top of a cliff before we had to jump off into the reality of our own classrooms. All I can say is the mountain was high and the fall was hard." -- Julian Vasquez Heilig's blog

How about telling the Tale of 2 Cities in Chicago?

Lovely Warren (left) celebrates victory

The two-cities movement is spreading beyond New York City, where it swept Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio into office. This same focus on inequality is also what led to the election last month of Lovely Warren as Mayor of Rochester.

According to the New York Times:

Warren won election as mayor of Rochester last month with a campaign lamenting what she called the “two Rochesters,” challenged by crime and poverty, but also boasting prosperous neighborhoods.

 The push in New York comes as a variety of elected officials across the nation have begun talking more insistently about income inequality, an issue that has been discussed for some years but has rarely prompted significant action.

This tale of two cities must become the narrative of any serious contender who has the courage and political savvy to challenge Rahm Emanuel and the one-percenters who run the political machinery,  in the next Chicago mayor's race. It's one that will resonate with most of the people in this city and create the basis for successful, independent political movement in the city that can take back Chicago and its schools

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Bill de Blasio

N.Y. Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio

"He [Bloomberg] did not address inequality. He looked away from it. He governed during the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression and he never addressed it. We will decidedly write a new chapter.'' -- USA Today

Donald Gaynes,  Local 597 member

“I used to go down to the union hall and would be there from opening to closing,” said Donald Gayles, 64, who joined the union in 1974 and again in 1999. White workers would come in and get their jobs and leave out, and black workers would still be sitting there.” -- Sun-Times

UFT Pres. Michael Mulgrew

“Publicly, they’re like, ‘Oh, observations are supposed to be about helping teachers,’ ” he said. “But their language and their approach to it and all of their directions to the schools is like, ‘Wink, wink, it’s not about helping them grow, it’s about going after teachers we don’t want.’ ” -- Bumpy Start for Teacher Evaluation Program in New York Schools (NYT)

UNO laying low 'til the heat blows over

Rahm and disgraced UNO leader Rangel (left)

The Reader's Ben Joravsky is at it again. He's still dogging UNO charter school hustlers who have handily ripped off the taxpayers for more than $98 million, thanks to the largesse of Gov. Quinn, Boss Madigan, and Mayor Emanuel.

Ben tells us how UNO uses its non-profit front, UNO Charter School Network, or UCSN, to hide behind while ace Sun-Times reporter Dan Mihalopoulos tries to make them accountable for how they spent all that money. Good luck on that one, Dan.

But at least all the sunlight shining on UNO has forced them to withdraw their bid for even more new charter schools. They are already the biggest private charter operator in the state. I guess Rahm must have told them to lay low for a while til the heat blows over. Rahm really needs to make this one go away before 2015. Good luck on that one, Rahm.

BTW, what ever happened to the feds's UNO investigation? Just asking.

SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS

As newly-elected N.Y. Mayor Bill de Blasio scrambles to find a decent chancellor to run the schools, he finds there's slim pickings. The New York Times reports:

No matter where he turns, it is almost impossible to find someone who has run a large school system in the last decade without having to close failing schools, expand charters or comply with state and federal guidelines on using tests to grade schools and teachers — all hallmarks of the education reform movement championed by Mayor Bloomberg, and all policies that Mr. de Blasio has said have serious flaws.

At least Byrd-Bennett has been dropped from consideration. But there's still got to be someone better than D.C. Rhee wannabe Kaya Henderson.

Stopping the charter invasion

I guess I've become cynical about CPS-run community meetings ever since David Vitale confided to me that they were called simply to rein-in the dissenters. It got worse after CEO Byrd-Bennett completely ignored the 20,000 parents and community members who turned out to opposed her planned school closings.

Wednesday's community meeting about Noble Network and Intrinsic's charter school invasion of the northwest side had all the dama of a done deal. Even though the crowd of teachers (a big group from Prosser), parents and community activists that packed the Northwest Community Church, was overwhelmingly anti-charter, the process is being run by Rahm's pro-charter, anti-union pals, Stand For Children and CPS' Office of New Schools. The N.A.C. group, who will vote up or down on recommendations for the two new charters (one right across the street from Prosser Career Academy) has no real power. The land's already been purchased. The zoning has already been changed. Despite the best efforts from independent Alderman Nic Sposato, it will take a full-scale community rebellion and an elected school board to hold back the expand-or-die charterization of the neighborhood.

One of the high points of the meeting was reading a copy of the Steinmetz student newspaper, the Steinmetz Star. I've had a thing for Steinmetz ever since their Louder Than a Bomb poetry slam team, the Steinmenauts, won the championship a couple of years ago. The newspaper continues the tradition of great writing with a bent towards social justice. The front page headline on the latest reads: STUDENTS FIGHT CPS CHARTER PLANS. I'm pretty sure Byrd-Bennett will send her censorship squad out there as soon as she catches a glimpse.

QUESTION

If CPS is going to introduce a mandatory black studies program, why exempt the charter schools -- the ones who need it the most?

U NORK

New York's newly-elected Mayor Bill de Blasio, hasn't asked me for advice about picking his new school chancellor. But I'll give him some anyway. Dump Michelle Rhee's understudy Kaya Henderson and Chicago school-closer supreme Barbara Byrd-Bennett from your short list. Starr, Alonso ... anybody but these two.

Rahm busts a move. Pushes elected school board off the ballot

Rahm and "Slow Eddie" Burke

Some Thanksgiving thoughts...

I just learned that a group of domesticated turkeys is called a rafter.

Thanks this morning, go out to the handful of stand-up aldermen (those very words have a strange sound leaving my vocal cords) who make up the Progressive Caucus. It must be hard to soar like eagles when you're surrounded by turkeys, meaning the rafter of lickspittles who make up the City Council.

Rahm and his boys pulled another fast one in the Council the other day when he got Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), chairman of the Transportation Committee, to introduce an innocuous resolution placing a non-binding taxi-cab fare hike referendum on the March 18th ballot. Then Ald. Balcer (11th) and "Slow Eddie" Burke (14th) introduced two more resolutions related to gun control.

But what people didn't see was that this filling up of the dance card for March 18th means that there's no room left on the ballot for a referendum on an elected school board.

Rahm and Burke must be high5-ing each other over their shenanigans. But there's more than one way to skin this turkey.

THE PROGRESSIVE WAVE

Speaking of that, I'm giving a drumstick salute to the emergence of a new political movement that has the potential to shake up national and especially urban politics to its foundation. The Nation calls it, "the Progressive Wave", a national trend that has produced powerful grass roots victories, not the least of which was the election of Bill de Blasio in New York. The N.Y. City Council will have also have twenty-one new members, many of them elected with backing from the Working Families Party.

WFP executive director Dan Cantor said, in reference to de Blasio’s presence at the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests, “We are living in the world Occupy made. We are the beneficiaries of what they did in terms of making this [about] inequality, which is from our point of view the core issue of our time.” What OWS did, yes—along with the organizing and electoral infrastructure patiently built by labor and community groups.

Next stop -- Chicago, I hope.