Weiner discipline

Disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner is planning to run for mayor of New York, a position that would also put him in control of the schools. Why New Yorkers would want to put this creep anywhere near school children is beyond me. But then, Mark Sanford was just elected in South Carolina, so what do I know?

(N.Y. Post pic)

Monday, protesting NYC students made it clear that they want no part of Weiner's ideas on public education. Those ideas were laid out in a policy booklet released last month. In the document, titled “Keys to the City,” he wrote that his first educational priority was to “streamline the process of removing troublesome kids from the classroom.” What he would be "streamlining" is Mayor Bloomberg's current policy which emphasizes using suspensions and arrests to enforce school safety.

The students did their homework and found that arrests and suspensions in NYC schools disproportionately and unfairly involve black and Hispanic students.

According to the Times:

“Instead of proposing an ineffective and harmful policy for student safety, you should embrace successful and proven strategies like restorative justice that improve safety, reduce conflict and increase learning,” the groups wrote in a letter to Mr. Weiner, which protesters tried to hand-deliver on Monday. (A doorman would not allow them inside the building, at East 20th Street, but took the letter.)

Aside from keeping Weiner-style discipline out of the mayor's office, how many more reasons do we need to end mayoral control of the schools?

On the removal of Principal Zoila Garcia from Whittier Dual Language School

Parents, teachers, and community members meet to protest the removal Principal Garcia. (Photo: Un-Official Whittier Dual Language School)

To the extended Whittier Dual Language School Family

Whittier Dual Language School, under the direction of Zoila Garcia, was visited before she was abruptly removed by PLV Network Chief Steve Zrike, with no input from the LSC or Whittier School Community, by the one of the national authorities on Dual Language, The Dual Language Education of New Mexico, who participated in an all day instructional round observation in nine classrooms. The DLeNM is an organization that knows more about dual language education than anyone in CPS.

In the report, they wrote the following of our principal, Ms. Zoila Garcia:

"School principal, Zoila Garcia, possesses an exemplary understanding of dual language instruction and programming that she has translated into consistently high quality practices amongst her teaching staff. Principal Garcia and her staff were receptive to the observations and recommended next steps from the instructional rounds team, and had already begun discussing their ideas for the implementation of next steps before the debrief had ended." DLeMN

It begs the question on why Dr. Steve Zrike, pulled the principal from her job at this moment!!! Strange that her contract was renewed only the summer before and now she is gone.

Dr. Zrike now handles the Whittier Dual Language School budget. What surprises does he have in store for our school.

You can't run a Dual Language program by placing someone with no real operational knowledge of Dual Language and rebuilding a program by taking pages from different books on dual language. It doesn't work like that in education. Running a dual language school is about time on task, living and breathing it. Dual Language has to be done right, not light!

Our Dual Language program runs in spite of the lack of resources provided by CPS. Dual Language programs are not just for the more affluent neighborhoods, but for all children. We ask that the larger extended family of Whittier Dual Language School, take time to call to defend our program.

Call CPS CEO Barbara Bird Bennett and ask her to return Ms. Zoila Garcia to Whittier School and support our dual language program. (773) 553-1500

Call CPS Chief of all Networks and tell Dennis Little to return Ms. Zoila Garcia to Whittier School and support our dual language program. 773 553 3430

Cal Dr. Stephen Zrike Jr. and ask him to return Ms. Zoila Garcia to Whittier School, support our dual language program and stop trying to manipulate our LSC.

Chief of Elementary Schools Pilsen-Little Village Network
773 5351900

For more go to The Un-Official Whittier Dual Language School at FB

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Roberts was told to "blow up" and "dismantle" Detroit schools

Roy Roberts, Emergency Manager of Detroit Public Schools 

According to a Detroit Free Press article, he also revealed that when he first entered his job in 2011, he was told to "blow up the district and dismantle it."  -- Huffpost Detroit

Dana Goldstein

 If smaller, themed schools are better for kids -- and there is significant evidence they are -- the question then becomes, how can districts transition to such a system without leaving behind those students who most need help? Crenshaw was already pursuing a themed school-within-a-school reform plan, and it is discouraging, I think, that the Social Justice and Law Academy, whose work was politically and intellectually challenging, will be discontinued, with its leaders dispersed. -- An Activist Teacher, a Struggling School, and the School Closure Movement: A Story from L.A.

Diane Ravitch

Bill Gates is wrong. American education is not “broken.” Federal education policy is broken. -- NPE,  "Zombie Federal Policies"

Rahm Emanuel

"Does anyone have any questions for my answers?" -- Chicago Tribune

Beatrice Dbimimi, Lincoln Park H.S. senior. 

"We're not just a bunch of stoners who wanted to walk out of school. We actually care." -- Huffington

Valerie Strauss

He is blind and he can’t talk, nor can he understand basic information, but, yes, Michael had to “take” the test. -- Washington Post

School closings: What's $122 million among friends?

Wait! I thought closing 54 schools, mainly in Chicago black community was supposed to save CPS $560 million in "avoided costs" over 10 years (the figure they gave ABC News was $600 million).Of course, I never believed any of that. But that's because I never believe anything coming from Rahm's liar-in-chief, Becky Carroll or school-closing 'crat Todd Babbitz. They were born to lie. 

But now, WBEZ has given me one more reason to disbelieve. When they and Chicago Magazine  began questioning CPS about the numbers, the numbers suddenly changed. CPS now claims the number is $438 million.

Where did the other $122 million go? Rahm's people say they made an “honest mistake” when adding numbers. "We don't add so good," says Ald. O'Connor, Rahm's floor leader, who added well enough to find about a million and change to get his sister hired to run the school closing transition of students to now over-crowded receiving schools.

Here's what an unnamed CPS 'crat actually said, according to BEZ' Linda Lutton:

A top CPS official said it’s “intuitive” that closing buildings will save money. “It’s clearly something that will save us money. That’s indisputable,” he said. The district’s press office allowed reporters to speak with him only on background, without printing his name.

The official said it’s not overly important whether the savings from “avoided” capital costs are $560 million or $438 million, because the amounts that matter are the school-by-school savings.  

Right. What's $122 million among friends?

I'm not the only one not buying it. Chicago teachers, parents, students and community activists are planning a 3-day March  for education justice on May 18, 19 and 20 to voice opposition to the mass school closings. The Board is expected to rubber-stamp vote on the closings on May 22nd. Stay tuned for more on this.

The loyal-to-whom? opposition to CORE

Who is Tanya Saunders-Wolfe and why is she using the pages of the anti-union Chicago Tribune to say all these terrible things about Karen Lewis and her hard-charging CORE Caucus, currently leading the CTU?  Answer: I don't have the faintest idea. The reason I don't is, I'm not a union insider. But I do know that I haven't seen her at any of the dozens of citywide events, hearings or protests against school closings, where Karen Lewis was speaking out and forging alliances with parents and community groups.

When thousands of CTU teachers were on strike, fighting for their very survival, Saunders-Wolfe and her "Coalition to Save Our Union" were nearly invisible even though they were invited in to be part the negotiating team by Lewis and her CORE Caucus, who were out in front of the struggle.

Now, suddenly her name is appearing in carefully-planted stories in the Tribune where she is being promoted as the friendly alternative to the "bomb throwing" Lewis in the May 17th union elections.

The truth is that Saunders-Wolfe and her coalition are part of an unprincipled alliance of old-line union sell-outs and even some disgruntled former progressives, who otherwise hate each other and  who were run out of leadership in years past. Now this unseemly alliance is being propped up with lots of money coming from outside sources. One can only guess who's footing the bill for a string of upcoming TV ads blaming the union for school closings and for the wave of teacher bashing and assaults of public employees.

I'm actually glad the two sides will be debating the best direction for the union, in front of the membership. That goes to the heart of union democracy. I also feel confident about the ability of Chicago teachers to figure things out for themselves and decide who should lead them through the difficult struggles ahead.

*****

On a more positive note, hundreds of teachers and staff at UNO charter schools have voted to join the union. Today's Sun-Times reports:

More than 400 teachers and staff at UNO’s 13 schools decided to join the Chicago Alliance of Charter School Teachers and Staff, known as Chicago ACTS, more than doubling its membership in a move national labor leaders hailed as key to their efforts to unionize charter schools. The vote means more than 20 percent of teachers and other staff at charter schools in Chicago now belong to unions, labor leaders said.

The vote at the UNO schools had 87 percent in favor of joining Chicago ACTS, which is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers. Charter school teachers are forbidden by law to be in the same bargaining unit as other CPS teachers.

### 

What the "best and wisest" parents want for their own kids... [Updated*]

Karen and Arne Duncan (U.S. DOE photo)

Back in 2011, I was taken by this open letter from Arne Duncan and his wife Karen to their two children, Claire and Ryan, on the opening of the school year. The letter, cross-posted on the DOE's Homeroom blog and Parenting.com, showed the Duncans as thoughtful and caring parents, deeply concerned about their own children's education, welfare, hopes and dreams for the future. 

The letter gave us some insight into what the former Chicago schools CEO and the nation's second-term Secretary of Education thought was best when it came to public schooling.

Our hope for you this year is that you will be challenged academically. You have some terrific teachers to support you. We want your love of literature to grow, and we’ll do our part by reading to you every night. We hope you will develop critical thinking skills in math, and we promise to help you when you’re struggling and celebrate when you’re succeeding. We would like to see you engaged in learning science, civics, and history, and we will continue to explore the natural world at nature centers, museums, and many of the other great resources in the Washington area. 

We also want you to enjoy so many other enriching experiences that are so important to a complete education. We know you have great music, art, and physical education teachers at your school, and we believe that these subjects are essential for a well-rounded curriculum. And so is recess. We want you to have fun!

I'm sure many of these ideas were formed from Arne's own experience as a young student at the elite University of Chicago Lab School, a place where classes are small, where the arts flourish and where standardized testing is devalued. Mayor Rahm Emanuel sends his children to Lab.

Once at the DOE, the Duncans wouldn't settle for D.C. public schools for Claire and Ryan -- not even when their favorite reformer, Michelle Rhee, became the school chancellor. Instead they bought a house across the Potomac in an upscale Arlington, Va. neighborhood where the schools are top-notch, including small class sizes and lots of dollars spent to keep them that way.

Now comes the news that during Arne's time as Chicago's school chief, the Duncans held a secret list. It included the names of clout-heavy political donors, local politicians and billionaires like Bruce Rauner, who wanted their otherwise unqualified children admitted through the back door to one of  the city's elite selective-enrollment schools. While a strict testing regimen was being implemented across the district, with arts being cut and recess banned, all the VIPs needed to do was make a phone call and either Arne or Karen would put their initials, AD or KD. next to their patron's name, and the back door to top-tier schools like Walter Payton College Prep would open wide.

Over a century ago, Lab School founder and our greatest educational philosopher John Dewey wrote in School and Society:  "What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.”

Arne must have slept through that class at Lab.

MAY DAY! MAY DAY! -- School closings having a 'domino effect'

Waldheim

According to WBEZ reporter Becky Vevea, Chicago school closings are "part of much bigger restructuring effort— one that will affect more than 47,000 students and 132 schools."  Read this and see if you, or anyone else, can figure out this mess.

******

Hey, it's a beautiful May Day, a great day to visit Waldheim Cemetery and the tomb of the Haymarket martyrs and then head over to Union Park at noon for the Immigrant and Worker Rights March and Rally which sets off at 1 PM to Federal Plaza.

******
I went over to Whittier Elementary in the Pilsen neighborhood yesterday afternoon, where dozens of parents and community activists were meeting, to protest the removal of principal, Zoila Garcia. The move by the board came without warning or any input from the school's LSC and is seen by some as a move on the school's dual-language program. More to come on this.

******

Valerie Strauss has an important piece in today's WaPo, "Extreme Common Core rhetoric clouds serious debate." She writes:

Such talk [from right-wing critics] has opened the door for the pro-school reform organization Democrats For Education Reform to try to link anybody who criticizes the Core with the far right. 

****** 

Rahm, Chief McCarthy, and CeaseFire, are all celebrating and trying to take credit for the reported 42% drop in Chicago's murder rate from a year ago. There have been "only" 93 murders this year compared to 161 over the same period last year, says the chief.  But it's way too soon to be celebrating. Last night alone there were 3 people killed and at least 16 wounded in shootings across the city.

###

More trouble for UNO

It keeps getting worse and worse for the UNO charter hustlers. Now that Gov. Quinn has turned off the $98 million spigot, the construction company and its workers have walked off the job, demanding to be paid. UNO's shiny new charter school has been stalled in mid-stream.

According to the Sun-Times: 

Patrick Cermak, the president of general contractor Wight & Co. of Darien, cited unspecified past-due payments in a letter to subcontractors explaining why it was halting work on the new UNO Soccer Academy High School at 51st and St. Louis, which is being paid for out of the state grant.

 The only questions now are, where are the indictments? And, who will UNO bring down with them?

Arne and Karen Duncan's Secret Log

Duncan & Daley used the city's elite schools as patronage.

During Arne Duncan's reign as Mayor Daley's hand-picked schools CEO, he kept a "secret log" to manage requests by clout-heavy political donors and VIPs, to get many of their otherwise unqualified kids into the city's elite "public" schools.

Although the log itself, (requests coming directly from Duncan appear as “AD” on the log. Petitions from Duncan’s wife, Karen appear as “KD” on the log) was only recently revealed by WBEZ, this is not a new story. It only got new legs last week when it was learned that Republican billionaire candidate for governor, Bruce Rauner made his daughter  one of Duncan's back-door clout recipients of a seat at Walter Payton College Prep.

The Duncan family's creative use of public education money has carried over to his policies at the DOE where he doles out billions in Race To The Top dollars to favored school districts based on their acceptance of his failed test-and-punish reform policies, which call for charter expansion, mass school closings, and teacher firings. The result -- the reproduction of a two-tiered school system of winners and losers and with it, a reproduction of the social order. The winners are the favored few. The losers are the rest. The gap grows wider as intended.

CPS secret clout list via WBEZ

TODAY: Support Whittier School's Battle to Keep LSC-Selected Principal Zoila Garcia

Meeting Tuesday, April 30th, 3 PM at Whittier School 

On April 4, 2013, the principal at Whittier Elementary School in Pilsen, was removed by the Pilsen/Little Village Network Chief Stephen Zrike and reassigned temporarily to work from home. Principal Zoila Garcia had been at Whittier for 9 years and her contract was renewed by the Whittier Local School Council last year.

Faculty was informed of the decision on April 4th at 10:00 pm and an important faculty meeting was scheduled for the next morning at 7:15am.

At that meeting, staff were informed and introduce to the new "Administrator-in-charge." Parents were informed that afternoon by letter and then several days later in a meeting to introduce the new administrator.

The move is not supported by the vast majority of parents and faculty. It undermines the Local School Council powers and the democratic process. The community demands the reinstatement of our principal Zoila Garcia.

The Whittier Community will gather in the Xochiquetzal Garden, across the street from Whittier School, 1900 W 23rd St. at 3:00 on Tuesday, April 30 to discuss our next steps.

What's the not-so-hidden curriculum at Walter Payton College Prep?

I know that Payton kids score high on standardized tests. The question is, what are they learning? What's the hidden curriculum?

Payton was in the news twice last week. Once for being the school of choice for the rich and powerful within CPS's two-tier system of supposedly public education. The other for its refusal to allow their baseball team to play a game at predominantly-black Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep in Roseland. Don't you love all this College Prep stuff?

Whether it's billionaire clout monger, Bruce Rauner buying his kid's entry through Payton's back door, from Arne Duncan, or parents' racist elitism (what else could it be? No north-side student has ever been harmed playing sports at Brooks) the school, which admits a third of its students from private elementary schools, has now become a poster child for this city's apartheid education system, a system that will only be reinforced through the mayor's closing of 54 schools, nearly all in the African-American community.

Walter Payton graduated high school in Mississippi in '72.

Kudos to Brooks coach, Herbert Redmond for calling the Payton snub for what it was -- "racism", and to coach Bryan Street for refusing to schedule any more games with Payton's baseball team. As a high school coach myself, I think all our school teams should follow suit and boycott Payton.

Shame on CPS liar-in-chief Becky Carroll and CPS officials who tried to cover-up the incident, telling the press it was a "scheduling and transportation problem."

Payton, which was built on the ruins of the formerly black community around Cabrini Green, should also be forced to change its name. Their actions dishonor the name of Chicago Bears football legend Walter Payton, who graduated high school in 1972 and had to play within Mississippi's segregated system of school athletics. Payton's own school, Jefferson High in Columbia, was "integrated" with neighboring Columbia High School, but Payton and his teammates boycotted spring practice when their head coach, Charles L. Boston, had to take an assistant's job to Columbia's white coach. Payton's battle against segregation left a lasting mark on him as I'm sure it will on many Brooks' snubbed student/athletes.

In fairness, it's not the students who are the problem here. Payton students have a great track record when it comes to speaking out against racism and elitism.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Patronage lives: Ald. O'Connor's sister i hired to run school closing transitions.

Ald. Patrick O'Connor 

“If I had a role in this, she wouldn’t be engaged in the work she’s engaged in."  -- Sun-Times. "Key Chicago Public Schools job for alderman’s sister"

 Matthew Johnson, heads Dewey's Local School Council

"For two days in a row, my son didn't come home with any books because they had to do their inventory, so they basically disrupted the culture of our school and our kids' education." -- DNAInfo

Rene Heyback, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless

"I think 20,000 people have gone through a rigorous series of hearings over 21/2 months and they're getting the message no one is listening. People feel the Board (of Education) will rubber-stamp this." -- Chicago Tribune  

Prof. Paul Tractenberg

What a Catch-22! The worse the state runs the schools, the longer it needs to control them. -- Star-Ledger

Charles Blow

In his State of the Union speech in February, President Obama said that the “true engine of America’s economic growth” is “a rising, thriving middle class.”  It certainly looks as if that engine has stalled. -- New York Times

Has UNO's great charter school heist really ended?

Madigan greased the deal

FINALLY, the state has cut off money to the UNO charter school hustlers. After countless media exposures and with the IG and possibly federal investigators looking around the $98 million swindle pulled off by Juan Rangel and the d’Escoto brothers, Gov. Quinn finally turned off the money spigot -- at least for now.

But Rangel, who co-chaired Rahm Emanuel's 2011 mayoral campaign, still has the so-sue-me look of the cat who ate the canary. Why? Well, for one thing, Quinn's move is too little, too late. UNO hustlers have already pocketed and spent $54.7 million of the money much of it funneled directly to Rangel's pal Federico “Fred” d’Escoto. Fred's brother Miguel d'Escoto, a city transportation commissioner in the Daley administration, resigned from his $200,000-a-year position as UNO’s No. 2 executive after Sun-Times reporter began sniffing out the story.

Another reason Rangel is still smiling -- UNO hustlers think they are too connected to be taken down. They could never have gamed the system without political bosses Madigan and Rahm greasing the deal. 

The problem is that there are thousands of others who are being hurt in the process, including parents, students, teachers, and the entire school community. UNO relies on tens of millions of dollars a year it gets from the Chicago Public Schools to pay back the money it borrowed and to operate its 13 charter schools, with more than 6,500, mostly Latino students. This at a time when the board in closing 54 mainly black neighborhood schools, supposedly for budgetary reasons.

This also coincides with an apparently successful attempt to unionize UNO's teachers. Word is that 80% of them have signed ACTS union cards. See Brother Fred's blog for more on this.

There ought to be more severe consequences for UNO and their political machine backers, Madigan and Emanuel, as well as Rahm's hand-picked school board that approved the deal. There is still a possibility that Quinn will back off and keep the dollars flowing if UNO makes a few cosmetic changes, like shifting around the titles of top execs and removing Rangel from his official leadership post. Not only should that game be rejected, there should be a full pay-back of the million in ill-gottens gains from the taxpayers and criminal charges for this public heist.

###

STUDENT VOICE

Kenyon students pack the college theater to watch plays written by 4th-graders who sat on stage and saw their play performed by college students .

I made the 7-hour drive back from Kenyon just in time to make it to class yesterday. The contrast between this pastoral Ohio campus and Chicago's urban school battlefield was never more striking. At Kenyon I helped advise students on their final projects. One of them, bound for a great teaching career (I hope) worked with 4th-grade public schools students in nearby Mt. Vernon, who wrote plays that were put on before a packed house at the college.

All power to the imagination and performance-based assessment rather than high-stakes standardized testing.

Back in the city, Chicago high school students are learning to find their voice the hard way. Hundreds of them boycotted the tests yesterday and marched at Board headquarters to protest the mass closing of schools in the city's black community. The protest was organized by two groups of students, Voices of Youth, and Chicago Students Organizing to Save our Schools.

The student protests come on the same day that hundreds of the city’s mostly young service industry employees went on strike for higher wages, with some students joining the service workers as they rallied.

At one point, students were kicked out of the district lobby by security officials who said they had failed to register to speak at the school board meeting Wednesday.

The not surprising response from schools CEO Byrd-Bennett:

“The only place that students should be during the school day is in the classroom with their teachers getting the education they need to be successful in life.” 

This from the mayor's hand-picked top bureaucrat, brought into town to shut down those very classrooms and impose the testing regimen that's driving the protests. It was clear that the boycotting students were learning more about the workings of democracy than they ever could sitting in classrooms filling in the bubbles on the test.

Speaking of Wednesday's board meeting, its worth noting that there was actually a no-vote cast  as Carlos Azcoitia  became the lone voice against the expansion of charter schools in the face of the closing of 54 community schools. Thank you Carlos, one of the few real educators on the board of corporate yes men.

Kenyon College

I'm at Kenyon College in Ohio, working with Prof. Peter Rutkoff's American Studies students and reviewing some student final projects. Super-prof Peter's new novel, "Irish Eyes" just came out. It's set in in 60's  N.Y. and tells the story of an Irish family living through those wild and radical times. Be sure and pick up a copy.

Even out here in beautiful, wooded Gambier, I still am battered by the news of another 15-year-old Chicago student, Cornelius German, shot dead blocks from President Obama home. As usual, the Sun-Times simply repeats police description of German as a "gang banger" and for most readers, it's on to the sports section.

Tell me again, CEO Byrd-Bennett and Chief McCarthy, how you're going to "guarantee the safe passage" of every child walking to their receiving school after you close 54 schools in the black community. I really want to know the plan.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

U.S. Reps Bobby Rush and Danny Davis conducted hearings Saturday, on Chicago school closings

Congressman  Bobby Rush

"There is no way that you’re going to heal these neighborhoods. If it was just Henson [Elementary in Englewood]…but you're talking about 53 schools...all at the same time. It is unheard of in the history of this state." -- DNAInfo

Matt Farmer

Chicago’s school “reform” efforts have always worked best on other people’s children. -- Washington Post 

At the hearings (DNAInfo)

Ald. Robert Fioretti

"It has pitted neighbor against neighbor and community against community, having a severe psychological effect," People wonder, "What did my teachers do wrong? What did my principals do wrong? What did I do wrong as a parent, that our school had to close?" -- DNAInfo

Melinda Malone, Clark County School District spokeswoman 

 “We see what’s happening in Chicago and we think, there is a pool of great teachers who will be out of work. If teachers are willing to come to Las Vegas, we’d love to have them.”  -- Medill Reports, (h/t Chaya Rubenstein)

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis 

“We have to stop waiting for other people to do our work for us, so we need to find candidates who are responsive to the entire city of Chicago, not just the downtown business interests." -- CBS Chicago

NYT: More cops in schools wrong approach to school safety

Thank you, New York Times Editorial Board, for affirming what many of us have been arguing for years. School violence is not mainly a policing problem, and adding more cops in schools doesn't make those schools any safer. Instead, it tends to criminalize students, especially students of color, and raises the expectation of violence, contributing to a culture that is antithetical to teaching and learning.

According to today's NYT editorial, "Criminalizing Children":

The National Rifle Association and President Obama responded to the Newtown, Conn., shootings by recommending that more police officers be placed in the nation’s schools. But a growing body of research suggests that, contrary to popular wisdom, a larger police presence in schools generally does little to improve safety. It can also create a repressive environment in which children are arrested or issued summonses for minor misdeeds — like cutting class or talking back — that once would have been dealt with by the principal. 

Children as young as 12 have been treated as criminals for shoving matches and even adolescent misconduct like cursing in school. This is worrisome because young people who spend time in adult jails are more likely to have problems with law enforcement later on. Moreover, federal data suggest a pattern of discrimination in the arrests, with black and Hispanic children more likely to be affected than their white peers. 

'You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.' -- Rahm Emanuel

                  

When the mayor can't find a good crisis, he manufactures his own. Taking a cue from House Republicans, he cooked up a budget crisis that, could only be avoided by shuttering 54 schools in primarily African-American neighborhoods. Despite all the evidence showing that boarded up schools and transporting tens of thousands of kids across dangerous territory, to overcrowded receiving schools, won't fix the city's money mess, the dye has already been cast. The crisis scenario worked. But now we have a real crisis facing us in the fall when schools open -- a crisis created by Rahm.

Lest we forget, this was the same city budget crisis scenario that led to the fast-tracked sell-off  by Mayor Daley, of the city's parking spaces to Parking Meters LLC. That arguably the greatest heist in Chicago since Al Capone.

Yesterday, Rahm used another crisis, the bombing in Boston, a thousand miles from Chicago, to do something he wouldn't have been able to do earlier. He announced that as a result of the bombing, he was going to hand out more contracts to cronies to plant even more security cameras around the city. The City is already up to its ears in camera/contract scandals. If the Boston bombing hadn't happened, Rahm would have simply waited for the inevitable next crisis.

The real rub here is that last week, Rahm's Communications Director Sarah Hamilton accused CTU leader Karen Lewis of "politicizing" the school closings issue after she announced a union campaign to register 100,000 new voters.

And so it goes.

Can someone loan Chicago a city planner? How about you, Kansas City?

Byrd-Bennett

Memo to city mayors from Barbara Byrd-Bennett: 

Someone, please help me. I need to borrow a city planner ASAP. 

Our guy, Babbit or Babbitz, whatever his name is useless. We have no plan. Rahm is making me close 54 schools in the next few months and I don't have the slightest idea what do do with all those boarded-up buildings. Until we can sell them, we will have to spend $1 million a year just to heat and maintain them.

I've been telling angry community folks that this is a cost-saving operation and promised them that the vacant buildings wouldn't be turned over to charter schools. No believes me of course and my credibility rating has sunk lower than Rahm's -- if that's possible. 

We've already sunk the city deeper in debt over the next 20 years by borrowing $360 million from Rahm's banker friends at high interest rates, to make the receiving schools look more attractive. 

Plus, I already have 24 school buildings sitting empty which I've been trying to sell since last summer. So far, no one seems interested. Duh! The longer they sit empty, the harder it is to sell them. Now all I need is dozens more boarded-up buildings blighting the south and west sides and I will have a full-scale rebellion on my hands led by that big fellow over at KOCO. Rahm will blame me for his political woes and send me packing, like he did J.C. 

So please, send someone, quick. How about you, Kansas City? You loaned your own school district a city planner. How about loaning one to me? I hate to think we're modeling ourselves on K.C., but any port in a storm, as they say.

- BBB

Funniest quote of the year

Hamilton

This from Rahm's communications director Sarah Hamilton in response to CTU prez Karen Lewis' call to register 100,000 new voters in time for the 2015 mayoral elections.

“Barbara Byrd-Bennett has proposed a plan for Chicago Public Schools, with Mayor Emanuel’s support, that finally puts our children first. This is simply not the time for politics.” -- Sun-Times

Hilarious! Oh please stop, Sarah. You're killing me.