By Steve Rhodes

Has the strike actually been a good thing – are we better off as not only a city but a nation for having it?
When I see the discussions that the strike has sparked all over the country, I kind of start to think so.
It’s been more substantive than the presidential campaign, even given the vast amount of misinformation spinning around out there.
And if it comes to an end soon, as it now again looks like it might, one week of lost instruction (that will be made up) isn’t a big deal.
In fact, we all may have learned a thing or two.

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Posted on September 13, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“Rahm Emanuel started a fight with teachers that only he can finish,” Carol Marin writes in the Sun-Times.
“In his 2011 campaign for mayor, he took the Chicago Teachers Union on as an adversary rather than attempt to make them a partner. He opted for a blunt instrument rather than a finessed approach. In hammering home how he was ‘for the children,’ he left the implication that teachers were not.”
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“And then, shortly after his election, Emanuel went to Springfield to get Senate Bill 7 passed. Touted as education reform, it was really an anti-collective bargaining measure, setting up a 75 percent vote threshold for union members to authorize a strike.
“Jonah Edelman, executive director of the deep-pocketed, pro-business group Stand for Children, was caught on video gloating about its legislative victory, saying: ‘The unions cannot strike in Chicago . . . They will never be able to muster the 75 percent threshold.’
“Though Edelman later publicly regretted his bravado, his agenda clearly is on behalf of the privatization of public education. And of charter schools. Even though the metrics of charter-school performance mirror the highs and lows of neighborhood public schools.

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Posted on September 12, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

The president may not have the courage to admit he has an opinion about the teachers strike, and Democrats may think Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are merely playing politics with their half-informed statements, but there is no question that Barack Obama is entangled in the proceedings on several levels.
Here’s one:
“The wrangling has to do with a new teacher rating system pushed by the Obama administration, which has sparked new laws and controversy in Illinois and around the country,” the Tribune reports.
“The new evaluations judge teachers in part on how their students perform, with a focus on academic gains. Teachers say that isn’t fair for a lot of reasons and that bad ratings resulting from the new system could threaten teachers’ livelihoods.”
More to the point is that the new evaluations would dramatically increase the significance of how students perform on standardized tests. Why is this a problem?
Well, besides opposition among teachers to overvaluing standardized tests as a metric of educational success, consider the plight of Cubs manager Dale Sveum, who is trying really hard to prevent his team from losing 100 games in its inaugural season.

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Posted on September 11, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Did they both want a strike? Alexander Russo asks on This Week in Education. Check out the link for last night’s dueling press conferences.
As to the question, I don’t think so, but I also think that once it came down to the wire, the CTU was going to go out for at least a day or two to make a statement to Rahm.
From Rahm’s perspective, I think he wanted to bend the union to his will and “break” the teachers without it getting to a strike. Now he’s got a national PR mess on his hands as the guy who can’t tame the teachers or the gangs.

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Posted on September 10, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“Is Mayor Rahm Emanuel a presidential wannabe or the second coming of legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne? Maybe both,” reports an awestruck Fran Spielman of the Sun-Times.
Really. She wrote that.

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Posted on September 6, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Yeah, Michelle Obama is a bad-ass.
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From the Beachwood vault:
“When her husband ran for Congress in 2000, Michelle Obama groused so much about handshaking and fund-raising that Arthur Sussman, then her boss at the University of Chicago, finally asked if she truly could not find a single thing about campaigning to enjoy,” Jodi Kantor reported in 2008 in the New York Times.
“Michelle Obama thought for a moment. Visiting so many living rooms had given her some new decorating ideas, she allowed.”

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Posted on September 5, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“As Illinois delegates gather each morning for breakfast to hear from political motivational speakers and to get a grab bag of tchotchkes, they’re also given something else: a set of talking points to use in case they get asked questions by reporters,” the Tribune reports.
“On Monday, a series of eight bullet points were placed on delegates’ chairs, including the phrases ‘Republicans trying to bury their unpopular ideas because they’re political suicide,’ and Democrats will be ‘running on our ideas because we know they’re the right thing to do.'”
I’d advise the Tribune and others to refuse to pass these talking points along to readers as if they are real thoughts worthy of quoting but it’s too late.

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Posted on September 4, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“‘Hope and Change’ had a powerful appeal,” Mitt Romney said in his nomination acceptance speech last night.
“But tonight I’d ask a simple question: If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn’t you feel that way now that he’s President Obama? You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.”
That’s true. At least if Romney wins the election, we’ll feel bad about him right away.

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Posted on August 31, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“A gun was left unattended on Mitt Romney’s charter plane by a member of the U.S. Secret Service on Wednesday as the GOP presidential nominee flew to Indiana for a campaign rally,” the Los Angeles Times – and thus the Chicago Tribune – reports.
“During a flight from Tampa to Indianapolis, the weapon was discovered in the lavatory by a CBS News reporter, who alerted agents on the flight, according to an account posted on the television network’s website.”
Here’s that unlinked report.

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Posted on August 30, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“The tension in the air between Dan Rutherford and Aaron Schock might be subtle this week in Tampa, but it’s present,” the Daily Herald reports.
“The two Republicans who reportedly are mulling Illinois gubernatorial bids in 2014 also have important – and strikingly different – roles in Mitt Romney’s campaign for president.”
Well, it’s not clear yet whether any role will be something to brag about or run away from, but let’s play along.
“Rutherford, the state treasurer from Chenoa, has spent months traveling around the state as Romney’s Illinois campaign chair, telling voters that with his help, the former Massachusetts governor is going to fight for ‘every inch’ of territory, winning independent and moderate votes in President Barack Obama’s backyard.
“Schock, a two-term Congressman from Peoria, is taking advantage of the national spotlight. His youth and close friendship with vice presidential pick Paul Ryan of Wisconsin have vaulted him onto a larger stage, aided further by the Romney campaign’s fall plans to utilize him on college campuses and as a surrogate in tough swing states.”
So Rutherford has exploited his role as Romney’s state chair to further his own campaign for governor, just as he’s used the Treasurer’s office as an extension of his campaign.
Meanwhile, Schock is using his role to build a larger national footprint, which could come in handy with out-of-state donors for a gubernatorial run, or more likely raise his profile in Congress and maybe even fetch a role in a Romney-Ryan administration.
Personally, I don’t think Schock is running for governor and I think Rutherford would be a disastrous nominee. So let’s call it a draw.

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Posted on August 29, 2012