What? Is Duncan really bailing out on Common Core?

“I believe the Common Core State Standards may prove to be the single greatest thing to happen to public education in America since Brown v. Board of Education.” -- Arne Duncan, June 25, 2013

“I’m just a big proponent of high standards. Whether they’re common or not is sort of secondary.” -- Arne Duncan, April 8, 2014 report to House Appropriation Committee

Stephanie Simon at Politico reports that Common Core is losing it biggest supporter, Sec. of Education Arne Duncan. 

It was less than a year ago that Education Secretary Arne Duncan delivered a no-holds-barred defense of the Common Core in a speech to newspaper editors. He cited example after example of the benefits of common standards: Teachers in different states could use the same lesson plans; children of military personnel could move across country “without a hitch” in their schooling; and, first and foremost, “a child in Mississippi will face the same expectations as a child in Massachusetts.” In short: “I believe the Common Core State Standards may prove to be the single greatest thing to happen to public education in America since Brown v. Board of Education,” Duncan said.

 -- That was then. This was Tuesday: “Just to be very clear with this group,” Duncan told the House Appropriations Committee, “I’m just a big proponent of high standards. Whether they’re common or not is sort of secondary.”

 I don't believe that Duncan was ever bought into all that Mississippi/Massachusetts rhetoric. This latest distancing dance is in fact, Duncan's way of placating his friends on the right who are leery of anything that even smells like big gummint enforcement of civil rights law. While Duncan has consistently ignored critics of CCSS on his left or progressive side, his ear is finely tuned to the right where denunciations of Common Core, and especially of Duncan using federal funds to incentivize the standards, are growing louder.

CIVIL RIGHTS ACT AT 50... It was a half-century ago that Pres. Lyndon Johnson, who was in the habit of referring to African-Americans as "n....s", signed the Civil Right Act, that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. An amazing event I remember well. I'm sure that there will be plenty said by the press and politicians this week about how much or how little progress we've made since then. If you look at the state of Louisiana, where racial segregation and discrimination has moved from law (thank you LBJ but mainly the Civil Rights Movement) to policy (thanks to Gov. Bobby Jindal), it seems like we've even regressed in many ways.

Duncan never had Holder's back in La. 

The second part of Simon's Politico post today is about Atty. Gen. Eric Holder's suit against Jindal and La.'s use of vouchers to roll back attempts at racial balance in public schools.  Simon reports that a federal judge ruled late Tuesday that Louisiana must give the Department of Justice spreadsheets identifying the thousands of students who apply for vouchers so each year, so DOJ can monitor whether the program upsets racial balances in public schools. That's a small victory (I think) and all well and good.

But while we're on the subject of Sec. Duncan, the man who more than anyone else is fond of telling us that corporate-style school reform is the "civil rights issue of our generation", it's significant that Duncan has never had Holder's back on this. Remember Duncan's radio interview on Sept. 14, 2013, when he proclaimed loud enough for Jindal to hear him, that he was opposed to "forced integration." When asked if he supported Holder's civil rights suit, Duncan pleaded ignorance.

If indeed, education is the civil rights issue of our time, it should be clear by now that Arne Duncan isn't the one to lead that struggle. He needs to go.

Packed house at Wishbone to honor ISAT boycotters

Parents 4 Teachers

Jambalaya...We dined at Wishbone last night, along with hundreds of others who came out to honor and support ISAT-boycotting teachers and parents. Great people, food and music.

Question for anti-taxers... Why isn't Rahm's pension "reform" bill considered a massive 29% TAX on public workers and the elderly? Also, the accompanying increase in property taxes will hit retirees and others on fixed income, doubly hard. Finally, we already know that relying on property taxes, rather than a more progressive state income tax, to fund our schools is part of the problem -- not the solution. Asking the wealthy and the state's corporations to pay their fair share would help solve the problem. But Boss Madigan won't do it.

Hammerin' Hank

Earlier this week, the Illinois House and Senate approved Emanuel’s plan to raise property taxes by $250 million and employee contributions by 29% over five years to shore up the Municipal Employees and Laborers Pension funds. Now it's up to Gov. Quinn to sign on as he did with the previous pension-robbing SBI. CTU Pres. Karen Lewis is pressuring Quinn not to sign, but rather to open up negotiations with the unions.

Quotable Hank Aaron... "The bigger difference is that back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts." -- NewsMax

Guess who will be posting with birthday girl (83) Deborah Meier on upcoming Bridging Differences blogs over at EdWeek? I'm renaming it, Burning Bridges. Happy birthday, Deb. I guess I'm your birthday present. You can return it if it doesn't fit.

Florida's Testing Freaks

Florida's test-crazy Gov. Rick Scott and his ed adviser, Michelle Rhee.

If you want to see the depths to which Florida's Dept. of Ed. testing freaks can sink, see Valerie Strauss' story in today's WaPo about a Florida mom Andrea Rediske’s fight to help families of children with severe disabilities. Warning -- it's not a story for the faint of heart.

MORE...And now they're raising the testing bar to cut the number of recipients of the state's Bright Futures scholarships from 1 in 3 to 1 in 8 qualifying students.

"There's only so much money to go around for education. If you're giving a merit-based award, it should be to the top students in the state," said state Rep. George Moraitis, R-Fort Lauderdale.

But according to blogger, Deep Purple Musings,

 Moraitis never misses a chance to propose legislation which lines the pockets of rich charter school operators, now wants to strengthen the hand of big testing companies. The more times a family has to pay for another test, the more money they make. A much better predictor of future success has always been a student’s performance in the classroom. 

AND THEN THERE'S PISA... Yong Zhao tells us how the international testing competition race to the bottom has pushed China off the deep end. His advice to the U.S., whose PISA scores (misleadingly averaging wealthy and poor student scores) is:

Until OECD-PISA became the only employer in the world with PISA scores as the only qualification, I would not suggest lawyers and doctors in the U.S., U.K., or any nation to replace your children’s activities in music, arts, sports, dancing, debates, and field trips with math tutoring. For the same reason, it is not time yet for schools in developed countries to close your swimming pools, burn your musical instruments, end museums visits, or fire your art teachers.

Rahm's two biggest scams

 “Have you changed the way you measure statistics?” one reporter asked.  “I don’t buy the premise of the question,” Emanuel answered and quickly moved on. -- Chicago Magazine

Dancing in the dark

The mayor and his two chiefs, schools CEO Byrd-Bennett and top cop Garry McCarthy, have put together a couple of scams any 3-card-Monte hustler or professional illusionist would be proud of.

The first and most callous is his rigging of crime stats including body counts from Chicago's killing fields, then used to celebrate supposed "record lows" in city gun violence even while shootings in the city's black and Latino neighborhoods were at or near all-time highs. It all laid out beautifully in the first of a two-part series by Chicago Magazine's David Bernstein and Noah Jackson.

Meanwhile, the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil pols on Chicago’s City Council have mostly accepted the police department’s crime numbers at face value. So have most in the media. You can hardly turn on the news without hearing McCarthy or Mayor Rahm Emanuel proclaiming unquestioned: Murders down 18 percent in 2013! Overall crime down 23 percent! Twelve thousand fewer crime victims! “These days, everything is about media and public opinion,” says one longtime officer. “If a number makes people feel safe, then why not give it to them?”

Many officers of different ranks and from different parts of the city recounted instances in which they were asked or pressured by their superiors to reclassify their incident reports or in which their reports were changed by some invisible hand. One detective refers to the “magic ink”: the power to make a case disappear. Says another: “The rank and file don’t agree with what’s going on. The powers that be are making the changes.”

‘We are not going to rest until people feel the reality of these numbers." -- Dec. 15th press conference

CHARTER SCHOOLS LAGGING BEHIND...The second is the great charter-school hustle complete with the big lie about charters out-performing CPS schools. This one provides the rationale for Rahm's school closings and turning CPS buildings and tax dollars over to privately-run charters and their operators.  But according to an examination by the Chicago Sun-Times and the Medill Data Project at Northwestern University, in 2013,

"CPS schools had a higher percentage of elementary students who exceeded the standards for state tests for reading and math than the schools that are privately run with Chicago taxpayer funds". 

That by the way, was true for all CPS-run schools (including the 48 schools closed this year) and also just for traditional neighborhood schools, which don’t require admissions tests or offer specialized courses of instruction.

The analysis included results from 48 traditional CPS schools — almost all of them neighborhood schools — that the city closed after the last school year, citing poor academic performance, declining enrollment and the costs of maintaining aging buildings.

 Yesterday's Sun-Times reports that Rahm, "did a popular political dance — the side-step" — when asked about the report. But the mayor can't dance around this. Most recent polls show that even with all his manipulations of crime data and his charter school illusions, his numbers are sinking and it's clear now that he can be beaten if a credible candidate dares to take him on in 2015.

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.

Hang tough Gresham!

“At least give us one school in the community where AUSL don’t have to take over,” Candace Stigler shouted in the school’s gym. -- WBEZ


A SmallTalk Salute goes out to Principal Diedrus Brown, Ald. Brookins and the Walter Gresham Elementary School community for having the courage to resist Byrd-Bennett's move to hand their school over to the private management company,  AUSL.

They're standing on solid ground when they say the resource-starved schools has been making steady progress. In 2004, when Brown became principal,  34.7 percent of Gresham students met or exceeded state standards, according to the Illinois School Report Card. By 2011, that number had almost doubled to 64.4 percent and Gresham was up to good standing status. But in 2012, the number of students meeting standards dropped to 58.3 percent and the school's good standing status was removed and now BBB is threatening to fire the entire faculty and staff.

Network Chief Elizabeth Kirby told the 200 parents and community members at a Wednesday meeting that Gresham was being proposed for a turnaround because of a "steady decline" in academic performance. -- DNAinfo

Gresham is a small school of 350 students. In schools of that size year-to-year dips and bumps in test scores are common, as 3 or 4 high or low-scoring kids graduate or enter the school. It's one reason why even the test makers don't want schools to use short-term score swings as measurements of school success or failure.

Gresham parents & community members pack meeting.

The problem faced by Gresham and many other neighborhood schools in the south and west sides, is not test scores, but a lack of resources. Even though it's a small school, CPS spent millions of dollars renovating Gresham last summer, a lot of it was spent on installing two elevators, which Brown said the school did not have the disabled population to support. "I don't know any school that has two elevators," says Brown.

Meanwhile, the school has no librarian and, like so many neighborhood schools, is in bad need of a music and art teacher.

Ald. Howard Brookins (21st), whose ward includes Gresham Elementary, is also against the proposal.

"I am going to try and stop it. I am against the school turnaround," Brookins said Thursday. "And I have concerns about [the Academy of Urban School Leadership] taking over the school and cutting out the Local School Council in the process."

The kids are alright

Sam Spitz met Teddy Williams at a barber shop, and they documented their story in a film, "The Greens."

I couldn't be prouder of my friend Sam Spitz, a budding young film maker with a good camera eye and a strong social conscience. With film-making activist parents like Jeff and Jennifer Amdur Spitz, neither is any surprise. Sam's first independent, no-budget film, The Greens, is starting to get some play. If you put a camera in Sam's hand and turn him loose in Chicago, he's going to use it to tell some great stories. Here's one of them, picked up by CNN.

I know something about this kid also. Jennifer Klonsky is a wonderful Chicago elementary school teacher, mom, and local rock-and-roller who also created and directs Little Kids Rock at her school. She made a guest appearance Sunday on Live From The Heartland where she tells Katie Hogan how she integrates art and music in and out of her classroom.  Her interview starts at 4:55.

GOOD READS...Just got my advanced copy of teacher/activist Jose Vilson's book, This is Not a Test. Lots of great personal stories about Jose's baptism-under-fire as a New York public school teacher intertwined with his notions of race, class & social justice. I can't put it down.

Jose's book pulled me away (for a moment) from Gregg Kot's I'll Take You There: Mavis Staples, The Staple Singers and the March Up Freedom's Highway. Kot is the Tribune's great music critic who is obviously taken (as I was) with the power of music in the Civil Rights Movement. Mavis and the Staple Singers are practically a metaphor for the freedom movement which followed the great migration of African Americans from the south to Chicago.

Door cracks open to stripping Rahm of mayoral control of the schools. Travis' near win reverberates.

DID YOU HEAR THAT... The House opened the door ever so slightly Tuesday to stripping Mayor Rahm Emanuel and any of his successors of the sole authority to appoint the Chicago public school system's board of education.  By a 108-5 margin, the House approved legislation sponsored by Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, to create a task force to study whether the board should be appointed, elected or mixed. Ford’s bill now moves to the Senate.

... Some legislators are nervous about voting for Rahm's pension-busting bill because of Jay Travis' CTU-backed near defeat of Christian Mitchell. This according to Chicago Sun-Times Springfield Bureau Chief Dave McKinney who was interviewed by Carol Marin on Chicago Tonight. I confirmed it with McKinney on Twitter.

Mike Klonsky ‏@mikeklonsky 

@davemckinney123 Did u tell Carol M that legislators were worried by CTU-backed near defeat of Christian Mitchell? Or did I hear you wrong?

 Dave McKinney ‏@davemckinney123 

@mikeklonsky I had one House Dem suggest that was a factor giving some heartburn today given where the CTU was on the bill.

Thanks again Jay and CTU for fighting the good fight. It continues to reverberate.

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.

A look at who's being left behind in the 'Race for Results'

An important new report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation highlights the widening gap in opportunity between white and children of color. The report, called "Race for Results," created a new index that uses 12 educational, health, and economic factors to rank how children from major racial and ethnic groups fare in every state.

The report points out that last year, for the first time, more children of color were born in the United States than white children. According to Census Bureau projections, by 2018, children of color will represent a majority of children.

"It is clear that children of color—especially African-Americans, American Indians, and Latinos—are in serious trouble in numerous issue areas and in nearly every region of the country," the report says. "Our nation cannot afford to leave this talent behind in hopes that these problems will remedy themselves."

The report points to unequal access to community resources, good schools, and safe neighborhoods as contributing factors to persistent achievement gaps and health disparities. Many of those problems are rooted in intentional policies from the past, such as Jim Crow laws, that take focused and intentional efforts to undo, the report says. 

American Indian children in South Dakota had the lowest index score of any group in any state—185 out of a possible score of 1,000, the report says.

Race for Results is heavy on good demographic data but light on these very same "focused and intentional efforts" or recommendations for action, including any explicit policy recommendations. There's not even a mention of the impact of No Child Left Behind or Race To The Top on the position of minority students. Not a word about so-called "choice" strategies such as vouchers or the rapid expansion of privately-run charter schools as possible drivers of racial re-segregation.

You can read the full report here.

From Stacey Gates at the CTU: We must protect our pensions

Dear Mike,

In carefully examining the pension "deal" put forth recently by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, we have found that the plan does not, in any way, solve Chicago's pension problem. As we have said many times before, over and over and over again: This is a revenue problem.

Our members are rightfully enraged, as the cuts that the mayor is proposing are just more of the same—more of the same burden being placed on citizens who have endured mass school closings, the closing of mental health clinics, unemployment and continued crime in our neighborhoods.

The worker retiring today under the mayor's proposal, receving $33,423 a year, would receive $40,943 a year in 20 years. In today's dollars, in 20 years, $40,943 will have the same purchasing power as $22,669. We dare the mayor to speak to any of our clerks or paraprofessionals and tell them that this terrible plan isn’t a cut.

This is continued disinvestment in our city, which will send hardworking men and women into poverty with no safety net, as there is no social security for our workers. Dedicated school clerks, teacher aides, lunchroom workers and janitors from the South and West sides of Chicago—workers we depend on—will be harmed by this draconian plan.

The Chicago Teachers Union did not negotiate this bill and were not invited to the table for discussions. We are strongly opposed to this plan and intend to vigorously fight this attempt at pension theft with every fiber of our union.

Let your elected officials know now that this vote is a vote for your present and future! Let them know that you are opposed to this plan and will fight for your retirement savings. Let them know the following:

1. The mayor's proposal is worse than the state's SB1, and clearly unconstitutional, as it will cut pension benefits.
2. The mayor's proposal is another austerity measure that disproportionately impacts women and people of color and negatively impacts Chicago's economy.
3. The mayor's proposal proposal cuts 1/3 of a retiree’s future income.
4. The mayor refuses to propose a revenue stream to solve a revenue problem.


In Solidarity,

Stacy Davis Gates
CTU Political Director

Byrd-Bennett on school closings: Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies

HERE'S A FOLLOW-UP on Friday's post: Mass school closings 'great success', declares Byrd-Bennett. Catalyst reporters Sarah Karp and Melissa Sanchez do a credible job showing that Byrd-Bennett's receiving-school success claims don't match her spin.

In every area, students from closed schools lag way behind and have made less progress than other students throughout the city. The on-track rate for students who did not experience any school actions last year was nearly 60 percent in Quarter 2 of this school year, up 2 percentage points from last year. Those numbers were nearly parallel for students from the welcoming schools, whose graduation on-track rates grew from 57 percent to 59 percent. But students from closed schools have seen an increase of only 0.3 percent, to 48 percent.

Best point from Karp and Sanchez:

Board members, who didn’t ask any questions about the report, lauded the CEO.

What?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CESAR...UT Prof Julian Vasquez Heilig at Cloaking Inequality salutes the legendary UFW leader's birthday  with a Q & A using  César Chávez' own words.

Q: What is your view on the school privatization movement?

A: Who gets the risks? The risks are given to the consumer, the unsuspecting consumer and the poor work force. And who gets the benefits? The benefits are only for the corporations, for the money makers.

I'm still wondering how privately-run charter schools where unions are banned and teachers and work staff are denied collective-bargaining rights, dare to name themselves after Chávez?

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

SAY JAY!...Travis concedes but the coalition that came close to electing her, meets and agrees to continue working together for honest and accountable elected leadership.

Jay Travis

"I could not be more proud of our campaign. I am writing to let you know that I am officially conceding... I look forward to continuing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you in our fight to grow the economy for everyone, to strengthen our neighborhood schools and to govern them democratically, and to ensure that all families can live, work, and retire with dignity and peace. We have only just begun."  -- March 28th Statement

Diane Ravitch

 “They loved mayoral control when it was Mayor Bloomberg, but now it’s a progressive mayor, and they’re gutting it.” -- New York Times

S. Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley 

“It’s not something we want to see happen,” she told The Greenville News.“ We discourage any companies that have unions from wanting to come to South Carolina because we don’t want to taint the water.”… You’ve heard me say many times I wear heels. It’s not for a fashion statement,” she continued. “It’s because we’re kicking them [unions] every day, and we’ll continue to kick them.” -- The Becoming Radical

Gary Orfield, co-director of UCLA’s Civil Rights Project

“The children who most depend on the public schools for any chance in life are concentrated in schools struggling with all the dimensions of family and neighborhood poverty and isolation.” -- Crooks & Liars: Segregation Is Alive And Well In The Cities

Rep. Grijalva, first to support NPE's call for congressional hearings on testing misuse

Rep. Grijalva

Arizona Democrat-Rep. Raúl Grijalva became the first to support the Network for Public Education’s call for congressional hearings into the “misuse and abuse of standardized tests.”  Grijalva, a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, says:

"The need for an impartial and transparent hearing on mandatory testing and privatization efforts directed at public education, is critical.  We need to have an open discussion about the dismantling of public education. I hope the leadership of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives will hold hearings that allow our public schools and the families they serve the opportunity to have an open and honest hearing." 

WHERE'S HILLARY?...Syndicated columnist Jason Stanford, backs Grijalva's stand. He writes:

Since the federal education budget rivals what we spend on defense, it might be nice to examine what we’re getting for all our tax dollars.

But none of that is what is grabbing the national headlines with it comes to education. That honor goes to Hillary Clinton, who just announced she will attend a higher education conference early this week with ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sec. Duncan at the George W. Bush presidential library. The public education advocates opposing test-based reforms are going to need a lot more firepower to convince Hillary she’s hanging out with the wrong crowd.

Your machine politics took a beating, Big Daddy. Get over it.

“Guzzardi was able to walk the district for four years, didn’t have to work, didn’t have to do anything.” -- Joe "Big Daddy" Berrios. 

My only response to Chicago machine boss Joe Berrios, after reading this inane piece in the Sun-Times, is -- You lost, Big Daddy. Get over it. That's right, Will Guzzardi (a "self-styled reformer" according to the S-T) demolished your kid and kicked the crap out of your ward machine and Michael Madigan and his boys who were running her campaign.  Will routed her in every single precinct but one and even ran really strong among Latino voters on your own turf. 

And no, despite what you keep repeating, it wasn't a race between "hipsters and Hispanics." If it was, than Toni would have surely won. Will got a big chunk of the Latino vote and believe it or not, there's no such thing as a hipster vote and Mike Madigan is no Hispanic. Why couldn't you and MM even turn out your own base behind your daughter? Because you ran a shameful campaign, that's why, spreading rumors about your opponent that nobody -- black, white or Latino -- bought into. Meanwhile, Will ran a stronger, smarter race and had a grass-roots, rank-and-file army out in the streets, going door to door and talking about issues that mean more to voters than hipsters vs. Hispanics. 

And no, Will didn't spend the last 4 years "walking around the district." I'm pretty sure he was working most of that time at a job, to keep food on the table and a roof over his head. 

Will Guzzardi at Johnny's Diner in Logan Square

And no, Will isn't a tool of the unions. But he is pro-union, unlike daughter Toni. That's why they supported him. He stood up against the pension cuts, something you and Toni haven't done, and that why the public service workers -- you know, cops, fire fighters, and teachers, supported him and don't support you.

And as for being outspent -- I can't imagine that you, the head of the Cook Country Democratic Party, with backing from not only Madigan, but the Mayor as well, would even admit that you couldn't raise more dough than independent Guzzardi or put a bigger field operation into play. 

You lost Joe, breathe deep and swallow hard. Put it behind you.

Mass school closings 'great success', declares Byrd-Bennett

“None of the negative predictions have come true. In fact the opposite has happened.” -- Byrd-Bennett

How do we know Chicago's mass school closings in black and Latino communities were a "success"? Because Byrd-Bennett declared them such. No one got killed, she says (at least while safe-passage workers were guarding school routes) and GPAs went up at the receiving schools.

Of course she never mentions the hundreds of students who never showed up at their receiving schools and who are MIA. Where did they go? Nobody seems to know.

“There are still 800 students unaccounted for from the entire move last year. These are things that are never discussed publicly that need to be discussed publicly.” -- CTU Pres. Karen Lewis

I think there are much more than 800 MIAs but am still working on it. More to come on this.

We also don't yet know or may never know the long-term physical and psychological affects on the thousands of children and families whose lives were destabilized or on kids with special needs who lost their programs and their relationships with caring adults.  I'm also looking at the consequences from the closings, on the real receiving schools in the mostly poor, low-resourced south suburban communities.

This push-out of black and Latino students and then claiming "improvement" in test scores and behavior is eerily reminiscent of post-Katrina New Orleans when Arne Duncan declared the storm to be "the best thing" for New Orleans schools.

The former Crispus Attucks Elementary School on South Dearborn.

Also going unmentioned is the fact that all but three of BBB's closed schools remain boarded up, unused hulks sitting in already blighted and resource-starved neighborhoods. WTTW's Elizabeth Brackett writes:

The closed schools stand silently across Chicago's neighborhoods. The vacant buildings add to the blight in some of the city's toughest areas. Only three of the more than 43 schools closed by CPS last June are now being reused. CPS Chief Operating Officer Tom Tyrrell admits that finding new uses for the closed buildings is difficult.

“There were supposed to be real estate brokers come to the closed buildings to do a walk-through,” said Cecile Carroll with the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force. “We came here for the Laura Ward visit and there was no one here. We got communications from city officials that it was no longer going to go through. So we're really confused about how that schedule is supposed to move forward.”

But don't worry Cecile and real estate brokers. BBB says it's all good.

Private charter operators are already clamoring to have the properties turned over to them. But remember, BBB promised that none of them would be. But BBB promises a lot of things. Doesn't she?

Now I'm wondering, could leaving all these buildings boarded up be part of a strategy to build pressure for giving them to charter operators? Hmmm.

Ames Middle School parents

SUN-TIMES REPORTS...Supporters of several CPS schools targeted now for [major staff and curriculum changes] rallied Wednesday morning outside district headquarters, and inside, they asked the school board to leave their schools alone. Christina Torres, a supporter of Ames Middle School in Logan Square, asked the board to reconsider its decision to convert Ames into a military school, presenting results of an advisory referendum on the March 18 ballot.

“The results show an astounding 69 percent of verified voters voted in favor of keeping Ames as a community school . . . rather than being converted to a military academy,” she said.

Helen Gym -- Honored at White House as Champion of Change

Gym is being honored by the White House next week. (ALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff Photographer)
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/school_files/Helen-Gym-to-be-honored-by-White-House.html#gOH8brjFTEKd7MVE.99

CONGRATULATIONS to Philly public school activist and parent leader Helen Gym who will be honored at the White House next week. Gym has been named a Chesar Chavez Champion of Change - one of 10 community leaders nationally who have "committed themselves to improving the lives of others in their communities and across the country," people who "represent the values and steadfast determination of Cesar Chavez to organize ourselves for a more just tomorrow."

Gym and the other Champions will participate in a discussion about how to expand opportunities for all Americans, according to a White House news release. The event, scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday, can be streamed live at www.whitehouse.gov/live.

Knowing Helen, I'm sure she will have plenty to say about Philly's mass school closings, privately-run charters and testing madness. In fact, she already has.

We’ve burned through countless dollars chasing after the obsessions and frivolities of this so called “education reform” movement – expensive consultancies, high stakes testing, new standards and curricula, Renaissance schools. We’ve become so obsessed with the structure and management of education that we’ve completely forgotten about the substance and practice of it. -- Washington Post interview

You can follow Helen Gym on Twitter at @ParentsUnitedPA

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"The best way to hold down property taxes is to get school districts and local governments to live within their means." -- Sen. Kirk Dillard

In my post below, I referred to Carol Marin's interview with the man from ALEC, Sen. Kirk Dillard, our so-called "friend of public education," according to IEA leaders. The Chicago Tonight video wasn't up yet when I posted, this morning. It's up now and starting at 2:30, Dillard shows us what a "friend of public education" ISN'T:

A retired educator speaks out. Quinn steps up.

No vote was taken yesterday on the bill to abolish the state's ALEC-initiated Charter Commission. Maybe today. Word is that we need 3 more votes. Still time to call senators: Senator Mike Noland (D-Elgin) - (847) 214-8864 Senator Iris Martinez (D-Chicago) - (773) 463-0720 Senator Dan Biss (D-Skokie) - (847) 568-1250

Thanks go out to John J. Garvey, a retired Chicago public school teacher and administrator, for his powerful piece in Tuesday's Sun-Times, "Is this how we thank our teachers." I doubt that the pension busters in Springfield including Gov. Quinn (certainly not his billionaire political opponent Bruce Rauner) will even bother to read it. But I will share it with my students so they can enter the teaching profession, if they still choose to do so, with open eyes and a heart for struggle.

Quinn's budget speech

SPEAKING OF QUINN, of course I'm still pissed at him for signing SB1 but I liked his budget speech yesterday, calling for a spending proposal that would make permanent the 67% state income tax increase set to expire in 2015 and couple it with property tax relief for homeowners. The plan will hopefully generate enough revenue to increase badly-needed school funding. Quinn offers no real long-term solution to the budget crisis -- like a progressive taxing structure that makes the wealthiest and the corporations pay their fair share and shifting away from reliance on property taxes to pay for education -- but even this short-term patch should help keep schools open and save some teaching jobs.

"You've got to give the governor kudos for having the political courage ... to put the tax issue front and center in an election year when he knows his opponent is going to be screaming from the rafters the opposite message," said Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. "

As expected, Quinn's the speech was savaged by .01%er Rauner. But for me, the most interesting attack on Quinn's budget proposal came from Sen. Kirk Dillard who, in an interview last night with Carol Marin on Chicago Tonight, tried to outdo Rauner in opposing any tax increases and demanding that schools "live within their means" as a solution to the state's budget crisis. Dillard is calling for a billion-dollar cut in Chicago's education budget and for the "scrubbing of Medicaid rolls".

Remember, this is the guy, the man from ALEC, who narrowly lost to Rauner in the Republican primary due in large part to the help he received from the state's unions. They stuffed $3 million into Dillard's war chest and urged union members to cross over and vote for him. He's also the guy that IEA leaders are still calling a "friend of education." What?

What's a nice kid like you doing in a place like this?

Kamryn (left) and her pal Delaney. 

A SMALL TALK SALUTE goes out to Caprock Charter School third-grader Kamryn Renfro who had shaved her head over the weekend to show support for good friend 11-year-old Delaney Clements who lost her hair from chemotherapy. The charter board in its wisdom, voted to kick her out of school until her hair grew back. It seems that baldness violates their school dress code. But Kamryn and her family hung tough, raised hell, got overwhelming public support, a social-media firestorm erupted and the family won a reversal of the ruling allowing her to take her rightful seat back. My only question is, what's a nice kid like Kamryn doing in a charter school run by such creeps? One board member even voted again to expel her.

Prof. JVH

MY FAVORITE UT PROF Julian Vasquez Heilig recalls our appearance on Rag Radio last month in Austin and somehow links me and host Thorne Dreyer to hippie-dom and the beat generation (Fighting for Public Education with the Activist Hippies, the Original Hipsters). He's only partially right. See my comments at the end. But thanks for all you do, Prof. JVH.

FURNITURE MATH...CPS plans to back up the truck at Staples and spend a cool $10 million on furniture for their new digs at the Sears flagship store at Dearborn & Madison. I can't say too much about that since I just bought my own "ergonomic" desk chair at Staples for about 200 bucks. But $10 million? I mean, that's furniture for about 1,200 central office bureaucrats. I'm no mathematician but that comes out to $8,333.33 per crat. OK, I realize that Byrd-Bennett, Col. Tim Tyrell and other top bosses will get nicer, more expensive stuff, but still.

BBB's current office chair obviously won't do.

While I have my calculator out, if they would just spend $5M on new furniture and use the other 5 for classroom needs, that comes out to hiring back  about 100 teachers, librarians & social workers.

For those who don't follow such things, Staples Inc. started with backing from private equity firms including Bain Capital and Bain co-founder Mitt Romney served on the company's board of directors for the next 15 years, helping shape their business model. In 1996, Staples became a member of the Fortune 500 companies as sales surpassed $3 billion.

I take solace in the fact that I'm sitting in a Staples ergo-chair trying my hardest to keep neighborhood schools open and improving, while BBB will be parked in a plush rich Corinthian leather chair behind her new brass-plated desk (I'm sure it won't come from the Staples catalog) plotting how to close them.