History is still alive today... Labor Beat's 2015 story 'A Financial Crisis Created To Justify Cuts'... Video explaining how ruling class creates a crises to justify staff cuts remains alive and relevant today...In remembrance of Larry Duncan and in preparation for the attacks from employers on workers here is a great video made a few years ago on how employers create a crises that diverts money to . . . | Article | |
RTACThe annual banquet of the Retired Teachers Association of Chicago (RTAC) again showed the organization's power, both among retired teachers and administrators -- and among political leaders. RTAC held its 92nd annual Spring Membership Luncheon . . . | Article | |  |
State rules that CPS has violated the rights of disabled children, takes over monitoring...ISBE Rules that CPS Needs to Have Oversight into Their Special Education Practices
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CTU BUDGET REVIEWS I... As union delegates take a close look at the CTU's proposed budget, questions about double dipping and other problems with the current leadership grow... Does the CTU need a retired teacher as a 'manager of managers' at nearly $100,000 per year?...In a return to times when the Chicago Teachers Union was a crony patronage operation the current CORE leadership led by Karen Lewis and Jesse Sharkey is back to its old habits of double dipping . . . | Article | |
A closer look at the racism of Paul Vallas's New Orleans 'miracle'... When School Reform Falters (if You’re Black and Poor) in New Orleans.....[Introductory by Jim Schwab. While I was in New Orleans April 19-24 for the American Planning Association’s 2018 National Planning Conference, my wife, Jean, was also there. A retired Chicago Public Schools teacher and retiree . . . | Article | |  |
Students to IDEM (Indiana Department of Environmental Management)... Gary is Not a Dump, Our Education is More Important than a Dump!Over 80 students, teachers and supporters of the Steel City Academy in Gary, Indiana, rallied and protested Thursday night, May 10, 2018, first at the United Steelworkers of America #1014 hall and then later at . . . | Article | |  |
Gangs in Chicago. 'South C's' still in business in 'South Chicago'...A small article in the May 8 Chicago Sun-Times reminded me that most of the work of Chicago's drug gangs continues, business as usual, into this, now their fourth generation. Back in the 1990s, when . . . | Article | |
Despite Vallas's claims, be left behind corruption and financial wreck in Philadelphia...Despite claims by Paul Vallas and his cheerleaders at the Chicago Tribune, Vallas left behind a wreck when he was forced out of his job at the top of the nation's fourth largest schools system. . . . | Article | |  |
The Paul Vallas I Know Was a Racist...Paul Vallas and the origins of the corporate 'school reform' policy to eliminate black teachers and principals in Chicago...[Editor's Note: With the May 1 front page story touting Paul Vallas followed by the May 2 Tribune editorial basically endorsing Vallas for Mayor of Chicago, it's clear that the Vallas Mayth persists, at least . . . | Article | |  |
Autism Awareness event at Schurz High SchoolThe Autism Awareness Week event at Schurz High School in Chicago was a success, according to the hundreds of people who attended it. Widespread publicity not only on the Northwest Side but across Chicago helped . . . | Article | |
Substance back issues now go to nearly the beginning of the 21st Century...On line back issues of Substance can be found to almost the beginning of the 21st Century, even though the Substance print edition was suspended in September 2014. Substance has been published continuously since 1975, . . . | Article | |
Chicago Teachers Pension Fund to elect teacher and retiree trustees in coming monthsTwo important elections will be held in October and November 2018, as the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF) elects two teacher trustees and one pensioner trustee to its 12-member board. Any teacher member who qualifies . . . | Article | |
Memorial for Leo Gorenstein scheduled to 'celebrate the life'... at the Hideout Saturday afternoon, April 28, 2018...There will be a remembrance for Leo Gorenstein on Saturday at the Hideout. Leo's family and friends urge everyone to join them between one and five in the afternoon of April 28, 2018, to "celebrate . . . | |  |
Ocean Hill...50 years ago - the 1968 New York City teachers strike...Fifty years ago in the Spring of 1968, a month after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., approximately 350 New York City public school teachers walked out of their schools in a poor working . . . | Article | |  |
Mayoral ally moves to privatize substitute teachers in Chicago...After having blocked legislation to establish an elected school board for Chicago, Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, a Democrat, has moved to fast track a bill in Springfield to privatize substitute teachers in Chicago, a . . . | Article | |  |
Did CTU officers and staff violate union rules -- and the union's budget resolution -- by spending ALL of the $1.4 million allocated for various activities on the Chuy campaign 'loan'?...In what can only be described as equivocation, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey, at the April 2018 meeting of the union's House of Delegates, tried to dodge a specific question about the spending . . . | Article | |
Illinois State Board of Education meeting hears the CPS Special Education Inquiry Report... CPS Needs to Make Changes...The ISBE (Illinois State Board of Education) monthly meeting, held at the Thompson Center on Wednesday, April 18, 2018, was filled to capacity. This crowd was there due to the report of their investigation into . . . | Article | |
Labor Beat's Larry Duncan has passed away..."First Leo. Now Larry" was my first sentence after reading that Labor Beat's Larry Duncan had died. Rather than share all of those memories here now, it's more appropriate that we here at Substance simply . . . | Article | |
Members First draws 250 CTU rank and filers to April 13 event...It's official that Members First will be challenging CORE in the 2019 Chicago Teachers Union election...There were slightly more than 250 people attending a fundraising event at Cork and Kerry’s on the south side of Chicago for Members First, and they were enjoying pizza and other treats (including "Board of . . . | Article | |  |
Filthy CPS schools prompt Kenwood HS supporters, CTU officials, to put on haz-mat suits in effort to highlight the need to clean up corruption in privatized custodial contracts at CPS...Wearing bright yellow head-to-toe haz-mat (hazardous materials) suits, members of the Clean Kenwood Coalition, including officials of the Chicago Teachers Union, highlighted “unhealthy” conditions in Chicago Public Schools. They said the protective gear would let . . . | Article | |  |
