Category: Uncategorized

Back to school in Chicago

~ susie

Chicago teachers have voted to suspend their strike and will return to school this morning. The full contract won’t be revealed until after the membership ratifies it:

The vote, with 98 percent in support of suspension, was not a final vote on the union contract but rather an agreement to suspend the strike pending a final vote on the agreement hammered out between Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago school board and the teacher’s union over the weekend.


What remains unclear is which side, if either, emerges from the walkout victorious.


With details of the contract yet to be revealed, we have little to go on beyond the statement of Chicago Teacher’s Union president Karen Lewis who noted, “We said that we couldn’t solve all the problems of the world with one contract and it was time to end the strike.”


Lewis’ remark would suggest that the union failed to get everything it hoped to achieve.


Bilingual elementary school language teacher America Olmeda added, “I think this contract was better than what they offered. They tried to take everything away.”


Also unknown is the impact the hearing set for tomorrow in a Chicago courtroom had on the teachers’ decision to go back to their classrooms. Mayor Rahm Emanuel had brought the court action in reliance on a state law that prohibits teacher walkouts when they are “strikes of choice” rather than a strike designed to address an economic issue.


While it appears that the parties had agreed on a 16 percent hike in salaries over the next four years, the strike was called over the failure of the parties to come to terms on how teacher performance is to be evaluated along with disagreement over union’s demand that teachers who have been laid-off get the first crack at open positions.

Teachers aren’t completely happy with the offer, according to the Chicago Tribune:

The voice vote was taken after some 800 delegates convened at a union meeting hall near Chinatown to discuss and debate a tentative contract. Union leaders had already signed off on the agreement with Chicago Public Schools.


“We said we couldn’t solve all the problems. . .and it was time to suspend the strike,” CTU President Karen Lewis said at a news conference after the vote.


“The issue is, we cannot get a perfect contract. There’s no such thing as a contract that will make all of us” happy, Lewis said.


But “do we stay on strike forever until every little thing we want can be gotten?” she said.


“I’m so thrilled that people are going back, all of our members are glad to be back with their kids. It’s a hard decision to make to go out, and for some people it’s hard to make the decision to go back in,” Lewis said.

Wingnut ‘stink tanks’ and the schools privatization plan

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

What the teachers in Chicago are fighting is a right-wing agenda that’s been in play for a long time, secretly and heavily funded by right wingers and carefully messaged. They’re pretty effective, too, since I hear so many “liberals” repeating right-wing talking points about this strike:

Cato Institute, 1997:

Like most other conservatives and libertarians, we see vouchers as a major step toward the complete privatization of schooling. In fact, after careful study, we have come to the conclusion that they are the only way to dismantle the current socialist regime.”


Bast spells out the agenda,


“Vouchers zero in on the government school monopoly’s most vulnerable point: the distinction between government financing and government delivery of service. People who accept the notion that schooling is an entitlement will nevertheless vote to allow private schools to compete with one another for public funds. That fact gives us the tool we need to undercut the organizing ability of teachers’ unions, and hence their power as a special-interest group.


…Because we know how the government schools perpetuate themselves, we can design a plan to dismantle them.“

Right-wing billionaire Dick DeVos speaking at the Heritage Foundation, 2002:

And so while those of us on the national level can give support, we need to encourage the development of these organizations on a state-by-state basis, in order to be able to offer a political consequence, for opposition, and political reward, for support of, education reform issues.


That has got to be the battle. It will not be as visible. And, in fact, to the extent that we on the right, those of us on the conservative side of the aisle, appropriate education choice as our idea, we need to be a little bit cautious about doing that, because we have here an issue that cuts in a very interesting way across our community and can cut, properly communicated, properly constructed, can cut across a lot of historic boundaries, be they partisan, ethnic, or otherwise.


And so we’ve got a wonderful issue that can work for Americans. But to the extent that it is appropriated or viewed as only a conservative idea it will risk not getting a clear and a fair hearing in the court of public opinion. So we do need to be cautious about that.


We need to be cautious about talking too much about these activities. Many of the activities and the political work that needs to go on will go on at the grass roots. It will go on quietly and it will go on in the form that often politics is done – one person at a time, speaking to another person in privacy. And so these issues will not be, maybe, as visible or as noteworthy, but they will set a framework within states for the possibility of action on education reform issues.”

They couldn’t be any clearer about their agenda: They want to destroy teachers unions and the public school system. This is what the Chicago strike is about. Stand up for public education. Stop falling for the right-wing spin.

Libya

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Here we go:

CNN reports that the United States will send unmanned drones to Libya to look for jihadist camps, as the White House now accepts the belief that the Benghazi attack was the premeditated work of terrorists. U.S. officials say the attack was not a direct assassination attempt on Ambassador Christopher Stevens, but that used the otherwise peaceful protest of an anti-Muslim film as a diversion to infiltrate the area and then strike the compound.

Nic Robertson of CNN reports that the top suspects are the Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades, named after the infamous “Blind Sheikh”, who is currently in jail for orchestrating the original 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The group has claimed responsiblity for previous attacks in the Benghazi area and even attacked the same diplomatic offices back in June. On September 11, al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called for new attacks to avenge the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi, who had been the No. 2 man in the Libyan Brigade.

Seems like there were other interests behind this provocation.

What passes for media these days

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

These patch.com sites are SO erratic in their content, mostly because they let anyone write for them. On the local Main Line site, this was written by Bob Guzzardi.

You remember Bob, don’t you? He was one of the owners of Philly’s VERY gay-friendly 12th Street gym, who caused a huge controversy when he made a fat donation to the very UN-gay-friendly Rick Santorum. He had to sell out his share as a result.

He’s a wingnut gadfly who focuses on supply-side economics and Israel.

Anyway, so he writes this piece attacking local Rep. Chaka Fattah for his work with CORE Scholars, complaining that Fattah gets earmarks for the organization. (At least, I think that’s what he’s saying. He’s a tad incoherent.)

I happen to know something about CORE because Fattah was one of the people running against the guy I worked for in the mayoral primary, and of course we oppo’ed the hell out of him. Short answer: this wingnut is (hard to believe, I know) just plain wrong.

CORE is a GREAT program. Really good. Here’s what they do:

College Opportunity Resources for Education (CORE) is a federal tax-exempt organization designed to provide promise scholarships and college prep assistance to high school students. Our scholarships are only applicable to students who reside in Philadelphia, for now.


CORE is a nonprofit initiative designed to unite communities around the goal of ensuring that all of our children have access to college. CORE was formed in September 2003 under the leadership of U.S. Congressman Chaka Fattah.


Our premier program, the CORE Promise Scholarship, is the first of its kind in the nation to offer all high school seniors – whether from the public, private, charter or parochial systems – in Philadelphia a unique opportunity to attend select Pennsylvania colleges and universities. Over the past eight years, CORE has awarded over 18,000 Philadelphia students a total of more than $27 million dollars. Of our original group of CORE Scholars, 51% ultimately graduated from college over six years. This is impressive to say the least in spite of the fact that Philadelphia’s college degree attainment rate is approximately 10% over ten years, according to the National Student Clearinghouse.