Saturday coffee.
The dogwood in the backyard is showing its blossoms. The vine is filling in the lattice.
The temperature is expected to hit 80 today. At 8:30 it is already 70.
In about an hour Anne and I will head over to Lafayette School on Augusta in West Town. It is one of the 54 schools Rahm has targeted for shutdown in his plan to close a historic number of neighborhood public schools while opening more charters.
He wants to spend millions on a new basketball arena for the private Catholic DePaul University. But he has no money for libraries, mental health centers and schools.
Karen Lewis was re-elected Chicago Teachers Union president yesterday by a majority that would make the old Mayor Daley senior smile.
Not because he would agree with the politics of the small-d democratic union leader. But because he would appreciate a kick-ass electoral victory.
Lewis and the Caucus of Rank and File Educators had opposition.
Chicago has been the un-Cheers for this sorry bunch. A place where nobody knows their names.
MK Communications, their big-D DemocraticParty-connected PR firm, did a heck of a job.
They were made up of an unholy alliance of past union self-styled reformers and bureaucrats who had the audacity to complain that CORE and Lewis hadn’t done enough to stop the school closings.
We missed the victory party at Reggie’s last night.
But we will be celebrating this morning.
Here is the route and schedule of today and tomorrow’s “Old-Style Civil Rights March.”
Rally Monday at 4 downtown.
The in box. “Enough crap about ‘shared sacrifice.’ We paid and paid. The state did not. What’s happening is theft!”
Fred,
Here’s an email sent on May 16 to SUAA (the association for state university retirees) after a May 15 meeting held at WIU. So far, no response.
We attended the SURS meeting at WIU on May 15, and we are outraged at what we heard.
SUAA must join the Retired Teachers Assn. lawsuit against whatever bill the General Assembly comes up with, as any of those proposals constitute terrible discrimination against the elderly in Illinois, and likely are unconstitutional. They’re also a huge financial hit against the membership.
We hope you are reading the blogs, especially Fred Klonsky’s blog, about these issues. He has it right.
The meeting was appalling. We are forced to make health coverage choices now without complete information. Apparently there will be a do-over in 6 months, at what cost to the state and the