A play-in at CPS HQ. Finally the building is put to good use.
No classes today at CPS. It was parent conferences and report cards pick-up.
So parents and kids went downtown to 125 S. Clark Street, the CPS headquarters and finally put the building to good use.
No tests. No drills.
CPS Security stepped in and enforced the board of education’s “no-bubble” rule.
A rule they do not seem to enforce during the ISATs.
So parents and kids went downtown to 125 S. Clark Street, the CPS headquarters and finally put the building to good use.
No tests. No drills.
CPS Security stepped in and enforced the board of education’s “no-bubble” rule.
A rule they do not seem to enforce during the ISATs.
Tony at the Red Line Tap.
It was a dark and stormy night.
It seemed like Chicago hadn’t had a day without rain for weeks.
“Good for the ducks,” my mom used to say.
“What’ll you have Freddy?” Marty asks.
“Hmmm. How about a cold bottle of Lindemans Gueuze Cuvée René” I said.
“I was guessing that’s what you would be asking for so I happen to have one right here.” She reached down into
Call now. They will vote on whether to gut pensions this week.
The crowd that Audrey Soglin hangs with.
IEA Executive Director Audrey Soglin.
IEA Communications Director Charlie McBarron and I used to be friends.Okay. Not friend friends. We used to be Facebook friends.
But one day I was reading one of his status posts and discovered that IEA Executive Director Audrey Soglin was on the advisory board of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ).
Other members of the NCTQ included Michelle Rhee, Michael Barber (of Pearson), Michael Feinberg (founder of KIPP charters), Eric Hanushek (of the right-wing Hoover Institute), Fred Hess (of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute), Joel Klein (former NY schools chancellor and now working for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation), Martin Koldyke (of AUSL), Wendy Kopp (Teach for America) and more of a similar ilk.
What was the Executive Director of the IEA doing hanging with this union-hating bunch I asked.
I mean, no self-respecting teacher would be seen having a beer with this crowd, let alone sitting on a board of advisors with them.
Charlie immediately unfriended (defriended?) me.
Shortly thereafter Audrey Soglin’s name disappeared from the Advisory board of NCTQ. Scrubbed clean as a
Rahm Emanuel and the myth of invincibility.
Sammy Rayner, Harold Washington and the Reverand Jesse Jackson. 1977.
I think it was back in the 1970s. I was fairly new to Chicago and ignorant of much of its political and social history.
A group of us who were attending a conference at the International House at the University of Chicago were taking a break from all the talk, sitting on the grass of the Midway Plaisance and smoking cigarettes.
We did that in those days.
A middle-aged Black man approached us with a clip-board.
“Hey. I’m Sammy Rayner and I’m running as a Republican for mayor. Would you sign my ballot petition?”
As I said, I was young, new to Chicago and ignorant of its history and had never heard of
Appearing to be invisible: An Oxymoron.
Jim Keating writes a column for the DuPage Connection, the newsletter of the Illinois Retired Teachers Association of DuPage County. The following appears in the May, 2013 issue.
Aristotle said, “Man is a political animal.” Tip O’Neil said “All politics is local.” So where are our local politicians? Why aren’t they at our luncheons? Why aren’t our local politicians in front of us at our luncheons so they can see that we are human beings and we are all of voting age and we vote.They are ignoring us at their own peril.
Our elected officials should appear before us at our luncheons at sometime during the year so they see us and hear from us and then support us so that we can rely on the pensions we worked hard to earn.
May is the only month that we meet when they have an “excused absence”.They are in session in Springfield then.
We have asked them to come before us in April, June, September, October, and December when they are back in their home districts but our elected state officials in DuPage, Will, and Kane counties are unavailable. They have more important things to do than to listen to our concerns.
