UPDATE: Detroit charter teachers live up to Chavez name + Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: How's all this privatization working for you, Rahm?

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: How's all this privatization working for you, Rahm?:

Detroit charter teachers live up to Chavez name

by Mike Klonsky

Detroit's Cesar Chavez Charter School

Congratulations to the teachers at Detroit's Cesar Chavez Charter School. Chavez teachers, counselors and social workers voted Thursday to unionize the southwest Detroit charter school. The staff voted 88-39 to have the Michigan Alliance of Charter Teachers & Staff, associated with the American Federation of Teachers' state affiliate, become their official bargaining agent.

Today's Detroit News reports: 

Employees at the four-campus academy had pushed for unionization since last year, said Eva Coleman, an English teacher at its high school. "We noticed that parents didn't have a voice, we didn't have a voice," Coleman said. "Only a select group of people made decisions for everyone."

This should put to rest the ongoing debate that Leo Casey and I had with anti-union charter backers --Eduwonk 

How's all this privatization working for you, Rahm?

by Mike Klonsky

I don't think so.

The Skyway, the parking meters, charter schools, and red-light cameras -- all sold off to politically-connected private companies. The result of these get-rich-quick schemes? Some short-term revenue generated at the expense of long-term debt for the city and lower pay for union-less workers. Pockets lined for a handful of friends of the mayor, Boss Mike Madigan or Ald. Eddie Burke. Charter and cyber schools, run by profiteers like UNO, most of which don't do any better or under-perform the neighborhood schools they replaced. The airports are next.

And now a new bunker-buster red-light scandal involving the city's multi-million-dollar contract with the Australian