Hey, kids! The Billionaires' Boys Clubs (sorry, Diane, but we had to) want Chicago teachers to play 'Good Teacher/Bad Teacher'... Rauner rants on... The plutocrats are coming out from under their gilded rocks after Rahm's defeat in the recent strike
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel may still think he "won" the recent strike, and may even believe that those Informercials some of his rich buddies are airing for him reflect the new reality in Chicago. But if ever the messaging from the real powers that be was clear, it's coming across now. The OWNERS are going to dictate directly their plans, not that Rahm and his big buddy "J.C,: have failed.
Chicago billionaire Bruce Rauner (above, at the George W. Bush institute) has come out of the plutocratic closet to call on teachers to wage a class war on his class's behalf against the leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union. According to Rauner and the rest of the people Diane Ravitch calls "The Billionaire's Boys Club," good teachers are going to have to break from the union. A Substance source says that each of those who makes the "Rauner Break" will get goodies, including a star-bellied Sneech star.For years, only careful research could reveal the machinations of the plutocrats who rule Chicago and their behind-the-scenes work to cripple Chicago's public schools and break the Chicago Teachers Union. Whether the trick bag was the "School Financial Crisis of 1979" (manipulated into a huge boondoggle borrowing by Jay Pritzker and his circle behind the scenes while the headlines screamed "The is no money!"...) or the latest chants of "austerity" and "privatize" it has been rare for the money people — Chicago's millionaires and billionaires — to emerge from their privacy to take the public stage.
With the arrival of Rahm Emanuel, however, they have apparently been forced to, not because of their strength, but because Emanuel's incompetence at politics have forced their hand. Whether it is Penny Pritzker scowling like a Halloween witch at Karen Lewis and other union speakers during Board of Education meetings, or the latest from the millionaire and billionaire backers of Chicago's failed charter schools juggernaut, they are outing themselves.
In short order, here are a few recent emergences:
BRUCE RAUNER IN THE TRIBUNE. "Bust the union..."
Emanuel adviser Bruce Rauner blasts Chicago Teachers Union leadership
'You've got to break apart the union bosses away from the really talented teachers,' he said
672 Businessman Bruce Rauner, a charter school backer and an adviser to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, was a panelist Tuesday at the George W. Bush Institute forum at the Art Institute of Chicago. (Nancy Stone, Chicago Tribune / September 18, 2012)
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By Rick Pearson, Chicago Tribune reporter
September 19, 2012
As Chicago Teachers Union delegates voted to end their school strike, a close behind-the-scenes adviser to Mayor Rahm Emanuel delivered a blistering critique of the union Tuesday in Chicago and outlined a long-term plan to try to split "good teachers" from organized labor's grasp.
Bruce Rauner, a wealthy venture capitalist who is helping lead a drive for more charter schools in the city, predicted the final details of a new contract would not "end well" for critics of the teachers union because "I think we've given in on a fair number of critical issues."
But he called the intense contract negotiations "one battle in a very long-term fight."
"Wherever we come out on it, the good news long term, the taxpayers are frustrated in this city and they're beginning to push back and very importantly, the parents are awakening to the issues in the city and I think we're going to have a multiyear revolution," he told an audience of business and political leaders at a seminar held jointly by the Dallas-based President George W. Bush Institute and the right-leaning Illinois Policy Institute.
"The critical issue is to separate the union from the teachers. They're not the same thing," Rauner said. "The union basically is a bunch of politicians elected to do certain things — get more pay, get more benefits, less work hours, more job security. That's what they're paid to do. They're not about the students. They're not about results. They're not about the taxpayers."
The CTU and its teachers will "always be aligned" over higher pay, he said. But teachers could be split off from the union's leadership on the issues of evaluations and merit pay, he said.
"The good teachers know they'll do fine. They've got the confidence. I've talked to them. I know," Rauner told more than 200 people at the Art Institute of Chicago. "It's the weak teachers. It's the lousy, ineffective, lazy teachers that — unfortunately there are a number of those — they're the ones that the union is protecting and that's where there's a conflict of interest between the good teachers and the union bosses."
Rauner, a potential Republican candidate for governor, speaks frequently with Emanuel and was placed by the mayor on the board of World Business Chicago, the city's economic development arm. Rauner has met more than a dozen times with Chicago Public Schools officials during the initial nine-month period that new CPS chief Jean-Claude Brizard's team was organizing policy.
Rauner also is on the board of the Chicago Public Education Fund, a group advocating more teacher accountability, and New Schools for Chicago, an organization seeking private investment in charter schools. He has a charter school named after him, and his wife served on Emanuel's mayoral transition team for education.
Speaking at a panel moderated by Margaret Spellings, the former U.S. education secretary in the most recent Bush administration, Rauner questioned why a teacher who is "a talented example of the profession" would want to join the CTU or find themselves "stuck there" without recognition.
"You've got to break apart the union bosses away from the really talented teachers," he said. "That's doable. It's not easy, but that's doable and critical to improving the schools long-term."
rap30@aol.com
Copyright © 2012, Chicago Tribune
Comments:
By: Stephen Lendman
Strike was an Emanuel win
Emanuel won big time. He got what he most wanted. Dagger rights to keep plunging into public education's heart and destroy a nearly 4 century bedrock societal right. He drank champagne celebrating. So didn't his rich friends and Obama.
Privatized education assures poor kids get none. Public education decades back got this poor kid into Harvard and Wharton when they were affordable. Impossible today!
By: Anthony Smith
Bruce Rauner for Secretary of Education!!
I too had a difficult time listening to Mr. Rauner. And I was very proud of Jesse "the Shark" Sharkey, who, as always was well informed, polite: yet got his point across, and thoughtful.
So let's just skip all the hype and get to the point. Why not have President Obama, in his 2nd term, which is likely the more Mitt Romney talks to the public, select Rauner as the Secretary of Education?
It's a perfect choice. Arne Duncan could take a well deserved vacation or perhaps become education ambassador to Afghanistan.
I here they need more schools there and hey, Charter schools are the best schools (according to Rahm Emanuel as he ran for Mayor! even though students pointed out that the top 10 schools were not charter schools!) What a perfect place to build that model and see how successful it is.
Rauner seemed exuberant when he said that many charter schools have been closed down due to incompetency and that more needed to be closed.
Is he a turnaround artist or just a caring and thoughtful person who wants the best for our children?
I give him credit for eventually being open about wanting to crush unions in general and the Chicago public schools teachers in particular.
As Jesse spoke Rauner shook his head NO so much I thought it would bobble off onto the desk. Or perhaps that was me hoping it would do that. I am not certain. While Jesse was very patient and well mannered in return. Please, give Jesse a better salary for his demeanor under pressure!
Everyone I know who watched this show wanted to slap Mr. Rauner silly. Seems like this 1% Bully has had a lifetime of always getting his way.
And most importantly, Mr. Rauner called this what it is: a WAR! He made it very clear that he and his ilk are at WAR with teachers who are in a union. And that other unions are next on his list!
He also made it very clear that he has total and easy access to our Mayor, Rahm Emanuel.
And Jesse, when asked, let it be known that regular people like the parents of our children in our schools, the students themselves that Rahm says he care so much about, and of course the teachers and their union representatives, DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL.
And, with the freedom of information act and a lot of patience, Ben Joravsky from the READER, has a great article which speaks to access to Rahm. You get access, according to this brilliant article, if you donated a lot of money to Rahm. It does NOT matter if you are REPUBLICAN or DEMOCRAT! Your money speaks loud enough and clear enough.
Rahm says he cares about the children. Yet he does and has not listened to the parents of those children, nor those children, nor the people who teach those children.
Rahm does care about the money.
SO Rahm cares about the Corporate 1% and his donors. It is nice to see that Rahm cares about someone afterall!
Those who have worked with Rahm for many years during his beginning days have told many of us that Rahm has always cared about money. It is his primary motivation, that and gaining more power of course. So to know Rahm is to follow the money trail.
Those who have money will be his "friends" and have easy access to him.
Those who have no money will get the occasional lip service for the cameras and the media while Rahm does as he darn well pleases. Apparently with the support of our President, whom Rahm stated he speaks to on a regular basis!
By: Stan Lee
Sharkey's self control and Bruce Rauner
After watching his elitist rant on Chicagom Toniight I commend Jesse Sharkey for his self control. I did not know that my achieving National Board Certification gave me that silver spoon, because I cannot find it.
Bruce, I refuse to call him sir, could easily have been in that room with Mitt Romney dismissing those of us who work to make this a better world. He thinks because he can "give" money through CFPE that he contributes to my effort? Having earned CFPE grants I was under the impression that the grants were to enrich the experience of PUBLIC SCHOOLS (I.e. neighborhood)?
Here's a message for the condescending "I inherited mine, which makes me better" types. If you honestly wanted to provide opportunities to children and education you would give cash, materials, and time (get close to the kids), without blow-hard speeches and/or strings.
Thanks George for the articles, I have been fuming since the show was aired.