Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog:
Schooling in the Ownership Society
Schooling in the Ownership Society
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk
Schooling in the Ownership Society
Bridging Differences
Quick Review: 'Exit Strategy' Looks At A Doomed School
Guest blogger Susan Klonsky reviews Exit Strategy If there has been another theater piece about the impact of school closings, I haven’t heard about it. Ike Holter’s Exit Strategy at Jackalope Theater takes place entirely in the teachers’ lounge of a dilapidated Chicago school slated for closing.There are dazzling moments in this play but I won’t be the spiller of plot twists. The intensity and p
Rahm's boat springs more leaks
‘I’m not an emperor. I do not look good in a toga.’ -- Rahm EmanuelAs we head into the weekend, Little Emperor's gold-plated political ship continues to spring leaks. Even with his giant City Hall damage-control battalion working overtime, Rahm can't catch a media break.His latest proposed boondoggle, to spend millions to turn the Windy City into a f*#k-the-environment, Paris-like City of Lights w
JUN 05
Rahm's new kind of patronage with a new 'partner'
Rahm's new "partner", IG Joe FergusonRAHM ON CHICAGO TONIGHT was like a broken record, last night, letting us know, no less than 6 times, that he and I.G. Joe Ferguson were now working as "partners" to get the city out from under the burdensome and "expensive" federal Shakman decree. Problem is, Rahm's other "partners" have included Juan Rangel and his UNO
JUN 04
At the Hideout: Mitchell explains how pension theft is constitutional
It was monthly political junkie night again at the Hideout last night. This time around it was Ben and Mick engaging soon-to-be State Rep. Will Guzzardi, Rep. Christian Mitchell, and AFSCME lobbyist Adrian Alexander. The trio found plenty of common ground in the sense that they were all under 30 and in many ways, represent the future of progressive Democratic politics in the state. Of course, that
JUN 03
Labor vs. Labor: WFP's Endorsement of Gov. Cuomo stinks
Cuomo at pro-charter rally in Albany, joins with charter hustlers & hedge-funders in attack on Mayor de Blasio.“It’s very simple at these political conventions: you either win or you lose. Uh, and I won...” -- Gov. CuomoThe ability of the system to buy-off some union leaders is nothing new. It's been going on since unions were invented. But it's still stunning to watch the process unfold as it
JUN 02
Weekend Quotables
Maya Angelou on Race To The Top James Forman Jr. Angelou kept coming back after that first fundraiser. For 17 years, even when her health was failing and she needed an oxygen tank nearby, she would get on the bus and log the miles from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to D.C. There were no inaugural throngs at our events. No television cameras, no glamour. Just a few kids whom most of the world had
SEC charges UNO with fraud. $37.5M from charter school 'investors"
Once you get past all the rhetoric about "business models" and charters sharing "innovations" with traditional schools, you're left with this.Everyone in Chicago knows that UNO is too big to jail. But that didn't stop the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday from filing a complaint against Juan Rangel's UNO cabal, charging the clout-heavy Chicago charter scho
MAY 30
Zuckerberg is at it again
'The word 'policy' makes us think of politicians and bureaucrats. But what happens when powerful policy-makers aren’t elected or appointed? Today, billionaires are shaping education policy in the United States. Buying political influence—-even legally...' -- Robin RogersVast private donations have brought public dollars with them, giving America’s wealthiest people power over the public agenda th
What's Good for Rich Kids Is Good for Poor Ones, Too
Meier: It is galling when rich people in the ed policy field tell me that class size doesn't matter-and pay a lot to send their kids to schools with half as many students per class as urban schools.
JUN 03
Reform for Other People's Children
Klonsky: What we know for sure is that all over the country, power-philanthropists are making "gifts" to resource-starved school systems.
MAY 29
'Urban' Schools and Other Euphemisms
Meier: It's amazing the lengths to which we will go to avoid the questions that surround poverty and segregation, and how useful instead it has been to focus our animosity on schools.