UPDATE: Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Hang tough Gresham! + The kids are alright

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The kids are alright:

Hang tough Gresham!

A SmallTalk Salute goes out to Principal Diedrus Brown, Ald. Brookins and the Walter Gresham Elementary School community for having the courage to resist Byrd-Bennett's move to hand their school over to the private management company,  AUSL.They're standing on solid ground when they say the resource-starved schools has been making steady progress. In 2004, when Brown became principal,  34.7 percen

by Mike Klonsky / 1h

The kids are alright

Sam Spitz met Teddy Williams at a barber shop, and they documented their story in a film, "The Greens."

I couldn't be prouder of my friend Sam Spitz, a budding young film maker with a good camera eye and a strong social conscience. With film-making activist parents like Jeff and Jennifer Amdur Spitz, neither is any surprise. Sam's first independent, no-budget film, The Greens, is starting to get some play. If you put a camera in Sam's hand and turn him loose in Chicago, he's going to use it to tell some great stories. Here's one of them, picked up by CNN.

I know something about this kid also. Jennifer Klonsky is a wonderful Chicago elementary school teacher, mom, and local rock-and-roller who also created and directs Little Kids Rockat her school. She made a guest appearance Sunday on Live From The Heartland where she tells Katie Hogan how she integrates art and music in and out of her classroom.  Herinterview starts at 4:55.

GOOD READS...Just got my advanced copy of teacher/activistJose Vilson's book, This is Not a Test. Lots of great personal stories about Jose's baptism-under-fire as a New York public school teacher intertwined with his notions of race, class & social justice. I can't put it down.

Jose's book pulled me away (for a moment) from Gregg Kot's I'll