NYT Ignores AFT Survey Results

The American Federation of Teachers conducted a survey of about 30,000 teachers nation-wide.  Survey results, which were recently published, indicate many teachers feel that teaching sucks:

• 86% do not trust their administrator or supervisor
• Only 1 in 5 feel respected by government and media
• 78% feel physically and/or emotionally exhausted by the end of the work day
• 87% say job demands interfere with family life
• Greatest workplace stressors: new initiatives without training, mandated curricula, standardized tests

The NYT recently published an article highlighting the nation-wide teacher shortage. In California, for example, the amount of people entering the profession has dropped more than 55 percent from 2008 to 2012. 

However, the NYT bungles the reason for the teacher shortage, describing it as "a result of the layoffs of the recession years combined with an improving economy in which fewer people are training to be teachers."  So there's a teacher shortage because fewer people are training to be teachers?  Wow. Insightful. 

If the NYT had talked to any teachers or to any unions that represent teachers, they might have realized that many teachers think that their current jobs suck.  We don't know any current teacher, at least in CPS, who would recommend entering the profession to their kids, their nieces and nephews, their younger siblings, their younger cousins or their friends' kids. Correct us if we're wrong.

Profiteer Spotlight: Mark F. Furlong!

Mark Furlong, part of Rahm's latest batch of appointees to the Board of Ed, is a profiteer nonpareil.  LEAP Innovations, a company Furlong was affiliated with, has received a contract extension from the Board for their $ervices. WCT thinks it's time to shine a spotlight on this deft kick-back artist:

1st Notable Profiteer Achievement: Receiving an $18.1M golden parachute payout despite the company he was CEO of, Marshall & Ilsley (M & I), not repaying a $1.7B TARP loan; receipt of bonus was contingent upon loan repayment while he was CEO. Chaaaaa-ching!

2nd Notable Profiteer Achievement: Orchestrating a cheap deal in which M & I, along with its debt, was taken over by BMO Harris. As part of the buyout, the TARP loan was paid by BMO Harris before the deal closed, thus ensuring bonus payout to its executives. Chaaaaa-ching!

3rd Notable Profiteer Achievement: Being offered an executive position by BMO Harris complete with a $6M "transition completion payment" for staying on one year after the 2011 buyout. You guessed it, he stayed. Furlong also collected a $600,000 salary, incentives of up to $800,000 a year, and equity awards of up to $1.1M. Chaaaaa-ching! 

All Chicago politicians rail against, "kicking the can down the road," but Furlong's actions while head of M & I are the very definition of that. Not only did BMO Harris repay a loan that wasn't theirs, but rewarded Furlong's delay with a lucrative deal. The collateral damage left M & I shareholders filing suit for the undervaluing of M & I's stock at the time of sale. 

This is who Rahm Emanuel wants to be a financial steward of our schools?

CPS parents, students, and teachers: you're about to get Furlonged, but good.

Our Treat!

Dyett High School has become a prototype for how the Board of Education attempts to disappear a neighborhood school. Community members have fought the phase out of Dyett, submitted an RFP for a new school, and have requested to meet with the mayor and CPS officials. Their request has gone unanswered by CPS and ignored by the media. The best CPS can do is schedule a meeting on September 15th, after canceling one on August 26th. Twelve community members in an already food-insecure neighborhood are now on day 8 9 10 of a hunger strike.

If CPS or the mayor ever deign to issue a response it will probably be a variation on the theme of, "We're broke," or, "Talk to Springfield!"

Yet, the newly re-linked 2015 Supplier Report shows just how much money Chicago Public Schools is willing to toss around for food (this list doesn't include anything less than $4,000.00), while repeatedly stating they're going broke:

Alonti Cafe & Catering:               $501,044.00
A Tale of Two Chefs Catering:        $8,000.00
A Taste of Class:                            $5,000.00
Ain't She Sweet Cafe:                   $18,807.00
All On The Road Catering:            $59,489.00
Amazing Edibles:                          $56,811.00
Bake For Me:                               $22,794.00
Beggars Pizza Franchises:              $18,409.00    
Biagio's Events & Catering:            $16,344.00
Blue Plate Catering:                       $21,635.00
Buona Catering:                            $12,121.00
Byrons Hot Dogs:                           $4,150.00
Carnitas Don Rafa:                       $37,786.00
Catering Out The Box:                  $28,880.00
Connie's Pizza:                           $144,191.00
Corner Bakery:                             $12,790.00
Corky's Catering:                        $189,715.00
Famous Dave's:                            $13,343.00
Falco's Pizza:                               $13,419.00
Food for Thought Catering:           $29,757.00
Gibson's Bar & Steakhouse:            $4,287.00
Hel's Kitchen Cetering (sic):            $7,810.00
Jason's Deli:                                 $39,370.00
La Catedral Cafe:                           $7,600.00
Lou Malnati's:                              $10,108.00
Lucky Strike Chicago:                    $6,839.00
Maggiano's:                                   $5,556.00
Marcello's Restaurant:                    $6,415.00
Panera:                                        $69,030.00
Perry's Pizzaria:                           $15,035.00
Pompei Bakery:                           $25,324.00
Potbelly Sandwich Works:            $81,546.00
Subway Franchises:                    $208,091.00
Sugarplum Catering:                     $17,647.00
Wishbone:                                   $52,224.00

Food total:                                $1,771,367.00

Yes, these totals likely include food enjoyed by students, staff, and parents at events, meetings or appreciation days. However, if CPS can afford to pay $1,771,367 for catered food then perhaps they can either (1) stop saying they're broke or (2) ask everyone to brown bag it for the foreseeable future in the service of adequately funded schools.

Common Core Analogies Pt. 1

Learning Standards: What students should know and be able to do

Presumption that Common Core is predicated upon: More challenging learning standards will produce higher student achievement.

Analogies for Common Core learning standards' presumption:

• More challenging expectations for Americans' fitness - obesity redefined as a BMI of 28 rather than 30 - will produce a reduction in the nation's obesity level.
• Re-defining a marathon as 30 miles rather than 26.2 miles will produce faster, stronger runners.
• Increased management expectations for a positive worker attitude will produce a happier workforce.
• Stricter gun laws will produce safer communities.
• Reducing women's access to abortion will result in lower rates of child neglect, child abuse and child poverty.
• Telling your daughter that she must now clean the bathroom on Saturday in addition to doing her laundry, vacuuming and dusting will produce better chore completion.

14 Year Old Chicago Assailant Shot by Police

We recently posted on an excellent project called Measure of America which defines and analyzes youth disconnect in cities.  Disconnected youth are defined as those who are "adrift at societies margins, unmoored from systems and structures that confer knowledge, skills, identity and purpose."

Following is a breakdown of information relating to the 14 year old CPS student who was shot on Thursday 8/20 by Chicago police:

Facts on timeline of police events:

1. Police responded to shots fired at 8900 block of S. Escanaba
2. Witnesses informed police that shooters were kids on bikes
3. Police located kids on bikes
4. Police questioned kids
5. Kids attempted to flee, chase ensued, assailant Deguan Curry, 14 years old, pointed gun at officers, Curry shot in legs by police

Facts on Deguan Curry's circumstances:

• At the time of the incident, Curry was in violation of Chicago's curfew laws
• Curry's handgun was illegally obtained
• Curry's mother, Ikyshia Webber, 35, has four children total aged 19, 18, 14 (Curry) and 13
• Webber's pregnancies occurred at the ages of 15, 16, 20 and 21
• Webber stated that on the night of the incident, Curry was in the company of his older brothers (19 and 18)
• Webber stated that her oldest two sons have "not been living with her for some time." She further stated that "They're grown. So what they do, I don't know."
• Curry is scheduled to begin school at CPS on Sept. 8th

Deguan Curry fits the profile of a disconnected youth.  His mother, Ikyshia Webber, fits the profile of a woman who was disconnected in her own youth.  Measure for Measure reminds us that we "spend our time, money and effort fighting the symptoms of youth disconnection instead of addressing its root causes."

This analysis is certainly accurate for CPS, where Deguan Curry can expect to be lectured on college readiness, reaching Common Core standards and the value of grit when he arrives to school on September 8th. And it's also accurate for the media, where condescending enablers will implicitly pin this incident on the police.

Forrest Claypool, Angry Liar

The Better Government Association's Sarah Karp published an op-ed in Monday's Sun Times noting the disparity between the funding of charter and neighborhood schools.

Many differences are noted, but an $11M increase in charter funding with a $146M reduction in funding to neighborhood schools stands out. Within Karp's report, mayoral puppet Emily Bittner calls such comparisons "apples to oranges" because of projected versus actual spending.

Forrest Claypool, feeling the apples to oranges deflection insufficient, has a tantrum in the Letters page. He whines:

"A column published in the Sun-Times this week from the Better Government Association uses faulty math to make wild and inaccurate generalizations about charter and neighborhood school funding."

Faulty math? Perhaps Claypool hopes readers will overlook the city's pension theft and botched contracts.

Wild and inaccurate generalizations?Claypool mustn't have read any comments to any article published about the CTU's contract negotiations in the Tribune

He pontificates:
"Using flawed analysis, the story also falsely claims that neighborhood schools citywide will receive $146 million less than last year." 

Claypool never specifices what is flawed about the analysis, nor does he provide a figure he feels is accurate.

He states the fucking obvious:
"...funding is increasing at both neighborhood and charter schools experiencing rising enrollment and declining at schools with fewer enrolling students."

Thanks for providing the definition of Student-Based-Budgeting, Sherlock.

He parrots Rahm's talking points:
Parent choice. Check! Budget deficit. Check! Pension mandates. Check!

Claypool then has the stones to moralize about transparency:
"In fact, Chicago Public Schools has a transparent and navigable database of school spending information online so that any member of the public can evaluate the data themselves..."

Sure, we trust whatever is online.

Repeat after us: We. Are. Not. Idiots.

Forrest Claypool, Still A Liar

Sun Times, August 10, 2015: 

"CPS already had announced $200 million in spending cuts, including $1 million in cuts from schools CEO Forrest Claypool’s executive office."

“Our goal is to protect pensions and to protect the classroom,” Claypool said during a conference call Monday morning. “To do that, it means everybody’s got to pitch in.”

Sun Times, August 11, 2015:

"In what’s likely to be a blueprint of his plan for the Chicago Teachers Union, Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool will announce Wednesday that the district will no longer pick up pension contributions for its nonunion central office employees."

The pension flip-flop didn't take long. What about the $1M in cuts from the CEO's office?

Tribune, August 21, 2015:

"Chicago Public Schools chief Forrest Claypool has hired another of his former staff members from the CTA, this time an executive charged with oversight of the district's financial operations.

Ronald DeNard, formerly the CTA's chief financial officer, joins CPS on Friday as senior vice president of finance, according to an email Claypool distributed Thursday.

Each of the district's finance-related divisions will report to DeNard, Claypool said in the email. Those responsibilities were previously handled by Chief Administrative Officer Tim Cawley."

Oversight of the district's financial operations? Ginger Ostro, Chief Financial Officer, would be the person who oversees the district's finances. One would assume DeNard will collect a similar $205,000 salary that he earned at the CTA to take up space in CPS management.

If it sounds like Tim Cawley is out the door, don't get too excited. He'll continue his accounting and contractual fuck-ups with seven other departments he oversees:

"Cawley, a former Motorola executive hired by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2011, will continue to supervise seven other administrative departments, according to Claypool's email...Cawley, who is paid $215,000 a year, oversees areas including facilities, food services and technology."

The other CTA hangers-on coming over to CPS:

• Doug Kucia - Claypool's Chief of Staff
• Andrell Holloway - Supervisor of Internal Audits
• Hal Woods - Portfolio Planning and Strategy Director

Six-figure bureaucrats moving from one city organization to another isn't "pitching in." If each of these managers will make a comparable salary at CPS, that's $800,000 back of the $1M cuts Claypool was crowing about ten days ago.

Once again, Forrest, you may think teachers are idiots, but we're not.