OPT OUT 2015: Chicago school and principal make the pages of The Washington PostEven the nation's major newspapers are finally noting that the PARCC tests are nonsense, and as more and more reporters (and even some editors, although not at the Chicago Tribune or Sun-Times) actually go on . . . | Article | |  |
Parents still being told the lie that they can't Opt Out their children[Editor's Note: Chicago is in the middle of several major upheavals, only one of which is the municipal election that will unseat the tyrannical mayor Rahm Emanuel on April 7. Right now, parents across the . . . | Article | |  |
MEDIA WATCH: Rahm touted Walmart on March 4 while the media showcased him at the fire houseIf you listened to or watched the news on March 4, 2015, you'd have learned that Rahm Emanuel may have once drunk expensive wine with his buddy Bruce Rauner, but now he was opposed -- . . . | Article | |
ALDERMANIC UPDATES: Tara Stamps demands a debate with Emma Mitts in the 37th WardNow that Chicago is in the home stretch in the 2015 municipal elections and most media attention will be focused on the mayoral race, it's still important to report the news from the aldermanic runoffs. . . . | Article | |
Chicago Teachers Union challenges CPS 'security' form as PARCC testing program begins against the opposition of hundreds of teachers and thousands of students and familiesIn the wake of the last minute decision by Chicago Public Schools officials to administer the PARCC test in all of the city's elementary schools, the Chicago Teachers Union has taken the dramatic step of . . . | Article | |  |
Edison principal, others in frantic attempt to stop families from getting Opt Out information... A report on the efforts of administrators to block the right of students to refuse to take the PARCC tests...A frantic attempt to stop opt-out leafleting was made on March 4, 2015 and failed because those distribution the opt out materials knew the law and held our ground. Here is a first hand report . . . | Article | |  |
RAHMWATCH: Rahm's whole career has been an attack on working people and unions... Salon analysis takes Rahm's arrogance back a quarter century.... 'On April 7 pay-to-play politics goes on trial in Chicago. The voters will be the judges...'[Editor's Note: During the week before February 24, 2015, every ruling class media mouthpiece assured their readers that Rahm Emanuel would win the municipal election, despite the organizations arrayed against him. Among others, The New . . . | Article | |  |
RAHMWATCH: 'That sludgy sea of mendacity...' since Rahm started at City Hall more than 20 years ago... The lies shift as the months pass, but Rahm's 'Mendacious Scripts' began in June 2011 -- the new 'Rahm Board of Education' began lying about its budget and stealing a raise from CPS workers...Looking back on it after four years, it's clear that the lies of the Emanuel administration began as soon as Rahm had installed his "new" Board of Education and executive team in May and June . . . | Article | |  |
RAHMWATCH: Year old expose on Rahm's corruption shows how he pushes money to his campaign donors[Editor's Note: With the reprint of the article below (which originally appeared almost a year ago) we are beginning a daily RAHMWATCH feature at substancenews.net. This feature will consist of original reporting by our staff . . . | Article | |  |
ED WRITERS: Substance story from 2003 shows that the hypocrisy of 'Ed Writers' was nothing new in 2015...'the EWA conference room had plenty of wattage; what it lacked was intellectual illumination....' (Susan Ohanian).[Editor's Note: We were happy to be reminded that our friend Susan Ohanian was in Chicago for the 'Ed Writers" meeting back in 2003, and that little has really changed since then. The Ed Writers . . . | Article | |  |
'Non Partisan' Chicago elections were contrived after Harold Washington's 1983 and 1987 election victoriesFor decades, Chicago held its municipal elections in two parts: a party primary in February and the general election in April. Following the surprise (to some) election of Harold Washington as Mayor of Chicago in . . . | Article | |
America Federation of Teachers joins reactionary panel in support of Common Core at Ed Writers Association... 'Opt Out Movement' viewed as the enemy of so-called 'standards'! while Ed Writers broadens its blacklist of who is a 'journalist'...Continuing its rear-guard action defending the Common Core and corporate education "reform", the American Federation of Teachers sent one of its most prominent personalities to the annual Education Writers Association conference to be on a . . . | Article | |  |
Traced back to Rahm Emanuel's NATO security frenzy... Protesters Target Chicago Police Department 'Black Site' at Homan Square; Demand that City 'Shut it Down!'About 200 protesters rallied on February 28, 2015, at the Chicago Police Department’s “black site” at Homan Square, 3379 W. Fillmore (next to Homan Avenue) on a cold, but sunny day. The racially mixed but . . . | Article | |  |
BOARDWATCH: Milkie's frauds at Noble charter schools have been exposed long ago, and still the Board and Rahm push the Milkie myths...Mayors come and mayors go, but as long as Chicago has a school board appointed by its mayor, fraudulent outfits like the "Noble Network of Charter Schools" will be receiving preferential treatment from the Board . . . | Article | |  |
Bringing the War Back Home, Courtesy of the Chicago Police Department: “Black Site” Used in Chicago; Local Press 'Uninterested'An explosive article about CPD’s use of a “black site” to hide, isolate and sometimes torture people in Chicago has just been published by Stuart Ackerman of “The Guardian” newspaper. (The full article is at . . . | Article | |
BOARDWATCH: 'The Board’s pro-business policy of moving essential health services to the private sector is not in the best interests of Chicago’s school children...' Nurses' testimony highlights dangers of privatization obsession of Rahm's appointed Board of Education.[Editor's Note: Below is the written testimony prepared for presentation at the February 25, 2015 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education by veteran CPS nurse Helen Ramirez Odell. Not only did the Board members . . . | Article | |  |
BOARDWATCH: Veterans for Peace continues to remind Rahm's Board of Education of the obscenity of CPS militarism[Editor's Note: The following statement was delivered to the February 25, 2015 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education by Arny Stieber, a Vietnam veteran, who has repeatedly spoken at Board meetings in opposition to . . . | Article | |  |
Barack Obama's hypocrisy -- and ignorance of Chicago and union history -- was fully exposed as Rahm Emanuel is defeated. Even with the massive support -- and even a 'Bro Hug' from Obama -- Rahm was forced into a runoff scheduled for April 7.In no local election in American history has the President of the United States come down from his throne to tout the candidacy of one candidates as did Barack Obama during the month before the . . . | Article | |  |
BOARDWATCH: Chicago Board of Education meeting of February 25, 2015 continued the Board's privatization and charter school policies despite the verdicts of the February 24 municipal election against Rahm Emanuel and the massive vote for an elected school board!The Chicago Board of Education held its monthly meeting on Wednesday, February 25, 2015, at 42 West Madison Street, the old Sears Loop Store, at the "Garden Level", which is now the small Board Meeting . . . | Article | |  |
RAHMWATCH: Mayor saves city from minor snowfall, orders all out effort to make sure every side street is plowed this time -- while making sure the TV cameras are watching him at Snow Command...Not wanting to have the news reports once again showing that Chicago's side streets were left unplowed while the mayor's block and those of powerful city officials were cleared, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel stood on . . . | Article | |  |
