TeacherX

Sometimes, I'm just amazed

I'm sorry, but the continued outsourcing of public education in the city and the give away of public property are personal sore points for me. After looking at the list of new schools approved by the board  that can be found at District 299, I don't even know where to start - I'm just amazed that  what the board has been doing seems to flying under the radar. At least the union has been actively fighting the ever increasing number of charter schools and public property giveaways. There are a couple of schools that I want to "highlight"

Austin Polytechnical   Academy, a performance school serving grades 9-12, will offer a   blended curriculum of career prep and college prep with an emphasis   on manufacturing, management and production. Ninth and 10^th-graders   will focus on school-based learning skills, while 11^th and   12^th-graders will gain experience in technology-based companies.   The school will open fall of 2007 at Austin High School, 231 N. Pine.

I've commented on this before, and I still think that this is crap. Austin kids are forced to go accross town to go to school, and their neighborhood scool is being turned into a vocational school that they may or may not have the chance to attend. I have no problem with schools that teach kids skills that can be immediately applicable after high school, but why isn't there a school like Austin Polytechnique being built on the north side? (please note, this is a rhetorical question).

Collins Academy   High School will be a performance high school with a college prep   curriculum offered by the Academy of Urban School Leadership. The school   will eventually become a site for teacher training, where student teachers   will receive intensive mentoring and exposure to best-practice models   for teaching in urban communities. The school will open fall of 2007   at Collins High School, 1313 S. Sacramento. AUSL currently operates   four elementary schools and one high school in Chicago

The kids who went to Collins are now at Manley. "They" took the building as everyone guessed would happen. Like Englewood, a public facility has been placed in the hands of a private operator. Manley is the older school and those kids in the neighborhood will have to go there while the more modern school goes to white and asian college prep kids. I wonder how much the board will spend to "upgrade" Collins while doing nothing over at Manley.

Marine Military   Math and Science Academy will be a performance school and serve   grades 9-12. The curriculum will be a combination of career and college   prep with a math and science focus to prepare students for careers requiring   a math or science background. It will be the first public Marine Junior   Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) high school in the nation. The   school will open fall of 2007 at 145 S. Campbell.

The militarization of the Chicago Public Schools continues.

Hey Arne, let's stop the creeping and just give away the system. Maybe a company will lease cps to some giant conglomerate for 99 years like the city did with the Skyway then the city could just wash it's hands of public education and get to the real business of running the city - giving away chunks of money to one's friends.

Fascism Chicago Style

AGGE: The Rebellion will continue to gain a support in the Imperial
Senate as long as....

           Suddenly all heads turn as Commander Tagge's speech is cut
        short and the Grand Moff Tarkin, governor of the Imperial
        outland regions, enters. He is followed by his powerful ally,
        The Sith Lord, Darth Vader. All of the generals stand and bow
        before the thin, evil-looking governor as he takes his place
        at the head of the table. The Dark Lord stands behind him.

TARKIN: The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us.
I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council
permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept
away.

TAGGE: That's impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control
without the bureaucracy?

TARKIN: The regional governors now have direct control over
territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line.

According to this article in the Tribune the Big Boys who really run things in  Chicago want to make chicago safe for huge multinational corporations to make even more money then previously by creating a city council (if we can even call what we have a city council) that is even less democratic than it is currently.

    The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce,
    which represents 2,600 companies, warned top business leaders they can
    no longer rely on Daley alone to protect their interests

    "Under Mayor Daley's leadership, the business community had,
    effectively, `one-stop shopping' in City Hall," the chamber stated in a
    presentation made at the Oct. 26 meeting of its board of directors.
    "Members of Chicago's City Council were relatively complacent until
    recently."   

    The presentation, contained in an e-mail obtained by the Tribune,
    offers an unusually blunt assessment of Daley's influence during his 17
    years in office. It warns of "decentralizing political power," signaled
    by recent council actions such as passage of the "big-box" minimum wage
    ordinance that Daley later vetoed.   

    The e-mail outlined a short-term strategy for the February city
    elections that targets key races to push its pro-business agenda.   

    But the 17-page plan focuses on a longer-term approach that calls
    for spending $1.2 million a year for political ads, lobbying and
    legislative research through the city elections in 2011.   

    Chamber President Jerry Roper said Thursday that the chamber is
    responding to what it views as "some independence in the council,"
    which he blamed largely on an aggressive political strategy by labor
    groups such as the Service Employees International Union, with 165,000
    Illinois members.   

    "We never want to go to war, but we're preparing for a war if that
    has to take place," Roper said. "We have a great pro-business mayor,
    but we haven't backed him up. Where we should help the mayor is to help
    him have an enlightened council."

So, this is what I understand from the article:  big business leaders in chicago don' t like that the council is mostly a rubber stamp. I guess that they - like Darth Vader and his buddies - would prefer that there be no city council. Since they can’t do what the Emperor did in Star Wars, the Business Big Boys want the government of Chicago to be completely owned by them, and damned if any concerned alderman is going to put up a fight so that the people who actually LIVE IN CHICAGO will have a say in what happens to OUR city.

To these people, an “elightened city council” is a council of people who are enlightened enough see that if they don't do what they are told then they will be forced off of the council. The big business people want a city council that will be enlightened enough to take their big old paychecks and then vote as they are told like good little children once a month and then go home, never to be seen until the next Wednesday council meeting.

    Roper said the chamber would use its own political organization to back pro-business candidates and target aldermen who are deemed unsympathetic to business. He said the chamber might recruit private-sector employees to assume the role precinct workers traditionally have played in Chicago's political campaigns.

So there, you have it - pro-business means pro their business.

Now Fascism could be described as the merging of corporate and state interests in an authoritarian context. This seems to be what they good people of the Chicago Chamber of Commerce want. I hope that 1) The people of Chicago fight this, but they keep voting for Daley, so that probably won’t happen. 2) Unions like the SEIU really do fight back with candidates that are dedicated to making Chicago a city for the people who live in it versus the Chicago envisioned by the corporatist community which would be a city for those who simple want to make a buck and don’t care about the citizens.

Hey everyone

It's Principal for a Day today - everyone smile at the clueless big shots!

Scholarships for some!

This was reported in the Sun-Times as well as other media.

The lede:

All 200 freshmen and sophomores at Chicago's new Social Justice High School now have a huge reason to stay in school and do well.

Roosevelt University is offering them a free four-year ride to college.

Roosevelt is committing to cover the tuition -- worth more than $15,000 this year -- of every graduate in Social Justice's classes of 2009 and 2010 if they apply to Roosevelt and can qualify for admission there.

I'm assuming the social justice school is CPS and not charter? Is it?