MEDIA WATCH: Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times continue blackout on massive protests against proposed closings and
With two hearings scheduled for the evening of February 4, 2010, the massive protests against the "Chicago Plan" continued while Chicago's daily newspapers continued their blackout on news of the protests against the latest iteration of the policies of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and Chicago's corporate version of "school reform." Given that the so-called "Chicago Model" is now being exported to the rest of the USA by former Chicago Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan and the Obama administrations "Race To The Top" program, the corporate media in Chicago are working overtime to ensure that corporate plans to privatize public schools across the USA aren't disrupted by the facts that are coming out every day in the home town of the President of the United States and the President's model for "school reform."
Chicago Sun-Times Education Reporter Rosalind Rossi (above center, wearing grey scraf) covered the tumultuous hearings on the proposed "turnarounds" of Marshall High School and Phillips High School on February 1, 2010, but the Sun-Times continued its policy of reporting on all the annual Hit List closings from a point of view congenial to Mayor Richard M. Daley and his appointed Board of Education. Nothing Rossi saw or heard appeared in print. The Chicago Tribune continued its policy of completely ignoring the massive protests, not even sending an intern reporter to cover the hearings. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.On February 4, 2010, the Chicago Board of Education will hold two hearings. The first, at CPS headquarters at 125 S. Clark St. in Chicago's Loop, will be about the proposal by the current CEO of Chicago's schools, Ron Huberman, to "turnaround" the Gillespie Elementary School (located at 9301 S. State St. on Chicago's South Side). When it is rubber stamped by the Board of Education, the so-called "turnaround" of Gillespie will be managed by a group called the "Academy for Urban School Leadership" (AUSL). AUSL has been marketing itself as the city's "turnaround experts" in school reform for three years, despite no evidence to support the group's marketing claims. AUSL has received the endorsement of Barack Obama, who quoted unverified AUSL claims during his campaign stump speeches on education and who has since directed major media (including The New York Times) to a highly controversial version of AUSL and its work.
The second hearing scheduled on February 4 will take place on the South Side of Chicago and will deal with the proposal by Huberman to close Las Casas Occupational High School. The hearing has been officially scheduled to be held at Ninos Heroes Elementary School at 8344 S. Commercial Ave. in the South Chicago community. But on February 3, Substance received a call saying that the actual hearing would be held at another South Chicago location, at Las Casas itself. Las Casas is located at 8401 S. Saginaw Ave., about a mile from Ninoes Heroes. As of the beginning of the day on February 4, Board of Education sources have not confirmed whether the report of a new site has been confirmed.
Chicago's major corporate media have known about the hearings since they began on January 28. The blackout on coverage stems from the fact that for years both the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune have followed the Daley administration's party line and reported as news each year's controversial Hit List of schools, repeating also as news in some cases the pretexts provided by CPS officials for their actions.
Only one major news reporter aside from Substance staff has covered any of the hearings. Chicago Sun-Times education reporter Rosalind Rossi covered both the hearings on February 1, 2010. Those hearings dealt with two famous all-black high schools that Huberman wants to "turnaound" ‚ Marshall High School on the West Side and Phillips High School on the South Side. Three days after Rossi covered the Marshall and Phillips hearings, the Sun-Times still has not published a story.
By: Network de ja vu
mad as hell...
Image of (younger) Howard Beale al la Ron Huberman, at UBS/CPS. Mayor Eternal Daley plays Arthur Jensen. Kremsner plays sexy Christensen. Schumacher is played by retiring princpals: "All of life is reduced to the common rubble" (performance management, reckless assessments, etc.,) "of banality." We all then tune in to the Mao Tse-Tung Hour.
When will we stop accepting this bs and get mad as hell and not take it anymore?!