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Teachers threatened with arrest for asking to speak with Arne Duncan during Advance Illinois breakfast

Garth Liebhaber and George N. Schmidt - June 21, 2009

While more than 300 of the most powerful and in some cases wealthiest people in Illinois gathered in the plush Regency Ballroom of Chicago's Regency Hyatt Hotel on the morning of June 19, 2009, nearly 100 teachers and parents were protesting up on the sidewalk against the education policies of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who was the featured speaker at the breakfast.

One of the signs carried by CORE protesters during the June 19, 2009, picket of the Hyatt Regency Hotel listed all of the schools that had been closed by Arne Duncan between the time he was appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Chicago's public schools (July 1, 2001) and the end of December 2008 (by which time he had been announced as the choice of Barack Obama for U.S. Secretary of Education. In January 2009, Duncan added another 22 schools to the list of 63 on the sign above, bringing to 85 the schools he had tried to close. What is left out of the corporate narrative about Arne Duncan's school closings is that most of the schools Duncan closed were not "failing" in any reasonable sense of the word. In fact, a large number of those schools were eliminated because they were in way of real estate developers with Chicago clout (e.g., Jacob Riis Elementary or because Duncan wanted to vacate the school so that he could give the building away to a charter school developer (many of those on the list, including Austin, Calumet and Collins high schools and Donoghue, Howland, Bunche, Morse, and Gladstone elementary schools) Substance photo by Garth Liebhaber. Duncan was being feted in Chicago by a group called "Advance Illinois," which has billed itself as and "objective" and "research based" organization dedicated to reforming the public schools of Illinois. But critics note that Advance Illinois, based on both its corporate funding, its corporate leadership, and its corporate agenda, looks just like an updated version of the Illinois Business Roundtable and the Civic Committee of the [Chicago] Commercial Club, the two corporate entities that have provided much of the financing and propaganda for corporate "school reform" in Chicago during the past 20 years.

Cite Purge of African American Teachers and Principals

One of the major points of the demonstrators outside the hotel was the fact that during the eight years Arne Duncan served as CEO of Chicago's public schools, the city eliminated the largest number of African American teachers and principals in its history.

A week before the protest against Duncan, CORE and a growing group of teachers filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charging that the Chicago Board of Education had systematically been eliminating veteran teachers, especially African American teachers, from classrooms across Chicago as Duncan moved viciously forward with his agenda to close what he called "failing schools." Details of the CORE complaint are available at the CORE Website (www.COREteachers.com; or a reader at Substancenews can click on the link to the right here).

The demonstrators had begun their protest at 7:00 a.m., as hotel staff and staff from Advance Illinois were setting up in the Regency Ballroom for the Arne Duncan breakfast. During the protests, which included picketing and an attempt to enter the hotel to talk with Duncan and Advance Illinois, more than 100 teachers, parents, and students participated. Coverage from Chicago's corporate media was sporadic, as hotel and Advance Illinois people tried to make certain that the majority of reporters remained downstairs at the Duncan media event and ignored the protests. At least one member of the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board (former education writer Kate Grossman) was present for the entire Advance Illinois activity, while the Sun-Times ignored the protest completely. The Chicago Tribune devoted one paragraph to the event in an article that otherwise simply reported Duncan's version of Chicago as fact.

The few teachers inside the large ballroom where Duncan was speaking made no effort to join the protesters. The only teachers who was given the microphone at the podium was Joseph Fatheree, Illinois Teacher of the Year (2006-2007) who now serves as the only teacher on the Advance Illinois Board of Directors.

Chicago Teachers Union President Marilyn Stewart (above left, with hand on face) shares a smile with CTU staff member Lynn Cherkasky Davis at one of the head tables during the Advance Illinois breakfast event for Arne Duncan. Stewart tried to cover her face when Substance was photographing and then left the hotel by a back door so that she would not have to pass or see the teachers picketing outside the event. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Chicago Teachers Union President Marilyn Stewart, whose support of Arne Duncan's policies made his national appointment possible, was seated during the breakfast with two former teachers now on the union's full-time staff, but made no effort to join the protest or offer any support for the protesters. The teachers picketing upstairs from the breakfast and Duncan speech were highly critical of Stewart and the way she has been running what was once the most powerful and militant teacher union in the Midwest. Although Stewart used race as a key issue during her two successful runs for the top union office, she has ignored the destruction of jobs for African American teachers that has become standard operating procedure during her administration. It took CORE to provide the support to teachers who were finally ready to formally complain, while Stewart's expensive staff actually seemed to many teachers to be supporting administration and management, not union members.

Once again for this article, Substance requested an interview with Marilyn Stewart and submitted questions via e-mail to Rose Maria Genova, the highly paid publicist for the Chicago Teachers Union. The Substance collection of unanswered questions for the current leader of the CTU grows longer with each passing week. As of deadline, Genova had not responded to Substance and Stewart was still refusing to answer questions posed by Substance reporters.

Pickets threatened with arrest

After picketing for an hour, picketers decided to lay down their signs and attempt to visit the meeting as teachers. “I have to alert somebody,” the anonymous man in the suit declared in response to Jackson Potter, of CORE. (Potter is in the center of the photograph, with beard and shouler bag). Potter had asked for directions to the meeting of Advance Illinois, where Secretary of Education was furthering the corporate privatization of education on a national level. Various anonymous manager types held the group at bay until the Chicago Police could arrive. Police verified that hotel management had the right to demand that CORE leave before being arrested and complaints signed. The hotel management was very edgy and defensive, maintaining the lie that they “have no way of contacting representatives of Secretary Duncan nor Advance Illinois." Large anonymous men then proceeded to back the group out of the entrance doors of the hotels and back towards the street. Substance photo by Garth Liebhaber.After picketing for an hour, the protesters decided to lay down their signs and attempt to visit the meeting as teachers. They were stopped at the main entrance to the hotel.

“I have to alert somebody,” an anonymous hotel staff member declared in response to a request to enter from Jackson Potter, co-chairman of CORE. Hotel security was deployed widely during the entire demonstration, including one young man who stood behind the protesters and sent constant text messages to someone from his Blackberry.

Accompanied by more than 40 of the protesters, Potter had asked for directions to the meeting of Advance Illinois, where Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was furthering the corporate privatization of education on a national level and presenting both the people at the breakfast and most of Chicago's media with what the protesters had proved to be an untruthful version of the reality of Chicago during the Duncan years (2001-2008).

Various anonymous middle level managers held the group at the entrance until the Chicago Police arrived and verified that hotel management had the right to demand that CORE leave before being arrested and complaints signed.

According to many observers, the hotel management was very edgy and defensive. The strangest moment, in the eyes of many of the protesters who heard it, was when Hyatt management told the protesters that they “have no way of contacting representatives of Secretary Duncan nor Advance Illinois."

Illinois Teacher of the Year (2006-2007) Joseph Fatheree of Effingham supported the agenda of Advance Illinois during the breakfast. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Advance Illinois. Fatheree made no effort to join the Chicago teachers who were protesting outside the hotel while he spoke inside. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Once the police had made clear the order for the protesters to move away from the main entrance to the hotel, some of the largest men ever seen by most of the protesters arrived from inside the hotel and began to slowly push the protest back from the main entrance. The protest then resumed on the corner, on a public sidewalk.

Major issues ignored by corporate mythmaking

The closing of another 16 schools this year, based on a list that originally contained 22 schools proposed for destruction by Arne Duncan, was one of the main issues brought forward by the picketers. But the massive displacement of teachers and children caused by eight years of what Substance once called 'Duncanian Duplicity' is not the only issue.

One of the major issues dramatized by CORE and the people picketing the Advance Illinois breakfast with Arne Duncan was the massive elimination of African American teachers during the eight years (2001 - 2008) that Duncan was Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools. The CORE pickets outside the Hyatt carried eight signs, each on reading as follows: "1 Silhouette = 250 Black Teachers Fired and THOUSANDS of students and parents denied access to neighborhood schools..." While Duncan talks about his corporate version of school reform being a "civil rights issue," the opposite is the truth. Under Duncan's Renaissance 2010 drive to close and privatize public schools, veteran Black teachers who had remained to teach in the most challenging segregated schools in Chicago were eventually fired as Duncan declared the schools to be "failures" (based solely on standardized test scores) and forced them into "turnaround." Now Duncan and the Chicago Boys he brought with him to Washington, D.C. are trying to foist "Turnaround" on every state and territory under the jurisdiction of the United States. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.During the weeks leading up to the last day of school on June 12, schools across Chicago had been informed that they would not have the same number of teachers as they had at the end of this school year. Arbtrary cuts were being made across the city, so that by the end of the school year, teachers were heading home from school knowing they would not be returning to the same school in September. One of the picketers was Antoinette Barnes, sixteen year computer teacher. Barnes had just been informed she had been laid off from Bronzeville Military Academy. She was told her program was “closed out.” The same program was then reopened under a new name, with a teacher not even properly endorsed, was put in the program.

“I’m highly qualified - I’ve continued my education...” she told Substance. Having graduated number one in he class at Chicago State University, Barnes continued to extend herself as a teacher, beginning when she first began teaching at Amundsen High School in the early 1990s (when Substance editor George Schmidt was serving as CTU delegate and teacher representative on the Local School Council).

Above, Antoinette Barnes, a 16-year veteran computer teacher, was laid off from Chicago's "Bronzeville Military Academy" (high school) when her program was “closed out.” Barnes told the pickets and the media that the same program was then reopened under a new name, with a teacher not even properly endorsed placed into the program by the administration. “I’m highly qualified and I’ve continued my education...” she said. Having graduated number one in her class at Chicago State University, Barnes continued to extend herself as a teacher. She has been awarded several Oppenheimer grants, and continued to fundraise in order to sponsor a variety of special projects for students. Barnes was also critical of the CTU: When Barnes initially contacted her union field rep, Nathaniel Dickson, he was helpful in letting her know her rights should her program reopen, she said. But then a trick in the union bureaucracy hit her. When the program did reopen — albeit with a new name — Barnes asked Dickson, “What are you doing to help me? - I’m qualified.” Dickson responded that she should “write Marilyn Stewart.” Dickson also told Barnes, “We have a lot of other things going on.” He also informed her he was no longer her field rep anyway. Since Barnes had been eliminated from the Bronzeville job, she was a substitute teacher, and teachers in the substitute pool now have their own city-wide representatives. “Basically, the union’s been asleep,” Barnes stated. On June 24th she, and all other CPS teachers laid off at the same time ten months prior, will be ‘honorably discharged’. Substance photo by Garth Liebhaber.Barnes told Substance that she has been awarded several Oppenheimer grants, and continued to fundraise in order to sponsor a variety of special projects for students. Barnes said she was not surprised to hear that Marilyn Stewart was more interested in being inside having breakfast with the leaders of Advance Illinois than outside protesting the policies of Chicago and Arne Duncan. When Barnes initially contacted her union field rep, Nathaniel Dickson, he was helpful in letting her know her rights should her program reopen. When the program did reopen, albeit with a new name, she asked Dickson, “What are you doing to help me? - I’m qualified.” Dickson responded that she should “write Marilyn.” Dickson also told Barnes, “We have a lot of other things going on.” He also informed her he was no longer her field rep anyway, as those in the "substitute pool" now have their own city-wide representatives.

Principals from 'New Leaders' program praised by Duncan

Another picket from the North Side was Suzanne Dunn, union representative and LSC teacher rep from Prescott School in the city's trendy Lincoln Park neighborhood. Dunn and other veteran teachers at her school have been organizing against the purge of veteran teachers by their new principal, Erin Roche.

Roche is a graduate of the New Leaders for New Schools program and has almost no classroom teaching experience. In addition to praising charter schools (and ignoring successful public schools) in his remarks, Duncan is going around the USA singling out the New Leaders for New Schools program to do quick training of principals and the Teach for America program, which places teachers into classrooms with a minimum of training. For Chicago teachers, Prescott Elementary School principal Erin Roche is a typical example of the arrogance and ignorance that combine in the "New Leaders for New Schools" principals. Under previous paths to leadership posts in public schools in Chicago, a teacher would have to have worked six years in the classroom and have earned a master's degree and hold an Illinois administrator's (Type 75) certificate to become a Chicago principal. Under the alternative programs being pushed by corporate groups like Advance Illinois, a new principal in Chicago can have no Chicago teaching experience and still be "qualified" to lead a Chicago school.

In addition to teachers who had been suffering under New Leaders, parents, especially those with children who have special needs, have also faced problems. One such parent was prominent among the pickets outside the Hyatt hotel on June 19. One of the major factual criticisms of the years of Arne Duncan was that he obliterated dozens of viable public schools special education programs and forced many of the children in them into controversial privatized special education contractors.

Arne avoids how he militarized CPS schools

One of the issues that does not figure prominently in the media offensive being conducted by Arne Duncan and his top aides at the U.S. Department of Education is the militarization of Chicago's public high schools that Duncan did. During the Duncan years, Chicago expanded Junior ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corp) training in high schools and even middle schools, until it had reached the point where Chicago had the largest military training program (both absolute and per capita, according to the Chicago Board of Education's Web site) of any school district in the USA.

During most of the years Arne Duncan was CEO of CPS, he was creating a new "military high school" at the rate of one per year. But since he arrived in Washington, D.C., that part of the Duncan record has not featured prominently in the demands being made on other public school districts across the USA.

Demonstrators outside the Hyatt Hotel on June 19, however, included those who serve witness to the militarization of Chicago's public schools under Duncan, who once told protesters he was a "Quaker" and was greeted by the reply: "So was Richard Nixon!"

Senn High School science teacher Brian Roa (above with bullhorn) has been reminding the Chicago Board of Education on a regular basis that the expansion of the military high schools in Chicago has been at the expense of the general high schools, like Senn. The militarization of Chicago's public schools during the years (2001-2008) that Arne Duncan was CEO of CPS is being largely ignored as Duncan works to rebrand himself and "No Child Left Behind" for the Obama years. But two of the most powerful proponents of the increasing militarization of public schools in Chicago were Arne Duncan and (then) Chicago Congressman Rahm Emmanuel, who bragged about the earmarks he got to fund expansions of the CPS military programs. Rahm Emmanuel is now Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.One of those who spoke to the pickets was Brian Roa, a science teacher at Chicago's Senn High School. Roa told the crowd about how Senn was being squeezed in its own building since Duncan put the "Rickover Naval Academy High School" in one side of the building. Roa has repeatedly testified at meetings of the Chicago Board of Education regarding the inequities between what the regular public high schools (Senn) receives versus the opulent equipping of Rickover.

Brian Roa, noted that he has been involved in the Save Senn organization since it was founded to protest Arne Duncan's decision to put a military high school into Senn High School on Chicago's far north side. Save Senn began protesting the militarization of Senn and has continued working to have the Rickover Naval Academy removed from their school. Despite an epic struggle by the school community to not have the naval academy in their school, Arne Duncan, then CEO of Chicago Public Schools, allowed it, and the dedication took place in 2005. At one large meeting in the community, Duncan made a feeble attempt to placate the academy’s opposition by referring to his Quaker upbringing. He then went on to state that students need “more choices.” "Mayor Daley and other propagandists for the city have claimed that charter schools and other Renaissance 2010 schools, such as Rickover, have long waiting lists," Roa said, but he noted that the lists are never made public and the "choice" is a forced choice as resources are taken away from the city's general high school. Roa countered this mythology of the "waiting list" with facts from the Senn experience. He noted that despite a projected 600 students at Rickover Naval Academy, their current enrollment is only 420. Despite this “underenrollment,” Rickover has received millions of dollars in facilities improvements, while Senn, the neighborhood high school is in need of repair.

Another lie that Roa pointed to was the one of recruitment. 'For years when challenged, the mayor and supporters of the military schools have claimed that these schools were not recruiting tools for the military, but simply a kind of college prep high school alternative." Despite constant denial that military academies are a prime recruiting tool, Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of Joint Chief of Staff for the U.S. Navy informed Rickover students during a recent visit that the Navy is a “good career choice.”

Teachers document and protest sabotage of schools through cuts in teachers

Another part of the Duncan history that was documented on the picket line against the Advance Illinois speech was what more and more protesters across Chicago have terms Duncan's systematic sabotage of the neighborhood elementary schools and the general high schools. One of the ways the schools are sabotaged is that they are forced to open school every school year with an incomplete staff of teachers. The reason? Duncan's policies cut the teachers the previous June.

Some of the teachers picketing the Duncan speech were from schools where teachers had been told their jobs had been eliminated at the last minute, just before the June 12, 2009, end of the regular school year. During the weeks before the ending of school, CORE had been trying to document the extent of these cuts, made more difficult by the fact that the official CPS position is that no cuts are being made in the schools, while the current CEO, Ron Huberman, is making cuts in the central office and in areas he now claims are examples of bureaucratic waste.

Clemente High School teacher Cristen Chapman noted that the Chicago Board of Education has just eliminated more than a dozen teachers from her school, even thought the school will open in September with the need for those teachers. The sabotage of the general high schools by Arne Duncan and his successor Ron Huberman continued in June 2009, with more than 30 schools, most of them general high schools, being told again that they would lose teachers. The pattern established during the eight years Duncan was CEO was that the central office would eliminate teachers in June, then allow the schools to open in September with generalized chaos. When principals were sometimes able to force the Board to provide the schools with enough teachers by October, one tenth of the school year had been lost. The sabotage of the schools was one of the reasons why the Board and Duncan could later add those schools to the annual Duncan 'Hit List.' Substance photo by Garth Liebhaber.For more than three months, CORE members in the Chicago Teachers Union's House of Delegates have been trying to get the union to work aggressively against these cuts. A special meeting of the union's House of Delegates was held at Dunbar Vocational High School in response to a CORE petition demanding early action against the rules that promote the short staffing of the schools. But nothing is planned by the union leadership until August and September.

Arne 'created a lot of gang violence'... student tells Substance

Carlos Villasenor, a Harold Washington City Colleges student, told Substance he has been contemplating switching from business to education. Villasenor, a graduate of Chicago's Curie High School and Ruben Salazar elementary school, talked about how important community public schools are. He said he still visits his grade school, Salazar and was saddened to hear how many schools Arne Duncan had destroyed forever.

“I love it there, you feel welcome,” he told Substance. Villasenor’s original plan was to graduate with a degree in business administration and after becoming a successful businessman, open schools in Mexico, he said. When Villasenor realized Substance was taking notes and would be reporting this story widely, he became excited.

Carlos Villasenor, a student at Chicago's Harold Washington College, told Substance he's been contemplating switching from a major in business to education. A graduate of Curie High School and Ruben Salazar elementary school, Villasenor said he still visits his old grade school, Salazar. “I love it there, you feel welcome.” Villasenor said his original career plan was to graduate with a degree in business administration, become a successful entrepreneur, and after — becoming a successful businessman — open schools in Mexico. When Villasenor realized a Substance reporter was taking notes and the story would be widely reported, he became excited. “I have something to say about Arne Duncan, he exclaimed. “When he redrew the district lines for our high schools after he closed high schools, he created a lot of gang violence.” As has been previously reported in Substance, the closings of neighborhood high schools and redrawing of boundaries has shifted the gang dynamics in their struggle to control the city’s neighborhood drug trade. This move, as Villasenor experienced firsthand, had destabilized his high school. Substance photo by Garth Liebhaber.“I have something to say about Arne," he exclaimed. “When he redrew the district lines for our high schools, he created a lot of gang violence.”

As has been previously reported in Substance, the closings of neighborhood high schools and redrawing of boundaries has shifted the gang dynamics in their struggle to control the city’s neighborhood drug trade. This move, as Villasenor experienced first hand, had destabilized his high school and created huge problems for young people of his generation.

Insiders come outside

After covering the event inside the Hyatt Hotel, Substance editor George Schmidt (above) emerged from the hotel to cover the remaining time at the protest. He spoke to the group, reminding them of the need to be able to be inside and outside such events at the same time. Substance photo by Garth Liebhaber.Two people who had been inside for the Advance Illinois breakfast and Duncan's speech came outside to join the pickets and speak to the group following Duncan's departure.

Julie Woestehoff, of PURE (Parents United for Responsible Education) spoke to the group.

Substance editor George N. Schmidt, who had been reporting inside during the entire proceeding, told the group in detail the things that Duncan had said.

The compilation of this article was completed at 5:00 a.m. on June 22, 2009. Those who wish to utilize this article or its graphics should give full credit to Substance as follows: ____ copyright 2009 Substance, Inc. Chicago Illinois USA all rights reserved. Please send Substance an e-mail if you utilize this material.

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