Meribah Knight, Hunter Clauss and Rebecca Vevea were all accomplished reporters with the Chicago News Cooperative when it suddenly closed its doors last week. On today’s show, it’s an all-former-CNC-reporter panel.
Meribah Knight, whose beat was the homeless, talks about the status of the City’s ten-year plan to eliminate homelessness. We’re in year nine right now, and homelessness is, without question, on the rise. While the City has had some success creating residential developments for the chronically homeless, the real problem today is young people and the working poor who are living with relatives, in vehicles and in substandard housing. In fact, the number of homeless students attending CPS schools continues to rise.
Rebecca Vevea covered one of the most interesting periods in the modern history of CPS with the appointments of Rahm Emanuel’s Board and CEO J.C. Brizard. She talks about the Mayor’s new initiative to build six-year tech schools within five CPS high schools, and the CTU’s proposals for vastly increased resources for the schools.
Hunter Clauss fills us in on the NATO/G-8 summit and the closing of Chicago’s two remaining coal-fired power plants. And all three kick around the real meaning of Google’s new privacy policy. Is it possible that younger users are less perplexed about on-line privacy than their elders?
Karen Lewis, the President of the CTU, is our sole guest the week.
The CPS Board’s unanimous decision yesterday to close or “turn around” 17 schools will result in contracts for the Academy of Urban School Leadership, which will be asked to run, and presumably improve, these schools. Lewis expresses skepticism that AUSL is up to the task.
She refers to a new study by Designs for Change that appears to demonstrate just how complex “turnarounds” can be in entrenched, poverty-locked neighborhood schools. The study claims, in fact, that “conventional schools” with highly effective Local School Councils and collaborative staff environments actually outperform the contracted-out schools – this despite the fact that the “turnaround” schools are given large sums of money and resources that the conventional schools don’t get. You can read the entire study here.
Lewis says that despite the perception that teacher unions protect mediocre and ineffective teachers, it’s surprisingly easy at CPS to fire a bad teacher – even a tenured one. What’s needed, she says, are better ways to reach mid-life teachers who are “hitting the wall” and help get them back on track.
And by the way, she and J.C. Brizard text each other quite often, and they meet face-to-face on a regular basis.
Your humble host begins today’s show with a lament – Shouldn’t an individual who has outstanding tickets with the City of Chicago have the right to refuse to pay, fully cognizant that he’s vulnerable to booting, towing, car impoundment, etc? Shouldn’t this same individual, who, for the sake of discussion, has a tax refund coming from the State of Illinois, be free to cash that check and still refuse to pay the City? Yes, this is a bit Ron Paul-ian, but isn’t the City’s grabbing my refund before I get it a grotesque over-reach of government?
Our guests seem less agitated by this outrage. “Ken”, advises WGN’s Randi Belisomo, “You should just pay your tickets.”
Matt Farmer, HuffPo blogger, lawyer and musician, has plenty to say about how the much-discussed “fees and fines” at Noble St. Charters disguise, to some degree, the ways that charter schools can quietly rid themselves of students who drag down the averages.
Paid protesters, Governor Quinn’s style, red-light cameras, new rules curbing audience response in the City Council, and that remarkable hour-long interview/confrontation between Rahm Emanuel and Trib reporter David Kidwell. All on this week’s Chicago Newsroom.
It’s a one-on-one conversation with CPS CEO J.C. Brizard this week. We discuss the CTU, turnaround schools, Mayor Emanuel’s comments in the Juan Williams “documentary” about the Chicago school system, and lots more.
Some selected quotes from today’s show are included below.
Here are some quotes from Mr. Brizard:
The schools are better today than they were 50 years ago. But the perception is that they’re worse today than they were 50 years ago.The dropout rate was actually higher than it was in the 50’s. The difference was that there was an industry for a lot of the kids that we lost. The world’s changed. We say very simply that back in the 70s or 80’s – if only half the kids got it we moved on… We are now in a world where every single kid has to make it… So the structures that we created back in the arly 1900s don’t work any more.
We are in real trouble as a nation. We used to be number one in college graduation, we’re now number 13, falling behind very quickly. Something has to give. The model we’ve created simply is obsolete.
I actually had my staff read one of the Harvard case studies on Arnie Duncan in his years – it was 2006. And one of them came back and said, I’m depressed. And I said why? He said what is being talked about in this case study is what we’re talking about doing… When you take a look at what’s happened over the three eras of school reform which is what the report talks about, you can begin to see the disconnected nature of the school reform efforts in Chicago.
We’ve had a litany – we’ve had a thousand different initiatives – but no coherent strategy. So, good stuff, but not connected well.
Teachers want their union to be strong, I completely support that. But the one thing we have to help unions do is evolve. The world’s changed a bit. The rules that currently exist around teacher pay, etc., were put in place for good reasons. We had over-zealous administrators back in the 60’s, maybe 70’s. When you look historically at who became teachers, there were women, African Americans, etc., who needed protection from over-zealous administrators. Take a look at who’s coming into the profession now. We have young people who have great options. They can become lawyers, doctors – the glass ceiling has gone way up or disappeared in some cases… People who want to come into the profession are looking for something different. They want agency in their profession, they want to be paid according to their skill set, what they do, not just be in lock-step, how long you’ve been there, how many college credits you have – so somehow, I’ve got to help my teachers’ union, and others, evolve to really understand what the membership is asking for, what today’s young teacher demands of the system. I fear if we don’t do that we’re going to discourage a lot of bright young people from entering the profession.
Already I’m hearing it. I’m watching it in the research coming out of Harvard who are saying a lot of young teachers do not want to come into teaching because it is not perceived to be a noble profession…
Will Supt. McCarthy’s new command structure on the west and south sides – along with some new personnel and resources, make a dent in the rising murder rate in these heavily impacted communities? Frank Main, Pulitzer-Prize winning Sun-Times reporter, says McCarthy really has to deliver in these neighborhoods, because 25% of all Chicago murders are happening in certain parts of Englewood, Garfield Park and Lawndale.
Angela Caputo walks us through her recent series in the Chicago Reporter, in which she details the horrific living conditions in many of Chicago’s subsidized housing units, despite lots of government money pouring in for maintenance. Some of the most squalid conditions she found were in buildings managed by Leon Finney, who’s a celebrated community organizer and highly-connected government operative.
And WBEZ’s Steve Edwards asks the rhetorical question – why would J.C. Brizard’s administration want to hire protesters to support his position that certain schools should be closed or “turned around” when he already has the full Board’s support to do so? Nobody’s saying Brizard had anything to do with the scandal, but it was pretty ham-fisted effort by somebody to show support for the CEO as he gets push-back from teachers and parents in the affected schools.
And – the State of the State. It’s Pat Quinn’s opportunity to frame the big-picture concept of where he wants the State to go during his administration. Did he make the case?
The Sun-Times has a new editorial policy against endorsing political candidates, and Tom McNamee talks about it with us on today’s show. As the Editor of the editorial page, he says he’s on board with the new directive that’s being initiated by the paper’s new owners, and intrigued by the huge reaction from readers, which he describes as all over the political map.
Paul Meincke (Channel 7) tells us about his recent coverage of the City’s attempts to settle a case involving Iraq war protests in 2003. Lots of people were swept up in police arrests despite being heard on tape pleading with police to let them peaceably disperse. The settlement could cost the City millions and is thought to have played a role in the CPD’s lighter touch when dealing with Occupy back in October.
Whitney Woodward (Illinois Campaign for Political Reform) worked extensively on keeping public access flowing during the recent ward remap process, but says that process was thwarted when powerful aldermen cut the last-minute deal immediately before the hurried City Council vote. Also, some Latinos are unhappy with the final map, she says.
Well, we now have a new city council map. And some new ordinances governing how we’ll all behave while our NATO and G-8 guests are in town. So we invited Elizabeth Brackett from Chicago Tonight (WTTW) and Andrew Patner (Critical Thinking and Critic’s Choice on WFMT) to help us sort it all out.
Has there been an outbreak of democracy in the hallowed halls of city council? Yes, comparatively speaking, says Brackett – especially if compared to the Daley era.
Whether by democratic process or not, the aldermen came up with 41 votes today, and the new compromise map is adopted. But in order to find new Hispanic-majority wards, which were the key to passage, some aldermen had to pay a heavy price. In many cases, their wards were moved miles away from their homes and constituents. In others, lines were severely redrawn so that a majority Hispanic population could be drawn in.
And in one dramatic case, Alderman Sposato, elected only a few months ago as a reformer in a once strong machine ward, pretty much lost all the people who elected him.
But as Alderman Mell, who ran the process, often told jeering crowds, the aldermen don’t want redistricting any more than constituents want to be carved out of their home wards. But when Chicago’s population declines as much as it did in the past decade – almost a quarter of a million people – the Voting Rights Act demands that districts be redrawn.
Also on the show – a brief discussion about President Obama’s decision to cancel (at least for now) the Keystone XL pipeline.
Thom Clark (Community Media Workshop) offers the observation on today’s show that the Emanuel administration is about to apply a usage fee to the First Amendment. The “sit down and shut up” ordinance, as it’s frequently being called, will require permits and fees for a wide range of activities once simply thought of as “protest”.
Also on the program, the sale of the Sun-Times. The keyword seems to be “firewall”. Our panelists, all journalists, seem to agree that they’re not necessarily concerned about the deep financial ties almost all the new investors have to Rahm Emanuel – if the owners can keep their hands off the editorial content. But the question remains – if the mayor is steamed about a negative Fran Spielman story, will he pick up the phone and call his friends in the Board room? And if he does, will someone pay a visit to Fran? Whet Moser says – let’s not get too apocalyptic. These are investors, and they know that the value of their investment is tied to the quality of the publication. So we all have to catch our breath and wait a while.
And there’s a surprising status update. Thom talks about the “New News” studies CMW has done (and another scheduled for summer) measuring Chicago’s on-line activity in the news field. Despite the proliferation of news sites – and the death of several – the vast majority of Chicagoans who read news on-line begin their journey at the legacy sites – Tribune, Sun-Times and a few others.
Three years ago, after the Chicago Journalism Town Hall, Whet wrote a definitive post at the Reader about the future of journalism in Chicago, especially the on-line kind. It’s fascinating to re-read it today. And a note of congratulations to Kimbriell Kelly, whose pieces about the unfair lending practices at Countrywide Bank led to a massive legal action and an acknowledgement by Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Journalism is still happening in Chicago, but not all of it is coming from the traditional news sources.
Does it make sense to stop making arrests for possession of small quantities of marijuana, possibly replacing arrests with tickets? It’s a hot topic right now, and we spend the entire half hour discussing it.
The Chicago Police made 47,400 arrests in 2009/10 in which marijuana possession was the most serious charge. Of these: 78% of the arrestees were black, 17% Hispanic and 5%were white. (Only 4,000 were eventually found guilty). So it’s more than just an issue of wasted police resources. It also funnels thousands of minority youths into the juvenile justice system, where they can acquire permanent records that can hamper their employment chances later in life.
Former Chicago Police chief Jody Weis is on our panel this week. In his new role as president of the Chicago Crime Commission, he thinks the idea of moving to ticketing has some merit, but as he told Rob Wildeboer in a WBEZ interview recently, there are unforeseen consequences. Many minority youths don’t carry identification, he says, and that could get kids into even deeper trouble.
Randell Strickland with the Illinois Commission on Juvenile Justice has spent his career battling disproportionate minority contact in the justice system, and he tells us about the ways in which low-level pot busts happen with greater frequency in minority communities.
Rob Wildeboer’s on the panel too, along with Mick Dumke. Mick co-authored, with Ben Joravsky, a series of articles in the Reader that starkly laid out the case for alternative strategies in pot arrests. It’s great reading, and highly recommended.
It’s our last new program in 2011, and we invited three accomplished bloggers to help us wrap up an eventful year.
Don Washington (Mayoral Tutorial) argues passionately that the state’s bailout of CME and Sears was a mistake, both in a policy sense and in the way that it will harm most Illinoisans financially.
Matt Farmer (HuffPo Chicago) condemns much of the “downtown media” for its blind acceptance of CPS’s press releases about turnaround schools. He cites one stark example from last June, when Mayor Emanuel touted Collins High School as a dramatic example of a school that had been “turned around” by private contractor AUSL. But Farmer said he spent 20 minutes with The Googles and found plenty of data to shoot down the assertion – on the CPS Web site.
Justin Kaufmann, who knows a thing or two about how the on-line world works as the guy who runs wbez.org (and blogs there too) had a some observations about today’s news media. Since every editor and manager is keeping an eye on the “analytics”, management knows exactly who’s clicking where and when. And detailed follow-up stories, often the ones that add detail to the dog-and-pony press events, don’t get much clickage.
It’s a pretty raucous, and highly informative show. Except that Justin was dismayed, because he thought he’d been invited to a show moderated by Joel Weisman. Life can be disappointing sometimes.
Chicago Newsroom is produced as a community service at Chicago's community television station, CAN TV. CAN TV gives every Chicagoan a voice on cable television.
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