A reminder of the crime against public education and democracy that took place three years ago... The May 2013 closing of 50 Chicago public schools was not anything Rahm Emanuel is showing 'contrition' about in 2016...
During here more than four years as a member of the Chicago Board of Education, Andrea Zopp voted in favor of every attack on the city's real public schools, including the May 2013 vote to destroy 50 schools by closing them. After she lost her bid to become the Democratic Party Senate nominee in 2016, Zopp was rescued by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. In May 2016, Emanuel created a second "Deputy Mayor" position and put Zopp into it. The total cost of the position alone will be a quarter million dollars, and with Zopp's staff and other perks, she is likely to cost the city's taxpayers more than a half million dollars in a year the mayor claims the city and schools are broke. Substance photo by David Vance.The Chicago Tribune may have decided, for reasons unclear to most people in Chicago, that an interview with Mayor Rahm Emanuel was appropriate, and that the public should be told that Rahm was trying "contrition" now that arrogance has failed. But for anyone paying attention, Chicago is one week from the three-year anniversary of the closing of 50 of the city's real public schools, a historical moment that is still noted across the USA. And so, Substance is making a special blast here, a reminder of what happened to Chicago on that day in May 2013, the Board of Education meeting of May 22, 2013.
Let's not either forget who did it. In addition to Emanuel: Andrea Zopp was an outspoken member of the Board of Education; David Vitale was still Board President; Barbara Byrd Bennett was Chief Executive Officer, the second CEO appointed by Emanuel since his May 2011 inauguration. Zopp, who at the time was CEO of the Chicago Urban League, constantly reminded the Board that its job was to increase the hiring of MBEs (minority and women contractors), a position she also repeated regularly as the Board's trustee on the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF). Whenever anyone criticized the Board for the racist impacts of its policies (charter expansion, turnarounds and school closings had the heaviest impact on schools in the Black community, resulting in the firing of hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of Black teachers and other staff), Zopp and Mahalia Hines (who is still on the Board) would treat the public to little speeches about how they knew what was best for their "community." And "best" was corporate "school reform" according to the wishes of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
And Frank Clark was a relatively unknown corporate executive who had chaired the "commission" that came up with the list of schools to be closed. Clark's contribution at that time was to originally claim that CPS had about 300 "underutilized" schools -- but the mayor and the school board was doing the city a favor by only planning to close 50 of them. Clark had begun his attacks on the city's real public schools by sponsoring a charter school, the "Rowe-Clark" campus of the "Noble Network of Charter Schools."
Photos accompanying this article show several members of the Board of Education from three years ago. While claiming that the city if broke and needs hundreds of millions of dollars more than it has, Rahm Emanuel has created the new position of "Deputy Mayor" for Andrea Zopp. Zopp, readers will remember, voted for all the school closing; all the budget cuts, and all the privatization schemes supported by the mayor. Zopp supported all the charter school creations, and all the "co-sharing" whereby charter schools take over part of the city's real public schools. Zopp was apologizing for all the privatization contract scams that came on the table. She never argued or voted to stop any attack on the public schools.
One month after voting to close 50 schools because they claimed CPS didn't have the dollars to keep them open, the members of the Board of Education, unanimously and without debate, voted to approve the no-bid SUPES contract deal proposed by Barbara Byrd Bennett. The SUPES deal was later exposed as one of the most corrupt in the history of the city's public schools. But not one of the members of the school board at the time questioned the recommendation of Barbara Byrd Bennett to do the deal. Board Report from the June 2013 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education. On that day in May 2013, Barbara Byrd Bennett stood boldly and spoke about the "empty seats" in Chicago's elementary schools. Byrd Bennett claimed closing all those schools would save money, which the Board of Education tried to claim would be used to make the schools better -- at those schools that were left. As they were closing that historical number of real public schools, the Board members opened ten charter schools in the fall of 2013; many of them were high schools. Chicago now has 140 high schools. In 2000 CPS had 86 high schools. This is a 54 school expansion of charter high schools over 15 years.
Despite Rahm's contrition, Chicago is fighting a real enemy, and the enemy includes all of the members of the Board of Education -- then and today.
Frank Clark is now the Board President. He is a black. David Vitale (the white banker) is gone. Clark does not fall asleep during Board meetings, as Vitale did. Clark also seems more passionate toward the students who come to speak up, but everyone needs to remember that it was Clark who made the list of the schools to be destroyed three years ago.
No matter how often he smiles, Clark is still following the mayor's agenda. In April 2016, Clark and his fellow Board members pushed through another expansion of charter schools, as well as the privatization of the remaining school engineers.
Barbara Byrd Bennett is gone, replaced first by Jesse Ruiz (as "Interim CEO") and then by Forrest Claypool, who had been Emanuel's Chief of Staff. Byrd Bennett is not yet in prison, but her actions were supported by the Board members who voted for every proposal she brought before them.
Jesse Ruiz left and got another big job. And Andrea Zopp, after losing her bid for the Senate nomination, is now working directly for Rahm at City Hall. Barbara Byrd Bennett is supposedly on her way to prison for the SUPES deal. Forest Claypool is in now in the CEO chair -- Rahm's fourth CEO since May 2011 (if the public remembers to include the time that Jesse Ruiz was filling one of the Board's "diversity" slots). Nothing has changed; charters are expanded; the Board claims it is even more broke than it was when it voted to close the schools. And the mayor's policies continue, unabated.
The members of the Chicago Board of Education are not the only ones who are "churned" under the administration of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Top level bureaucrats are constantly being shuffled, too, leaving the system in a constant state of near-chaos. Above, four of the top administrators of the nation's third largest school system at the May 22, 2013 Board of Education meeting. Left to right, Robert Boik, Denise Little, Beth Mascatti Miller, and Tracy Martin Thompson. Three years later, only Little remains (she is now "Special Assistant" to the latest CEO, Forrest Claypool). Boik came and went with Barbara Byrd Bennett, as did Martin Thompson. Mascatti survived a year after her clout, Jean-Claude Brizard, was dumped, but finally left too. After his July 2015 appointment as CEO, Forrest Claypool brought in his own team of bureaucrats, at a cost of more than $3 million by Substance estimated, despite the fact that none of them had any experience in managing schools or education prior to the 2015 - 2016 school year. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt. The faces have changed but the game is the same. The Chicago Teachers Union needs to keep fighting, and fight smarter. Many say that a political party of the working class is needed.
TRIBUNE RAHM EMANUEL INTERVIEW, MAY 17, 2016
After his toughest year, confident Emanuel adds new tool: Contrition, BY Bill Ruthhart
Chicago Tribune
Seated in a brown leather chair in his City Hall office reflecting on his toughest year as mayor, Rahm Emanuel veers from softer-spoken and contrite to assertive and confident in mere moments.
Mention the shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer that upended his second term, and Emanuel says the case changed him and changed the city. "Laquan McDonald is a wake-up call to all of us," he says. "It's a reminder there's a lot broken."
Suggest the shooting and the subsequent federal investigation into his Police Department have laid significant challenges on top of the already tall pile he faced, however, and Emanuel shakes his head and bluntly answers, "No."
Although Board of Education officials unleashed CPS security against more than a half dozen people who signed up to speak out against the closings at the Board's May 2013 meeting, the most dramatic attack on a citizen came against Erika Clark, of Parents 4 Teachers. Because the Board didn't even call out the names of the schools that were on the chopping block (instead, the secretary did an omnibus of abbreviations known at "Board Reports"), Clark tried to read all the names from the podium. When her two minutes were "up", she hadn't even completed reading half the list. But Board President David Vitale ordered security to drag her away from the podium. Above, Clark talked with reporters after being dropped at the rear door of the Board chambers. None of those dragged away from speaking was arrested during the meeting. Andrea Zopp, Mahalia Hines and the other Board members voted unanimously for the list of schools to be closed that had been presented to them by Frank Clark. Substance photo by David Vance.This is not strictly true, of course. A major revamp of the Police Department was not envisioned a year ago when Emanuel raised his hand to take the oath of office. It was supposed to be about getting the city and school district's financial houses in order, avoiding another teachers strike and keeping momentum going in the never-ending war on violent crime.
As he enters a pivotal Year Six, those problems remain, new ones have been added and Emanuel must try to make headway on them at a time when Chicagoans hold a dim view of his leadership.
Running the city in such an atmosphere resulted in an adjustment to his public image, and the mayor responded by adding a new tool to his formidable political arsenal: a more modest, and, at times, apologetic demeanor. Though it is not his nature, it's a political survival tactic he's using as he tries to thread a narrow needle.
The softer side is on display when he needs to convince disenchanted Chicagoans he's serious about ending decades of police misconduct. The sharp, alpha-male-in-control side comes out when he has to convince cops he has their backs during a period of intense criticism of their job performance as shootings spike with the hot summer months still on the horizon.
"The mayor has expressed an interest in being more collaborative and communicating more freely with community leaders, members of the City Council, clergy and I've seen some of that," said Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd. "His tone is a bit more conciliatory, but as far as how it translates into his agenda or his governance, I haven't seen major changes to date."
But Emanuel said he has altered his approach as a result of the McDonald controversy. And the mayor said he believes by the time this term is done, he'll have proved capable of transforming the Police Department and solidifying the city's shaky finances. He even says he's contemplating a run for a third term. It's a decision he insists remains off in the distance, though if he closed the door to re-election now, he would render himself a lame duck with three years to go.
"It's clear I cannot only see through the changes we need to see through but do it in a way the city is moving forward," said Emanuel, striking a confident note. "I'm going to measure where the city stands at the end of my term. I know what it was when I came to office, and I know what I want to see get done."
Police problems
A year ago Wednesday, Emanuel was sworn in at a packed Chicago Theatre and gave a unique inaugural address focused on a single issue: preventing "another lost generation of our city's youth."
"These faces of these lost and unconnected young men are often invisible — until we see them in a mug shot as the victim or perpetrator of a senseless crime," the mayor said in his speech.
One of those young men, McDonald, remained invisible to the public because Emanuel's City Hall lawyers fought the release of police dashcam video that showed him being shot repeatedly by Officer Jason Van Dyke in the middle of South Pulaski Road. But a Cook County judge ordered the footage be made public, spurring weeks of protesters marching in the streets.
Add in a $5 million settlement with McDonald's family, paid out before a lawsuit was even filed, and reports from at least six police officers that didn't square with the video, and the chant "16 shots and a cover-up!" was born, along with demands for Emanuel's resignation.
"He has not changed, and it's only a matter of time before there's another situation with another name, another personality, and it will be the same thing. He has not shown with his leadership that his heart is for the constituents. It's all about self," said Jedidiah Brown, founder of the activist group Young Leaders Alliance.
"People keep saying the video, the video, the video," Brown said recently. "The video was just a vehicle. It's what pulled the curtain up on what really happens in this city."
Ask Emanuel if he believes there will always be a segment of Chicago that thinks he covered up the McDonald video, and he doesn't hesitate. "Of course," he says.
The mayor dug in the first week after the McDonald video came out, before later reversing course and firing his police superintendent. Perhaps the pinnacle of Emanuel's apology tour came during an emotional speech to the City Council in which he condemned a police "code of silence" he said allowed cops to cover up the wrongdoing of their fellow officers.
Did it take the McDonald case for him to realize such a code existed? Here, Emanuel seeks to claim credit. "Obviously, it's been talked about. It's always in the public realm," he said in an hourlong interview late last week. "I'm the first person, elected official, to acknowledge it."
Left unsaid is why Emanuel didn't take on the police misconduct issue before the McDonald case erupted.
When it comes to what he could have done differently, the mayor takes a more humble tone: As the investigation dragged on, he should have spoken up.
"There was a growing sense of suspicion and questions why this was taking so long," said Emanuel, who debuted his softer side last year in a much-referenced runoff re-election TV ad in which he wore a sweater and told voters he "can rub people the wrong way." "I should have been a voice for those who were saying, 'The time has come for a conclusion.' And I wasn't. And I acknowledge my responsibility.
"Part of fixing something is knowing where you have a role and a culpability, you have to own up, if other people are going to come forward and own up to their culpability and ownership in fixing something," he continued. "And that's where I'm determined to make changes."
Since the calendar turned, Emanuel has started to make some moves. There's a new top cop, Eddie Johnson, a well-liked department veteran who has to help restore morale and community trust while trying to tamp down rampant violence.
Homicides are up about 56 percent from last year. Chicago reached 1,000 shooting victims on April 20, far earlier than the city reached that milestone last year. And Mother's Day weekend proved to be the city's most violent weekend since the end of September, according to a Tribune analysis.
Asked what police brass are telling him about the jump in shootings, Emanuel pointed to the usual suspects — gangs, weak gun laws and lax sentencing for repeat offenders — but he also mentioned the frame of mind of Chicago's officers.
"Morale is a factor. It is not the factor, but you'd be turning a blind eye if you didn't think the Police Department or our officers need to know that if they're going to take risks that are split-second risks, they're not going to be second-guessed every time on everything," Emanuel said. "On the other hand, they need to know we're going to hold them to standards of professionalism."
While the mayor has not been shy about criticizing the department, he also has sought to provide cover for the rank-and-file officers on the street — the ones he needs to help stop the shooting.
"The world for our law enforcement community has changed dramatically, everything from filling out paperwork to relationships with the community and how they think the narrative is in the media," Emanuel said. "They don't think they get a fair shake. They think, basically, you guys think of them as guilty beforehand."
To reform the department, the mayor has promised more body-worn cameras, Tasers and mental health training for police. Emanuel has pledged to adopt a series of recommendations from his police accountability task force, from conducting faster investigations into alleged police wrongdoing to writing new guidelines for disciplining officers.
Accused of nibbling around the edges on police reforms, Emanuel on Friday afternoon tackled some of the task force's more difficult recommendations. His office released a letter in which the mayor said he would dismantle the Independent Police Review Authority, the civilian body charged with investigating accusations against officers but that has rarely found wrongdoing by them. He also said he'd take steps to create an inspector general for public safety and establish a citizen board to monitor all police oversight.
Specifics, however, were scarce. Even Lori Lightfoot, whom Emanuel picked to chair the task force, noted "the devil will be in the details," while Jon Loevy, a civil attorney who frequently brings police misconduct lawsuits, wondered if Emanuel is "just changing the letters" of the agency yet again.
Emanuel said the challenge with revamping IPRA and instituting some of the other recommendations is that there's "a lot of furniture to move" and he wants to ensure that any changes he makes do not run counter to potential findings and recommendations from the Justice Department.
The mayor said his office and the Police Department have "regular contact" with Justice officials, though he said he didn't know when they might conclude their investigation.
"I'm consulting with them, so if there is something we're doing that they really don't want, I want to know that before we do it," Emanuel said. "And if there is something we're doing they want to see more of, I want to know that. So, I want to do this once and get it right rather than do it repeatedly."
The Rev. Ira Acree, an advocate for police reform who serves as pastor of the Greater St. John Bible Church on the West Side, called waiting for input from the Justice Department a "cop-out."
"Why not show real leadership and not wait for the federal government to bail him out and force changes on the Police Department?" he said. "He's engaging in political machinations, and people's lives are lying in the balance."
Brown, the South Side activist, contended that at every step, Emanuel has not been proactive on police reform.
"Everything they have done has been reactive and forced," he said. "The community doesn't feel it. What he's doing now is trying to regain political strength and cover. He's using the same playbook."
The challenge for Emanuel, acknowledged David Axelrod, a longtime friend and political strategist, is that unlike other issues, there is no one decision or action that can solve the complex and evolving puzzle of strained police and community relations.
"This is an ongoing test. ... There is no one thing that you are going to do that is suddenly going to change the environment or eradicate the problem, so for a guy who is eager to sort of knock things out, that has its challenges," Axelrod said. "There is no immediate yield for all of this, and that's I'm sure a source of frustration. But I don't sense in any way he believes this is going to be a quick fix or press-release type of problem."
Financial fixes and the future
While the new police challenges have dominated the public discussion, Emanuel still has significant financial problems to tackle.
The month before the McDonald video was released, Emanuel took a big, if unpopular, step toward fixing the city's vastly unfunded government worker pension system. He persuaded aldermen to go along with a record $543 million property tax hike for police and fire pensions, though the city could be on the hook for another $220 million more if Gov. Bruce Rauner doesn't sign a bill to ease increased payments into the retirement systems.
But it was one step back as the Illinois Supreme Court threw out state legislation to fund the pensions of the city's laborers and municipal workers. On top of that, Chicago Public Schools is borrowing heavily at high interest rates to keep the doors open.
"I think the mayor has had an incredibly difficult year politically, and the toughest part of that job is that every day you have to manage some new crisis," said Reilly, the downtown alderman. "There is a crisis of confidence in public safety, our massive pension liabilities, our structural budget deficit, our growing city debt and CPS on the verge of insolvency. Each of those on its own is a massive crisis, so having to manage all of those at once is an incredible job for any mayor, regardless of who you are."
Wall Street rating agencies have dropped the city's credit rating to "junk" status. The mayor, however, exudes confidence, if not specifics, on a turnaround.
"I see city finances within the context of an economic strategy. ... We are going to solve our financial problems by growing the economy, and I have rejected some corners that have called for a slash-and-burn approach, and I've rejected others who have called for raising taxes and leaving government as is," said Emanuel, who noted that the city's pensions have been underfunded for up to 40 years. "I'm gonna fix it, and I'm gonna lead the effort to fix it. And I think a lot of people have to play a role in solving it as much as a lot of people played a role in creating it."
The mayor hinted that if Rauner doesn't sign the police and fire pension relief bill, another property tax hike for Chicago homeowners could be on the way.
"I know the governor does not agree with just raising property taxes willy-nilly," Emanuel said. "That bill on his desk gets the pension payment done without unnecessarily overburdening property taxpayers. ... I believe it's the right thing to do. I believe it's the responsible thing to do."
As for CPS, a major change in how the state funds education isn't likely to happen in an election year. But given the dire financial situation at the school district, Emanuel has to continue to publicly press. Chicago unfairly has to fund the pensions of teachers around the state through income taxes and those of Chicago teachers through property taxes, he says. And, the mayor contends, schools with a higher percentage of poor students like Chicago — but also Aurora, Springfield and Quincy — get the shaft.
"It is inequitable. The governor himself has acknowledged it," Emanuel said. "He is the governor, so therefore he is incumbent to fix something that he has acknowledged is broken. I know the politics are tough. I get it. Trust me, the politics are not as tough as poverty is on a child."
The mayor and governor are onetime vacation pals, but Emanuel wouldn't say if they remain friends. The two "talk regularly," said Emanuel, who would not elaborate.
A mayor viewed as politically weakened could have a more difficult time getting things done, if not at City Hall then in Springfield. And Emanuel's standing with Chicagoans has fallen to record lows.
A Chicago Tribune poll in February found a vast majority of Chicagoans didn't consider Emanuel to be honest and trustworthy, didn't think he was justified in withholding the McDonald video and didn't believe his statements about the controversial case. It all led to an approval rating of just 27 percent.
A recent New York Times poll placed his approval rating at 25 percent. The low numbers have raised questions about whether Emanuel can rebuild support ahead of a possible run in 2019 — still a long time in Chicago politics.
"Some politicians say, 'Oh I don't look at polls,'" said Emanuel, making clear he doesn't place himself in that category. "There was another poll that had me at 45 percent, just two weeks ago, so there are other polls out there that are different."
That relatively positive poll? Emanuel's office said it was conducted by the vacation rental company Airbnb, which currently is lobbying the mayor not to sign off on stricter taxes and regulations for the budding industry. The mayor's office did not provide a copy of the survey.
"The last thing he should be doing right now is worrying about polls or thinking about elections," Axelrod said of Emanuel. "These are really big, definitional problems and challenges for the city, and whatever he decides to do in the future, his legacy is very much tied up in the progress he can make on these issues, and more importantly, the future of the city is tied up in it."
A year ago, Emanuel described his second-term philosophy: "My attitude is govern as if you've run your last race. That's not to say I've run my last race, but govern with a liberation and a freedom, change your mind frame to operate that way."
Asked last week if he'll consider running a third time, he responded, "I have no idea."
The mayor held a fundraiser last week, though he hasn't disclosed yet how much money he collected or who gave it. Still, Emanuel is turning his campaign cash machine back on about six months sooner than he did last time.
"I'm going to do the things today to prepare," Emanuel said. "If I decide to run, I'll be ready to do it. If I decide not to, I'll take that course."
In the meantime, he'll have the advantage of keeping aldermen and potential opponents guessing.
"These are personal decisions as much as they are professional," Emanuel said. "I'll make a decision based on what (wife) Amy and I want to make, not just what I want to make. And I'm going to make the decisions in a job I find rewarding where I still think I can make a big impact on the future of the city and the people of Chicago."
