Cracks in the pavement
The mayor had no trouble getting his hand-picked gaggle of billionaires and their toadies on the school board to unanimously vote for more school closings and turnarounds. But it's become clear that mounting protests have begun to create some space for dissent among the minions. Media coverage of the protests seems to have moved somewhat out of the hands of Rahm's army of highly-paid spinners at CPS."This is Little Rock, 1957," Jackson told the board. "This is apartheid."
Latest to join the struggle to stop the closings were two important black, religious community leaders, the Rev.
Chicago school board tells parents: We don't need no stinkin' research
The board decided to ignore the research and a week of protests (including a march on Monday to the mayor's house) and voted to close five elementary schools, phase out one high school and "turn around" 10 schools by firing all the teachers and making them reapply for jobs.
Even Gates doesn't like shaming teachers in public
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| N.Y. Times graphic |
Unfortunately, some education advocates in New York, Los Angeles and other cities are claiming that a good personnel system can be based on ranking teachers according to their “value-added rating” — a
Town says, "frack you" to Anschutz
Phillip Anschutz, bankrolled the anti-public school propaganda film, Waiting for Superman. Now he's financing another film glorifying the so called, "parent trigger", a law which gives a group of parents the power to fire all their school's teachers and hand it over to a private management company. 20th Century Fox is preparing a September release for “Won’t Back Down” starring Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
