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In Illinois, Preschool Access Worst For Latinos

By Sara Neufeld/The Hechinger Report

How to break the vicious cycle of poverty and academic failure is one of the most troublesome questions of our time, but this much we know: High-quality preschool helps children from poor families prepare for kindergarten and beyond. Yet as the child poverty rate is climbing, those are the kids least likely to attend such programs.
A new report by the research and advocacy group Voices for Illinois Children provides insight into the extent of the disparities in that state, along racial and economic lines. The findings are particularly stark for Latino children, only 40 percent of whom attended preschool in Illinois at most recent measure, compared with 58 percent of white children and 55 percent of black children. In Chicago, preschool enrollment was lowest on the Northwest and Southwest Sides, both predominantly Latino, and highest on the affluent North Side.

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Posted on September 10, 2014

Exclusive! Rahm Yuks Up O’Connor Kerfuffle With Fallon

Another Beachwood Special Report

“Mayor Rahm Emanuel would not say Wednesday whether it was appropriate for his City Council leader to push through an ordinance that limited the power of a city watchdog who a week earlier had opened an investigation into the alderman,” the Tribune reported earlier this month.
But the Beachwood has learned through our Kick Jimmy Fallon In The Nuts Affairs Desk that Emanuel finds the whole thing quite funny.
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Posted on August 27, 2014

Ald. Butch O’Connor Cassidy & The Sundance Mayor

By Steve Rhodes

“Mayor Rahm Emanuel would not say Wednesday whether it was appropriate for his City Council leader to push through an ordinance that limited the power of a city watchdog who a week earlier had opened an investigation into the alderman,” the Tribune reported earlier this month.
Huh, that’s odd. Patrick O’Connor, the alderman in question, is Rahm’s floor leader. You might say they are thick as thieves. O’Connor doesn’t make a move that Rahm doesn’t approve or order. And yet . . .
“After last week’s City Council meeting, Emanuel distanced himself some from O’Connor’s ordinance, saying ‘This was the City Council, not what we did.'”
Excuse me for finding it hard to see the difference.
I also find it hard to believe that O’Connor was freelancing. After all, he’s the Butch Cassidy to Rahm’s Sundance Kid.

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Posted on August 19, 2014

George Ryan Is Unrepentant

By Ed Hammer and Steve Rhodes

Former Illinois governor and convicted felon George Ryan appeared on Windy City Live recently and repeated several claims that bear vetting – and that the media should be prepared for in future interviews and his forthcoming memoirs. Let’s take a look, in three parts.
Part 1.

1:41: “I really wasn’t in prison. I was never behind bars. I was in a camp, I could’ve walked out any time. I could’ve gotten in a car and driven away. There were no guards.”
While it’s a bit of a stretch for Ryan to claim he wasn’t in prison – it’s called the Oxford federal prison camp – it is true that Oxford is what is known in the business as a Club Fed.
From a 2007 Tribune report:

The prison camp has no cellblocks, provides a track for walking and offers classes in culinary arts and college correspondence courses, according to federal officials, ex-inmates and visitors.
And come next spring, when people from his home state flock by the thousands to their seasonal cabins, Ryan could be planting flowers on a landscaping crew sprucing up the grounds of the wooded camp.
“It’s like a hotel in there,” said Ken Driscoll, an Oxford businessman who has toured the facility several times. “It’s clean and comfortable and quite quiet.”

2:10: “It was just a total waste of time, frankly.”
2:55: “They oughta have some education programs.”
Well, apparently they offer GED courses because Ryan turned down entreaties to teach one. “I’m not a teacher . . . You have to have some training. I’ve never had training as a teacher.”
4:10: What did you learn? “I learned that it was kind of a waste of time . . . ”

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Posted on August 14, 2014

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