WITH POLICE REFORM FLIP-FLOP, MAYOR EMANUEL FAILS LEADERSHIP TEST
Having lived and worked under a flawed system of school accountability institutionalized by the Bush administration in 2002, and wholly embraced by Rahm Emanuel when he took control of Chicago Public Schools in 2011, I find his latest backward decision regarding Chicago Police Department reform profoundly hypocritical. Mayor Emanuel’s rhetoric on school accountability is centered on one key concept: consequences.
As a teacher and principal in CPS under Rahm Emanuel, the “accountability and consequences” ideology meant that my colleagues and I worked under the threat of school closures, poor school ratings, and loss of funding tied to student enrollment. The basic idea being that if there are no consequences, then schools and educators have no real incentive to improve. Although I have some serious issues with the assumptions that underlie this logic, my issues are irrelevant to the topic at hand. What is relevant is the fact that this is the logic that Emanuel embraces: Where there are no consequences, there is no accountability.
This is the logic that Emanuel embraces: Where there are no consequences, there is no accountability.
If he embraces consequence-based accountability for educators, then he should embrace it for himself in terms of holding his own administration accountable for effective police reforms. It was this kind of accountability that the mayor committed our city to in January when he signed an agreement in principle with the Justice Department to negotiate a consent decree that would be overseen by a federal judge who would have the power to hold City Hall accountable by levying consequences should it fail to live up to its promises.
If Emanuel embraces consequence-based accountability for educators, then he should embrace it for himself.
The U.S. Department of Justice stated Chicago’s problems were too “deep,” and With Police Reform Flip-Flop, Mayor Emanuel Fails Leadership Test – Troy LaRaviere's blog:
