As More Details Emerge About Emanuel's Police's 'Blake Site' WBEZ Story Tries to Dampen Fire

*More scandalous, ugly details emerge about Homan Square 'black site' of the Chicago Police Department

*WBEZ Critiques label 'black site'; Some discussion around why the story has had limited exposure
*Activists now protesting the detention and interrogation site, use hashtag,#Gitmo2Chicago

A detailed description of the conditions at the former Sears Roebuck warehouse, now Chicago Police Department facility, has emerged. That there is such a site in and of itself is disturbing. The arrested and detained are just powerless youths of color, in for accusations of criminal behavior; but they are treated as suspected terrorists. At least one appears to have died at the site, while in detention. From DailyKos, February 24, "(MAJOR UPDATE) Chicago Police Have Their Own Black Site to Disappear People - Homan Square":

UPDATE:  Just read this story in Salon The Atlantic which gives further details regarding the Homan Square site in an interview of Tracy Siska, executive director of the Chicago Justice Project who also wrote a story about this for The Guardian.  Excerpts from the Salon interview follow:

Tanya Basu: Why was Homan Square unknown for so long?Tracy Siska: I think it’s because under the law, people have a right to get counsel when arrested or when held but you’re not provided free counsel like a public defender. Mostly who they take to Homan Square are black and brown and poor kids who can’t afford to hire private counsel while they’re in custody. That’s a little nuance in the law that few know about. [...]
Basu: Why wasn't the press covering it?
Siska: I think that many crime reporters in Chicago have political views that are right in line with the police. They tend to agree about the tactics needed by the police. They tend to have by one extent or the other the same racist views of the police—a lot of urban police (not all of them by any stretch, but a lot of them) embody racism. [...]
Basu: Going back to the Guantanamo interrogation techniques associated with Homan Square, and just to be clear: These warehouses aren’t interrogating suspected terrorists, correct?
Siska: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. 99 percent of the people from this site are involved in some form of street crime: gang activities, drugs—urban violent crime. That’s what makes the site even worse. It takes Guantanamo-style tactics on urban street criminals and shreds the Bill of Rights.
Basu: To clarify: What do “Guantanamo-style” tactics entail?
Siska: Isolation, deprivation of food, other outside contact. It’s meant to be a lot of touchless torture. So they’re not touching you, which in the human-rights field is more powerful and scary because it doesn’t leave marks but leaves huge internal wounds. Most of the time, people aren't physically abused. They’re cut off from society, not allowed phone calls, not fed as much. These are just tactics that are more sophisticated in urban-policing tactics.

Siska claims the Homan square site opened around 2006 - 2007 and there may be other, similar sites in Chicago or elsewhere.  She argues that local media in Chicago failed to cover this story, despite it being common knowledge in the "police accountability community," because most of the people detained there are minorities, African-Americas and Latinos who were picked up by units specializing in street crime, gang and drug related activities.  As always, please go and read the entire interview.  

It seems that none of this would have become a national story except for the fact that three young white males - including Jacob Church who spoke on the record  to Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian - were  were  taken to Homan Square. Undercover cops infiltrated groups planning to protest the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago, and brought a case against Church and two others for terrorism that the defense attorneys of those men claim amounted to entrapment. At trial the defendants were found not guilty of the terrorism charge but convicted of lesser offenses, as noted below.

*******

Unbelievable as it may seem, The Guardian is reporting today that the Chicago Police Department operates its own "Black Site" where people are taken, tortured and held in shackles without notification of family or the ability to have a lawyer present.  One man is alleged to have died there after having been beaten.  Shades of the "Disappeared" from the days a military junta ruled Argentina, but its happening here and now in a major city in the United States, and the place is known as "Homan Square."

The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights. [...]
At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and later pronounced dead.

Activities alleged to have occurred there include the following:

1. Detainees are kept out of the official police booking system.
2. Persons in custody are often shackled for long periods of time.
3. Attorneys are denied access to their clients
4. Frequent beatings, causing head injuries
5. Juveniles as young as 15 have been housed there

The facility also houses military-style vehicles.  Defense attorneys, however are well aware of its existence:

Witnesses, suspects or other Chicagoans who end up inside do not appear to have a public, searchable record entered into a database indicating where they are, as happens when someone is booked at a precinct. Lawyers and relatives insist there is no way of finding their whereabouts. Those lawyers who have attempted to gain access to Homan Square are most often turned away, even as their clients remain in custody inside.“It’s sort of an open secret among attorneys that regularly make police station visits, this place – if you can’t find a client in the system, odds are they’re there,” said Chicago lawyer Julia Bartmes.
Chicago civil-rights attorney Flint Taylor said Homan Square represented a routinization of a notorious practice in local police work that violates the fifth and sixth amendments of the constitution.

And just being a protestor can get you arrested and sent there, as Jacob Church, an activist who opposed the NATO Summit in 2012, discovered when he was arrested by police and "disappeared" there:

Jacob Church learned about Homan Square the hard way. On May 16 2012, he and 11 others were taken there after police infiltrated their protest against the Nato summit. Church says officers cuffed him to a bench for an estimated 17 hours, intermittently interrogating him without reading his Miranda rights to remain silent. It would take another three hours – and an unusual lawyer visit through a wire cage – before he was finally charged with terrorism-related offenses at the nearby 11th district station, where he was made to sign papers, fingerprinted and photographed.

Church is now on parole.  He and two other co-defendants were found not guilty of  terrorism charges at their trial, but were convicted on two lesser offenses:   "possessing an incendiary device and the misdemeanor of “mob action”."  Church was the only one of the three willing to talk to the Guardian's reporters. The others refused fearing retaliation from police if they spoke about their experiences at Homan Square.

It is outrageous that the federal government operates such "black sites" around the world.  That one would exist in a major American city, however, run by that City's own police department is more than outrageous to me.  It's downright terrifying.  Who knows if other police departments around the country have their own Homan Squares where anyone of us could be deprived of our constitutional rights with impunity for any reason, or no reason at all.

Please read the Guardian's article about this domestic black site run by the Chicago PD in its entirety.  I assure you, it is well worth the time and effort.  Then ask yourself, if it is happening there, where else in our country might also be operating such sinister and illegal detention sites?

                                                                                    * * *
Just as New York City National Public Radio affiliate WNYC ran slanted education news coverage, sympathetic with the neo-liberal line, pursuing anti-teacher "education reform" (witness this appearance by Merryl Tisch --read the transcript and commentary at "Tisch Blames Adults for Kids' Test Stress"), WBEZ ran enabling cover of the growing scandal with the title, "Chicago Police's so-called 'black site' mischaracterized."
But WBEZ's chastising of the critics puts WBEZ in a very small cohort. It claimed that the site was known to journalists and so it couldn't be considered a secret. But this misses the point: the site has been cited as a place of many violations against the accused. Besides, why would Spencer Ackerman, Guardian reporter, jeopardy his career with a story built on dubious claims? There is commentary in at least the Atlantic article that reporters went easy because many are pro-police. There is another problem: critical reporters run the risk of alienating their police stories should they cover volatile stories. These are problems of principle. If reporters are practicing a cover-up then they are abrogating principles of covering the truth and are suffering from entrapment.
While WBEZ dismissed the story, other outlets acknowledge the story:

Salon - "'I was in a black site': Chicago's policing nightmare -- and assault on people of color: As Rahm Emanuel fights for his political life, let's talk about the detention and abuse of black people in Chicago" 
The Atlantic
Democracy Now
NY Daily News

Coverage of protests over the site:
Chicago Tribune
Guardian
USA Today
WBBM - CBS TV Chicago








IMPORTANT UPDATES, from the Guardian:
As the days progress, more individuals and attorneys come forward about their experience in or knowledge of the facility.

Six people and multiple Chicago attorneys came forward to the Guardian

 this week with detailed accounts of police holding suspects and witnesses for sustained periods of detention inside Homan Square, without public records, access to attorneys or being read their most basic rights – involving what they said included shackling, physical abuse and being “disappeared” from legal counsel and family. The Guardian’s recent investigation into Chicago police brutality began the week before, with a two-part account of the tactics of Detective Richard Zuley, who went from Chicago homicide investigator to Guantánamo Bay torturer.
The Chicago police department, in its only official statement on the swirling allegations, denied the Guardian’s reporting on Tuesday, without giving specifics. In a report on the Guardian’s reporting published on Friday night, the Chicago Tribune characterized local attorneys’ perception of the statement as “laughable”.

Police reform has appeared in Chuy Garcia's campaign to oust Emanuel from office.

Federal legislation has become a loophole through which such abuse has been sanctioned:

Travis McDermott, one of the other lead organizers of Saturday’s protest, spoke about the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows for the military detention of persons the government suspects of involvement with terrorism. McDermott said the NDAA was the primary reason sites like Homan Square remained in operation.
“The main issue,” he said, “is that when individuals are empowered by a contract” – the NDAA – “they have no threat of accountability, they can’t be expected to exercise self-restraint. They can deny and then it’s a battle of confidence between the people who have witnessed it and those protecting it.”
McDermott said he wanted real answers to the allegations about Homan Square, not quick dismissals [as mayor Emanuel has done].

Examples of protesters speaking up at Saturday's protest over the Chicago Police Department's black site facility:

Vetress Boyce, a candidate for alderman in Chicago’s 24th ward, said communities in the city had long been aware of the threat of violent treatment by police.
She said she stood “wholeheartedly” with protesters and supported a public investigation into what she called “torture” at Homan Square. “We hear a lot of what goes on in our neighborhood and in some cases we have stopped marching, we have stopped fighting for those that matter,” she said.
Reverend Gregg Greer, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, called on more people who had spent time inside the facility to come forward. “If the Chicago police department hasn’t gotten anything to hide,” he said, “then open up the doors!”

And Brian Jacob Church, one of the NATO 3 that first came forward to the Guardian early last week, spoke by via McDermott:

CPD officer, filming protesters, Feb. 28, 2015

Brian Jacob Church, the first arrestee to come forward to the Guardian regarding his time inside Homan Square, could not attend the protest but requested McDermott read a statement on his behalf. One of the so called “Nato Three” who travelled to the city to protest a 2012 Nato summit, Church says he was arrested and held for 17 hours at Homan Square in 2012, before being charged and convicted and spending two and a half years in prison.

The NATO 3, detained at Homan Square

“Today you are standing here because basic humanity has been disregarded in the grossest fashion,” McDermott read. “We hear about things like this happening in other countries … but we never expect them to hit so close to home.”

Social media and memes, from the Guardian:

On Friday night, campaigners associated with the Occupy and Anonymous collectives took to Twitter, Instagram and other social-media platforms with the hashtag #Gitmo2Chicago to decry allegations of what users alternatively labeled as a “secret prison” and “torture soon coming to a city near you”.

Rahm Emanuel and some establishment media figures are content to let this story die; but activists will not let this happen.

Explosive Guardian Report: Under Emanuel's Watch: Chicago Police's "Gestapo-like" "Black Site" Facility

(This sort of secret facility is precisely what Bertram Gross warned of in his prescient book, "Friendly Fascism.")
The Manchester Guardian reported of CIA- or Gestapo-like tactics at a "black site" operated by the Chicago Police Department at Homan Square.

*Activists report being 'strapped' in the Homan Square facility
*Activist of the experience: "You're a hostage. It's kidnapping."
*Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin: "We are calling for a Department of Justice investigation into these allegations"
*The Guardian's first investigation broke the story on Tuesday, Spencer Ackerman reporting, "The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden 'black site'", and it reported a shackling for 17 hours
*Activist arrested in a police raid during the city's hosting the 2012 NATO summit: "Nobody knows what happened to you"
--a summit which drew thousands of protesters
*Many detainees were held for 12 to 24 hours, denied federal right of speaking with an attorney; one such detainee was 15 years of age
*Two ex-senior U.S. Justice Department officials called the allegations of police power abuse "very disturbing" and raise constitutionality questions --Guardian story, February 25, 2015
*Official records were not kept; this prevented protesters' relatives and friends' knowing of their whereabouts or safety
*Rahm Emanuel's police department denied the charges on Wednesday
*Beyond the denial, the police department has denied requests for responses from other outlets, as reported by Ring of Fire Radio; this is parallel with Emanuel's refusal to cooperate with multiple requests for any official response re the black site detention center.
*Ironically, in January 2012 the City Council passed the nation's first city resolution banning torture

*As one Guardian commenting reader said, "I didn't know that Chicago was in North Korea"

Read the Guardian's latest report from today, "'Gestapo' tactics at US police 'black site' ring alarm from Chicago to Washington" and Tuesday's initial report: "The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden 'black site'"

Let's hope that rising star and Chicago Teachers Union-backed challenger for April's mayoral election, Jesus "Chuy" Garcia raises the issue of this site in the debate. Emanuel's response will be very interesting. He is a take-charge fellow; but if that is the case how could he put a "I didn't know about this face" on the issue of this Guantanamo on West Fillmore Street?

Why Rahm Emanuel's Set-Back to "Chuy" Garcia is Such a Big Deal

First, just from the political angle, this is a humiliation for Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayor with mountainous hubris.

No Chicago mayoral candidate had to face a run-off since these rules were made in the 1980s. (The run-off rules were made in the context of Harold Washington and his victory in a three-way split of Washington, 37%, Jane Byrne, 33% and Richard M. Daley, 30% in the February 23, 1988 Democratic primary.)

Challenger Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia was able to dent Emanuel's momentum in yesterday's primary.
Emanuel: 45.4 %
Garcia: 33.9%

Emanuel and his business allies expected an easy victory. And the Emanuel campaign rolled in old friend and ally President Barack Obama to campaign for him. (Emanuel had been chief of staff in the early Obama White House.) Thursday, Obama made a speech at an ostensibly historical site (Pullman district) occasion, singling out Emanuel for special praise.

Emanuel developed a big war chest, $30 million, to maintain his spot as mayor.
But Emanuel had made many enemies among ordinary Chicagoans with his education and development policies. As this blog has noted, he closed dozens of schools, and created discord with his education department's sending students across gang lines. Some experts have attributed youth shootings to his school closure policies. 
He has been anti-democratic, displacing the democratic power of an elected school board with his cherry picked one, headed by his developer friend, Penny Pritzker.

Garcia's potent challenge to Emanuel is a delicious news for Chicago teachers and their allies. Garcia's showing can be credited in part to the work and endorsement of the Chicago Teachers Union. Labor Notes cited the CTU role, and reported the story as "Chicago Teachers Force Rahm into a Runoff".

Moreover, this could be the beginning of the end of Emanuel's career, and the end of a banner Democrat for media enablers to point to when pushing the education privatization/"reform" agenda.

"The Square", Casinos' UFT friends and the On-Going Mendacity of de Blasio

*What "The Square" conjures for teacher union activists *More disturbing gestures by Bill de Blasio *Why I am voting left instead of for de Blasio

An important political documentary is in the theaters, "The Square," Jehane Noujaim's documentary on the democracy protests in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt. Noujaim, who nine years ago filmed the "Control Room," chronicles the activities of activists at Tahrir square and the twists and turns in political alignments and the changes in government.  The film is a powerful inspiration on the worth of pro-democracy activism.  I heartily recommend it to activists. It also gives viewers serious pause to the US' policy of giving a billion-plus each year to the Egytian regime. Of the gas and bullets lobbed at protests, of the vehicles running over protestors, I could not help but think that our tax dollars paid for these vicious crimes against our Occupy counterparts in Cairo.

Yet, in the latter part of the film it alludes to members of the Egyptian pro-democracy movement that went over to support the government of Mohammed Morsi. Critics charged that this move gave cover to repressors of democracy.

I could not help but think of the collaborators from the teachers movement, worse, Randi Weingarten, Dennis Van Roekel and Michael Mulgrew, who support the teacher evaluation programs and toxic Common Core State Standards experience that are destroying the teaching profession and American education. (Cravenly, they have accepted money from Bill Gates and other neo-liberal aggressive proponents of corporatized education. Read here and here.) Just as suffer from tanks or trucks literally running over protestors, American teachers suffer from evaluation systems that put complete blame for the state on American education without recognizing the impact of a depressed economic system that has high under-employment and record level income disparity for the industrialized world. As teachers are driven out of the profession out of revulsion and despair, the Weingartens, Van Roekels and Mulgrews of the teachers unions are at fault.

Is it any wonder that teachers are leaving the profession, in disgust and despair, that teachers are looking for alternatives to teaching, not because of the students, not because of the craft of teaching itself, but because of the totallized destruction of the profession, because of the degradation of the esteem of the educator?  The universal acceptance of every questionable tenet of the education "reform" privatization movement on the part of the political class (excepting Letitia James, New York City's soon to be public advocate) and the news media (especially embittering when compassionate liberals like WNYC's Brian Lehrer commit to a black-out of the real reformers of education, those going against the grain of the corporatizing of education) are features that foster further alienation from the standard politics and media.

VOTE NO ON NYC BALLOT QUESTION 1 ON CASINO GAMBLING IN NEW YORK CITY
So, we speak of betrayal of principle. It is very disturbing when we read of fresh, new ways in which the supposed leaders of the teachers unions promote another toxic development. The United Federation of Teachers have generously promoted Las Vegas style casino gambling in New York City to the tune of spending $250,000 from its political action funds to support a referendum on gambling. This has never happened with a free, open discussion by the members. And this advocacy is an expression of callous disregard for the toxic nature of gambling. As an occasional practice, gambling is not so offensive, but for too many it is an addictive undertaking depleting people of their resources. For far, far too many, addictive, problem gambling will cause the sapping of individual or family finances, the spending down of retirement savings, straining their credit lines, the withdrawal of an individual from quality family time in order to spend time with the gambling habit. As an example, in spite of politicians' claim that gambling saved Atlantic City, the reality is grimmer. In a survey by the Atlantic City Rescue Mission, 22 percent of respondents said that gambling was the cause of their homelessness. An early 2000s survey of gambling research indicates that the introduction of legitimate, state-sanctioned gambling locations generally is followed by a doubling of problem gamblers according to a number of measures. 

Emannuel's plans to replace SE Chicago school has teachers, community concerned

From WLS TV:

Gallistel Elementary parents: Upgrade our school before building new one

Click to above link for video

Chicago Teachers Union officials want to know where CPS came up with the money to build a new school on the Southeast Side.

[Mayor Rahm Emanuel ran off before he could answer teachers' and community members' questions.]

From Progress Illinois:

New Neighborhood School Planned For Chicago's Southeast Side

Plans to erect a new neighborhood elementary school on Chicago's far Southeast Side are in the works, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Sunday.

At a news conference at Gallistel Elementary Language Academy, Emanuel said the new school is meant to help curb overcrowding at nearby schools. Other than that, the mayor provided little details about the proposed $35 million dollar school that would be funded in part by the city's tax increment financing dollars and state government. Ald. John Pope (10th), who was also at the news conference and answered some questions when the mayor left, said the school is slated to be constructed at 104th Street and Indianapolis Avenue.

After the news was announced, parents at Gallistel acknowledged that they desire relief from overcrowding at the school. They said students from Gallistel are currently split up among six buildings to help reduce overcrowding. But the parents also raised concerns about what might happen to their school once the new one is built, noting that the Chicago Board of Education voted back in May to shutter 50 neighborhood schools.

Once the new school is built, that means “you’ll have the haves and have-nots” in the neighborhood, said Jose Garza, chairman of Gallistel's Local School Council.

Pope assured the parents that those at Gallistel would not be abandoned. A Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman also told the Chicago Sun-Times after the announcement was made that Gallistel and another community school, Jane Addams Elementary, would see upgrades. The school district is working with principals at both schools regarding the needed improvements.

Chicago's Friday Morning Massacre - the Human Collateral in the War of Testing Over Teaching

CASUALTIES IN WAR OF TESTING OVER TEACHING - SINGLING OUT ACTIVIST TEACHERS? - HEARTBREAK AND CLASS WARFARE - POSTSCRIPT: GANG EXPERT PROFESSOR WARNS OVER SCHOOL CLOSINGS

One backscript lurking behind the story of the mass ejecting Chicago Public School teachers from their positions mid-summer is that this is in a context of a high-flying financial sector economy in Chicago. The Windy City, the magnet of Chicagoland, drawing people from the otherwise troubled former industrial heartland that is the Midwest, sometimes called the Rustbelt (a term I do not prefer as it dismisses manufacturing and industrialism as old hat), is doing well. The Chicago (and disadvantaged cities of Illinois, for that matter) public revenues can do well by taking the public's fair share from the wealthy.

In addition, akin to the old guns and butter debate of military spending versus social needs, we must point out that Illinois' questionable decision to pony along with the Common Core mania has worsened public education's situation. In carrying out Common Core mandates, Illinois is hitching itself to the computerized testing that the test entails, and the computerization expenses that come with it. Namely, note that Illinois is going along with the PARCC program, the computerized test for executing the Common Core. (The test expense itself is making more districts to be wary of the tests. Oklahoma pulled out of PARCC over technology difficulties.) A rising public debate is challenging the Common Core. The key matter is, must we jeopardize educations and careers in the unnecessary rush for commercialized testing?

In short, the funds are there. There is no need to dismiss teachers or support staff. It is a question of priorities.

A second disturbing backscript is one wonders some of these schools and programs are being cut purposely in areas that have key activist teachers. Close a school, slash a program, through a teacher out of her or his program, and conveniently Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel and the education privatizers can (hope to) silence strong voices in the resistance against commercialized education.

Namely, I refer to Xian Barrett, a key activist in the Chicago Teachers Union. He has been a key figure in the Chicago scene and he has traveled out of the region to support teachers in New York City and elsewhere who are engaged in like educational-political struggles. Furthermore, he has been a well-recognized teacher of law and history. So when I read that he was among over 2,000 educators in a mass dismissal Friday morning alarm bells went off in my mind that this could be political scapegoating. Here is a fine piece from the 'Chicago Sun-Times,' from Fred Klonsky's blog yesterday. Note how there is yet another agenda at work here: the replacing of veteran, tenured teachers with less expensive Teach for America recruits (read on these glorified 2 year temps, here, here, here):

Gage Park High School teacher Xian Barrett learned Friday morning he was one of 2,113 Chicago Public Schools employees losing his job from his mother.
Why the principal called his emergency contact instead of his primary number, he isn’t sure. But when Barrett returned the message his mother relayed from his principal, he was read the script thanking him for his service — but pink-slipping him.
“The fact that there’s a script and it has in it, ‘Thank you for the service to the kids’ but no details — the fact that it’s always done this impersonally. It’s not just about firing. It’s how CPS treats their students. They’re interchangeable, and the relationships in their lives are interchangeable,” Barrett, 35, told the Sun-Times Friday. It went better, though, than the first time the district laid him off in 2010, when the principal — who also called his mother — went right into the script.
“The principal laid off my mom,” said Barrett, recipient of a prestigious and national U.S. Department of Education Teaching Fellowship, and a tenured teacher of law and of Chicago history at Gage Park on the Southwest Side. His law class typically spent Monday mornings with a triage of cases kids brought to him that friends or relatives were involved in.
“We get to a point where we’re called to serve the entire community. What I just challenge people to think about is that one teacher who made the difference in your life and what would happen if they were torn out of the fabric of your life,” Barrett said.
Barrett didn’t yet know how many of his Gage Park colleagues were part of the massive layoffs that hit Friday.
In one of the city’s largest teacher layoffs ever, the district pink slipped 2,113 teachers and other employees.
Of those laid off, 1,036 are teachers and 1,077 are support staff, with the laid-off teachers accounting for about 4 percent of last year’s total faculty of 23,290.
Budget cuts are to blame for 815 support staff, 398 tenured teachers and 510 non-tenured teachers; school closings for 68 support staff employees and 194 food staff employees, and changes in school enrollments account for rest, the district said.
Another 161 highly-rated teachers from the 48 schools that closed permanently in June also learned later Friday they will not follow their students to new schools — there aren’t enough open jobs in the receiving schools, according to CPS spokeswoman Kelley Quinn. Their positions have been cut, but they’re not technically laid off since they continue to collect full pay and benefits in a teacher reassignment pool for the first five months of the school year, and slightly lower pay in the cadre substitute pool for the next five months, Quinn said.
The district, which has been saying for weeks it would “minimize cuts to the classroom” while staring down a historic budget deficit, blames the layoffs on a $400 million increase in annual teacher pension payments. Those payments jumped this year from about $196 million a year to about $600 million because a three-year period of pension relief came to an end, CPS said.
In a statement Friday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the cuts “yet another painful reminder to Springfield that we need immediate pension relief.
“With a billion dollar budget deficit, decreased enrollment and ballooning pension costs, CPS has been forced to make extremely difficult choices to put our school district in the best position to be successful next year and beyond,” the mayor’s statement said.
Flanked by teachers and parents Friday afternoon, CTU vice president Jesse Sharkey called the layoffs “outrageous.”
“The school day for students got more than 20 percent longer and yet now we see massive layoffs in the staff that’s supposed to be delivering the educational content that makes that school day better. I don’t see the point of making the school day 20 percent longer and then laying off all the art music, physical education teachers that were supposed to fill the day up with education,” he said. “This is the starving of public schools through insufficient revenue and when the district first said they would be closing 50 public schools in order to save money, I think that was about the right answer…What it means is we’re offering a more and more meagre and a poorer education.”
He seemed doubtful the CTU could restore any of the jobs without major change in Springfield or city leadership, just as the union and its supporters weren’t able to save schools from closing: “The public disagreed with the school closings and yet we couldn’t soften the heart of Pharaoh, those school closings still went through.”
The layoffs come about a month after 850 other employees were laid off — 545 of them teachers — mostly due to the closure of 48 schools.
They include teachers, teacher assistants, clerks, technology coordinators, instructional aides, lunchroom workers and security guards.
Some of the teachers could be replaced by Teach For America recruits, as the district has committed to more than doubling its investment in the TFA program that trains college graduates for five weeks then sends them into schools for two years at a time. The Board of Education voted to increase its payment to TFA from $600,000 to nearly $1.6 million, and to add up to 325 new TFA recruits to CPS classrooms, in addition to 270 second year “teacher interns”.
TFA spokeswoman Becky O’Neill said about 200 of the new recruits are destined for charters, the rest to interview for openings in neighborhood schools.
“We’re looking forward to getting more information and better understanding how all of this impacts the schools and principals with whom we partner,” she said.
Sharkey denounced CPS’ TFA placements “at the same time it’s laying off veterans. This is an organization who started out saying their mission was to serve underserved children with a teachers shortage. There’s no longer a teacher shortage.”
The tumultuous news capped a year of upheaval that included a teacher strike, the implementation of longer school days, mass school closings, budget cuts and a new school budgeting system that grants autonomy – but also tough spending decisions and less money – to principals.
Principals from the affected schools began notifying employees Friday morning. Ruth Augspurger, the art teacher at Carson Elementary School, 5516 S. Maplewood Ave., said she got a call from her principal saying her position was cut – but that’s all she remembers from the shock.
“I believe that every child should have the privilege to have the highest level of education,” the veteran teacher of 9 1/2 years who originally moved to Chicago to attend Art Institute of Chicago, said crying, “so knowing there were many challenges to teaching in this district I decided to stay here for almost a decade.”
Parent group Raise Your Hand called the CPS announcement “a frightening day for the children of Chicago.”
“Our mayor has chosen to prioritize property tax spending on unnecessary and frivolous projects such as $55 million for a stadium for DePaul University, while CPS continues to receive drastic funding cuts that severely impact our children’s ability to thrive and learn,” they said in a statement Friday. “The mayor’s decision not to use TIF money to offset some of these cuts is deeply disappointing and is forcing many parents to leave the city.”

Diane Ravitch posted on the mass dismissals, and pondered whether this brass knuckles move was payback revenge for the Chicago Teachers Union's strike last September.

Veteran educator and activist Lois Weiner writes today in the journal "New Politics"' online blog points out that there are two strategies to pursue, revolt from below pressuring American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten to use her clout with the White House. I agree-- both channels should be pursued. Quite rightly, she calls mayor Emanuel's moves as class warfare. As I note in my late edit below, New York governor Andrew Cuomo is conducting similar class warfare. As Weiner suggests, teacher unions should rethink their financial support for Democratic politicians.

Heartbreak and class warfare, Chicago-style, July 20, 2013

I’d be heart-broken by the layoffs announced by the Chicago Public Schools, (CPS) even if my pal Xian Barrett (in the photo, talking teaching with me at the DC Save Our Schools demo last April) weren’t one of the folks given a pink slip.

By pinning the blame for the layoffs on “the lack of pension reform” Mayor Rahm Emanuel is trying to force the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) to choose between layoffs and cuts to pensions. Meanwhile, the CTU with parent and community allies has brought the district to court to reverse the school closings, tenaciously contested last Spring.

Layoffs are devastating - as are school closings. Can the CTU win this? Or as a reader of my most recent NP seems to suggest, is schooling just too enmeshed in the muck of capitalist social relations for even a good union to counter?

No one has a crystal ball - not me, not readers, and not our enemies. No one knows what the outcome of this struggle will be. This is class warfare, and in wars both sides have wins and losses. The CTU’s strike and its success in building solid, mutually respectful alliances with parents, students, community, and other unions go in the “win” column. So far the weight of those successes has not been sufficient to keep Emanuel and the political elite of Chicago whom he represents from countering successfully with the school closings and layoffs.

What to do now? I think the union needs to adopt two strategies simultaneously. First is turning up the heat “from below.” CTU knows how to organize and staff are likely cooking up a campaign as I write. Maybe a series of rolling strikes? That’s what the two biggest teachers unions in the UK are doing now to push back on the government’s attacks on teachers and public education. (Catch that band playing! Love those hats!) The Bad Ass Teachers Association has a campaign to phone Emanuel's office and demand he call off the layoffs. Nice work, BATS!

The other part of the strategy is “from above.” This means putting pressure on AFT President Randi Weingarten, who has considerable access to the White House, to use her clout, now. After letting the White House know her intention, Weingarten could have a coffee date with Rahm and explain why he can’t tell teachers to choose between pensions and layoffs - not, that is, if he wants a single penny from the AFT for Democrats (who don’t deserve a cent to start, but that’s another blog…) No campaign workers, no phone banks. And a campaign in the AFL-CIO to follow suit.

What if Weingarten doesn’t respond to private pressure? Doesn't want to use her political capital to save the jobs of Chicago teachers? Then we should go public with the demand. Petitions, phone calls, to the AFT national office. Union officials are only as smart and powerful as their members help them to be. Union officers get lots of heat from the media and the politically powerful to be reasonable, that is, make concessions. It’s the job of members to push the other direction, hold our officers’ feet to the fire. By making demands on Weingarten to defend Xian and the other 2000 CPS employees told they've been laid off, we’ll be helping Randi Weingarten to do her job. And by organizing at the schools, with parents, students, and community, the CTU is helping Rahm to be a better Mayor. And boy, does he need help. Until we throw him out.

Let us not sit still. This is not an isolated case. This is a international struggle; this is a international cause.

[Postscript: Linking to Weiner's suggestion that the AFT might consider the threat of witholding support for Democrats, there is the parallel case waiting to be pursued: Teachers and their unions should cut any support to New York governor Andrew Cuomo (1) who worsened teachers' working conditions by applying for Race to the Top, and for (2) imposing a draconian teacher evaluation system; and --in solidarity with state employees overall-- (3) for Cuomo's threatening state employees' retirements with his steady attack on pensions.]

Bravo to the rogue NYSUTer who posted a rogue video contribution on NYSUT's Facebook page. Of course, NYSUT issued a disclaimer and pulled the vide, but not before the New York Daily News ran this story, October 24, 2012, at its "Daily Politics" site: State Teachers Union Links Gov. Cuomo To National Attack On Education

The powerful state teachers union Wednesday launched its harshest attack on Gov. Cuomo and his education policies.
The New York State United Teachers posted a seven-minute video on its political Facebook page that links the Democrat Cuomo’s agenda to the roll back of union rights in Wisconsin and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s education platform.

“Wisconsin wasn’t the end,” the video states. “It was the beginning.”
It then leads into a Cuomo speech on education where he talks of the “failing of our public education system.”
The video disputes Cuomo’s contention that New York is 38th in graduation rates despite being number one in the nation in spending.
It also highlights his attacks on superintendents, principals and teachers before offering a list of his top accomplishments the union considers anti-education.
Among them are changes to the pension system for new government hires, the creation of a 2% cap on local property tax increases, an increase in charter schools, and a new teacher evaluation system.
It even mocks his much quoted contention that the students are the only ones in the education system without a lobbyist.
“I guess the students wanted higher class sizes, program cuts and more standardized tests...because that’s exactly what they got,” the video says.
The video also ties Cuomo’s education agenda to others like Mayor Bloomberg and Romney.
NYSUT in the web posting specifically credits Rep. Tim Bishop of Long Island with voting with the union 100% of the time and chastises his GOP opponent Randy Altschuler for a platform that is “from another planet.”
The video urges union members to band together “or we can fall apart.”
It urges members to sign up for phone banks, talk with neighbors about the issues, attend rallies, and vote.
“We are not Republicans and we are not Democrats,” the video concludes. “We are teachers--and education matters.”
The union in recent days donated $25,000 to the New York chapter of the Democratic Legislature Campaign Committee, a group dedicated to electing Dems to state Legislatures across the country. That's on top of the hundred thousands of dollars that are being spent by the union as an independent expenditure on key state Senate races.
A Cuomo spokesman could not be immediately be reached for comment.

POSTSCRIPTS:
WBEZ Chicago public radio tweeted, July 22 that Chicago Public Schools "could not tell us today how much it is saving by laying off 2,113 school staff."

From Mike Klonsky's blog, July 18, 2013:

Gang expert Hagedorn warns federal judge to stop Chicago school closings

John Hagedorn 

A SmallTalk salute goes out to UIC prof John Hagedorn for speaking truth to power during a second day of testimony before a federal judge who's considering a temporary injunction to stop the district from closing dozens of schools, nearly all in the city's mainly black south and west-side communities.

John, a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Illinois-Chicago's Great Cities Institute and Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, has been researching and writing about Chicago's street gangs from multiple perspectives for decades. He's the author of People & Folks, Gangs, Crime, and the Underclass in a Rustbelt City. This book, published in 1998, re-framed the study of gangs in the United States by focusing on the impact of de-industrialization. He's currently studying why Chicago's homicide rate has not declined like New York City's.

In his 2008 book, A World of Gangs, he writes:

… institutionalized gangs and other armed young men [that] have become permanent fixtures in many ghettos, barrios, and favelas across the globe are an ever present option for marginalized youth. [G]angs are unmistakable signs that all is not well and that millions of people are being left out of the marvels of a globalized economy. 

FOX News reports:

Taking the stand for lawyers opposed to Chicago Public Schools' recent decision to shutter about 50 public elementary schools, John Hagedorn also testified that rival gangs already are posting warnings on Facebook for the incoming children from other neighborhoods to stay off their turf.

"It's already aggravating gang conflicts," he said about the pending closings. And if the closings ahead, added the University of Illinois at Chicago professor, "It is likely a child will be shot and killed."

John told Judge John Lee that it's not a question of whether there will be shooting in neighborhoods kids must walk through. He says shootings are happening now. He adds school closings already are prompting gang Facebook postings warning students to stay away.

"The old times where one gang controlled one neighborhood are gone," he said. "Those changes are what make it especially dangerous to children."

According to the Sun-Times:

Hagedorn displayed gang maps, showing how students would have to cross gang boundaries to get to their new schools and arguing that CPS doesn’t have an effective safety plan in place. For example, he said, children transferred from Pope Elementary to Johnson Elementary in North Lawndale will “literally be walking down a line of fire” on Albany Avenue, where the New Breeds have clashed with rival gangs.

CPS’ “Safe Passage” program, which pays community groups to chaperone children, won’t “protect them from bullets,” he added.

Thanks John.

Chicago Closes 50 Schools in 1 Minute; TFA Will Pick Up the Pieces

[A bright, inspiring figure in the sad events of the school closings and popular reaction last week is the 9 year old student, Asean Johnson, speaking in defense of his school --watch this video. A great speech from a very well-spoken young man; a leader today and likely in the future. Some adults hosting him on network TV need to get over getting the giggles when a 9 year old speaks as astutely as a 29 year old.]

The sad, sad story in Chicago yesterday. Across America, we mourn for Chicago and what the CPS is doing to its schools.

The link to Karen Lewis, Chicago Teachers Union president's statement on the occasion of the school closings.

From democraticunderground, May 23, 2013:
"In less time than it takes to boil an egg" Chicago closes 50 schools.
From the Chicago Sun-Times (May 22):

CPS makes history, closing scores of schools in less time than it takes to boil an egg

History was made in Chicago Wednesday in about 90 seconds, but most of the folks who witnessed firsthand the death of a record 50 Chicago Public Schools didn’t even realize it.

Rather than list the names of the doomed elementary schools, the Board of Education took a single group vote on most of the closings that will affect some 27,000 children. The board secretary read out the numbers assigned to each resolution and asked for the vote.

But onlookers didn’t even get that, as the board president resorted to parliamentary maneuver to speed the process along.

“Madam Secretary, if there are no objections from my fellow board members, please apply the last favorable roll call,” Board President David Vitale said, referring to the previous vote of six ayes and 0 nays. And with that, the bulk of the history — 49 of the 50 schools closed — was made in a unanimous sweep.

Tone deaf to the audience:
(From Mike Klonsky's Small Talk blog:)
SCHOOL CLOSING QUOTABLES

Columnist Mark Brown

In the end, the board was so tone deaf to its audience that on the crucial vote that closed most of the schools, they used the parliamentary maneuver of adopting the previous favorable roll call — instead of taking the extra 30 seconds to each say “yes” once more. The average person in attendance didn’t even know the closings had been approved until it was over. -- "CPS closings vote shows it’s time for an elected school board"

Sports writer Dave Zirin

It all starts with the person who seems committed to win the current spirited competition as the most loathsome person in American political life: Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The same Mayor overseeing the closing of fifty-four schools and six community mental health clinics under the justification of a “budgetary crisis” has announced that the city will be handing over more than $100 million to DePaul University for a new basketball arena. -- The Nation

= = = = = = = = = = =
And this post on who gains from the losses during the school closures:

TFA to expand in Chicago areas where many schools were closed, quality teachers laid off.

It's hard to imagine that a record number of school closings in Chicago is so obviously opening the way for Teach for America to take over those areas.

From Katie Osgood at The Chalk Face blog:

Teach for America Has Gone Too Far

But TFA’s recent actions have sent me over the edge. Last night, on twitter, I was appalled to watch tweets fly by about a very fancy, very expensive fundraising dinner taking place in Chicago’s swanky Drake Hotel. As a union-supporter, I am used to the dirty old union halls, folding chairs, sometimes church basements, and maybe a bag of Cheetos for eats, if you’re lucky. I can barely imagine the sort of people who pay $10,000 for a table. Ok, I CAN imagine. They are the same people we must battle everyday in the EdReform Wars.

....Guess which neighborhoods TFA is targeting for their expansion? The very same communities being traumatized by the largest single number of school closings in the history of America. TFA is poised to profit dramatically from the misfortune of hundreds of teachers and thousands of students.

And how TFA has rationalized this expansion to themselves, or anyone else, is beyond me. CPS has told schools they must be closed due to “underutilization” (A suspect claim at best). They say Chicago has too few kids and too many schools, including too many teachers/staff. Due to a supposed budget shortfall of $1 billion dollars (also HIGHLY suspect), CPS says schools must be consolidated. Let me say that again, CPS is telling us that we have essentially too many teachers and buildings in the system.

And TFA wants to go into those communities after mass layoffs–where many quality veteran teachers will be displaced and many may not be rehired, teachers who fought side-by-side with the students and parents of the schools, teachers loved by the community–and offer them uncertified, poorly-trained novices many of whom have never even been to the Midwest, much less know the varied individual neighborhoods of Chicago. It’s like TFA is kicking these communities while they are down. “I know your school was just robbed from you, despite your loud, relentless, justified protest, but here are some uncertified, severely undertrained non-educators who won’t stick around long. We at TFA don’t think your kids deserve properly trained teachers dedicated long-term to your community any more than you deserve the choice of democratic neighborhood schools.”

That is truly insulting to the career teachers who are losing their jobs, to the parents and students who are losing their community schools.

TFA needs to stop thinking their group is superior to experienced teachers. Some Democratic leaders I know need to speak out about the way they are moving into communities when schools are closed.

From 2012 another condescending move by TFA toward public school teachers.

While the budget picture looks no more pleasant than it has in past years, Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Jacqueline Ellis said the A.J. Fletcher Foundation, a Raleigh-based nonprofit, has offered to cover the $3,000-per-teacher placement fee that TFA would have charged the district for the 15 teachers.

The positions that TFA teachers would fill are among 21 made available by retirements, resignations and transfers.

.."The 15 teachers primarily would be placed in math, science and exceptional children's classes -- all of which can be difficult to fill, especially in a low-performing school like Neal. TFA would also like to offer training to traditionally trained teachers who are already at the school.

They wanted to "train" veteran teachers to think that all kids can succeed. The hubris is overwhelming.

A big piece of Neal's program would be the training for veteran teachers - it's all about changing the mind-set of teachers to believe that every student can succeed, Lakis said. He said TFA is still working out the framework for the training program..."

NYC Public School Parents: The case of LA: why an elected school board doesn'...

NYC Public School Parents: The case of LA: why an elected school board doesn'...: Here in NYC, as is well known,  since 2002 we have have a school board called the Panel for Educational Policy,   with a  super-majority of mayoral appointees that always rubberstamps any damaging school closing, destructive charter co-location or corrupt contract the mayor wants, even when hundreds or even thousands of parents, teachers, advocates and local elected officials speak out in opposition. 

Some of us have expressed a yearning for an elected school board as exists in the rest of New York state and the country, with the thought that it would yield more democracy and more fairly take into account the real needs of our children and the priorities of stakeholders.  But take a look at what is happening right now in Los Angeles for another perspective:

On March 5 there will be an election for three candidates for the LAUSD school board, which will probably determine whether their current Superintendent John Deasy remains in office.  Deasy was appointed straight from the Gates Foundationand predictably follows the corporate line: he supports the expansion of charters, the weakening of teacher tenure and basing teacher evaluation on student test scores; . Monica Garcia, the incumbent school board president, Kate Anderson, and Antonio Sanchez all support the renewal of Deasy’s contract, and are running under the slate of the Coalition for School Reform.   

Kate Anderson is campaigning to unseat incumbent Steve Zimmer, a former teacher and TFAer, who is an independent thinker and not a rubberstamp for Deasy. Despite the fact that individual contributions are apparently limited to $1000 per person, the pro-Deasy candidates have raised many times their opponents in donations from wealthy hedge-funders, Hollywood producers and the like; with Garcia outraising her opponents more than 10-1, and the other two more than 3-1.

Moreover, "independent expenditures" for these three candidates has gone through the roof with nearly $3 million raised through February 16.  Among the biggest donors are Mayor Bloomberg  ($1 million), Eli Broad and Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst (each $250K), Reed Hastings of Netflix, Steve Jobs’ widow Laurene Powell, entertainment executive Casey Wasserman, investors Marc and Jane Nathanson, (each $100K), film producers Jeffrey Katzenberg and Frank Marshall (both $50K), and Joel Klein, now working for Rupert Murdoch ($25K). These independent expenditures include deceptive attack mailers, an expensive “ground game” and plenty of TV ads and glossy flyers. (Anyone who has lived in NYC through the last three mayoral elections knows the queasy experience of opening up your mailbox, stuffed with multiple huge mailers paid for by the Bloomberg campaign, touting his great record and/or attacking his opponents.)

There also seems to be a lot of shady and unethical politicking going on in Los Angeles. The LA Fund for Public Education is a charitable non-profit, a 501C3started in 2011 by Superintendent Deasy, apparently modeled after NYC’s Fund for Public Schools, founded by Joel Klein.  The LA Fund paid for several billboards featuring Garcia as a supporter of the arts in January and February of this year, just a few weeks before the election, until angry protests made them take the billboards down.  As a 501C3, this organization is absolutely prohibited from any partisan political activity. 

(Some of us may recall how the NYC Fund for Public Schools ran expensive campaigns in 2008-9, with million dollar donations from the Broad, Gates, and Robertson foundations,including television, radio, and subway ads touting the great “progress” made by the schools under Bloomberg, with the tagline “keep it going”.  These took place  during the months leading up to the vote over whether mayoral control would be renewed, and whether Mayor Bloomberg would be re-elected for a third term.)

In addition, the United Way of LA, another 501C3, is holding an “Education Summit” on February 27, with a panel featuring Superintendent Deasy, Casey Wasserman, Eli Broad and school board president and incumbent Monica Garcia, just one week before the election. Why is this questionable?

Again, if an organization is a 501C3 and receives tax-deductible donations, it is strictly prohibited from holding events promoting one candidate for office so close to an election without inviting his or her rivals.  Oh yes, in the morning there is a panel featuring “The Education Mayors [sic]”: Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, Rahm Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago and Antonio Villaraigosa, current but term-limited Mayor of Los Angeles, privatizers all.  (United Way also was involved in the promotion, parent outreach, and screenings of the charter porn film, Waiting for Superman, funded by Gates Foundation and others.)

On February 14, the United Way held a school board candidate forum, right after news of the Bloomberg $1 million donation broke, in which Monica Garcia and other candidates were present. [Video here.] Among the questions asked: “What would you do if you were head of the UTLA (the LA teachers union), which is a rather strange question considering the candidates were running for the school board instead.  Also, according to the LA Times,

“…organizers did not choose to ask a question about Bloomberg’s largesse or the fund to which he donated, which is called the Coalition for School Reform. But moderator Marqueece Harris-Dawson did ask candidates to address money given by the teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, which also is expected to spend big in the campaign.”

(Union officials have said they can’t match the coalition’s resources and will compensate instead by sending teachers out into the field.)

“We don’t have millions,” asserted Diaz, referring to the union. “We are broke.” Then he went back on the offensive: “Look at what happened with the New York mayor…That’s a red flag. Corporations are not citizens, but they are taking control of our public schools…We need money in the schools, not the campaigns.”

And what about that Bloomberg hefty donation?  On the day the contribution was announced,  the LA Times quoted Dan Schnur's commentary:

 "Michael Bloomberg threw down the gauntlet today," said Dan Schnur, director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. "He's obviously very serious about changing education in America, and Los Angeles is now ground zero for that effort." He added: "This is a game changer."

Game changer, huh?  Dan Schnur was also quoted in an article a few days later in the LA Daily News this time, about the potential impact of the Bloomberg donation, and he framed the election as a fight between the union and the “reformers”, who if they won, would make LA a “leader on education reform”:

"This is not the first time that reformers and the unions have gone head to head, but the stakes have never been this high," said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. "This fight isn't about John Deasy the person, but what he represents - an aggressive approach to reform that raises a lot of very high passions on both sides of the debate.

"These elections represent what it's going to take to make LA's public schools better….LA has not historically been a leader on education reform but that could very well be about to change," he said.

Who is Dan Schnur, besides the director of an Institute at USC and a former adviser to Sen. John McKean? 

He’s also the brother of Jon Schnur, a prominent corporate reformer.  Jon is the founder of New Leaders of New Schools, currently head of American Achieves and an adviser to Bloomberg on how to spend his personal fortune.  

Unfortunately, neither of these articles mentioned that connection when quoting Dan Schnur as a supposed independent expert on the impact of the million dollar donation.  Given that his brother probably advised Bloomberg to give the contribution to the LA school board race in the first place, it might be considered relevant to how independent and objective his brother’s views should be considered, that the donation is a “game changer” that will determine whether Los Angeles will be a “leader on education reform.”

Lesson: even an elected school board is not necessarily going to give us more accountability and democracy here in NYC, unless there are strict limits on contributions, restrictions on independent expenditures, and restraints imposed on foundations and non-profits from influencing the outcome.  The media must also do their job and report the underlying connections between all these forces. And no one should be surprised if Bloomberg and his wealthy allies in the corporate reform movement use the same sort of tactics during the NYC mayoral elections taking place later this year.