By George N. Schmidt

It began in Chicago on March 10, 2006. The invisible suddenly became visible. By the time it had worked its way across the country in early April, more than two million Americans had taken to the streets from New York to Los Angeles. But it began in Chicago on March 10, 2006.

By George N. Schmidt

By George N. Schmidt

Two months before Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan told the City Club that the Board of Education faced a $328 million “deficit” for the 2006-2007 school year, he quietly re-created one of the area offices he had supposedly closed the previous summer — at a cost of more than $1 million in salaries and benefits to that office’s 14 staff.

On April 3, in a page one story, The New York Times reported that a small charter school in New York City was going out of business amid allegations about financial mismanagement and the loss of staff.

By Susan Ohanian

A Adequate Yearly Progress Amplification Auctioneer

By Craig Gordon

By George N. Schmidt

A Texas student who resisted the TAKS test has won several college scholarships, in part because of her courageous stand against test mania. Below is an article published in San Antonio March 18.

By Al Korach

The great Chicago Teachers Union retiree delegate election of 2006 is over and the results are in. Much to my surprise, I was again reelected. The election results have been announced, despite a number of stupid procedural errors in the way it was conducted. 

By Lotty Blumenthal

March was Women’s History Month. On March 16th, 2006 CLUW (Coalition of Labor Union Women) held the 26th Annual Florence Criley Award Presentation at the New Matinique Banquet Hall In celebration of International Women’s day.

By Theresa D. Daniels

When the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) House of Delegates met on February 15, 2006, President Marilyn Stewart and her administration kept it a secret from the House that their version of the referendum on the mail ballot to the homes of members would be held at the schools on April 4th, the day before the next meeting of the House of Delegates would take place April 5th. The March meeting of the House had already been cancelled due to the Delegates Workshop March 24th and 25th.

By Marybeth Foley

The election of Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) retiree delegates and the escape of retirees from the winter cold all took priority during February.

By Michael Brownstein

The seventh grade girl came back to school after a five day unexcused absence. Immediately she began cursing at another child in the class. When her teacher got the class back under control, the same student instigated a fight. Fortunately, the class ignored her.

Suburban versus city teacher pay

March 1, 2006

I know you can make your own comparisons with your own suburbs, but your readers might be interested in the following, which I also posted to the New York ICE list. Farmingdale is a school district outside New York City.

By George N. Schmidt

With charter schools now being the main thrust of privatization, union busting, and deregulation in Chicago’s public schools, some observers are puzzling over whether the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is actually supporting a bill by State Senator Martin Sandoval that would allow the unlimited expansion of charter schools in Chicago.

By Michael H. Brownstein

“The announced timing of the school’s closing is inconsistent with all of the known research and policies of the Chicago Board of Education,” explained Saundra Fisher, a teacher at the John Farren Elementary School.

By Lotty Blumenthal

Hundreds of parents, teachers, students and politicians opposing proposed school closings packed the February 22 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education, but most were relegated to a “holding room” on the 19th floor of the Board’s downtown headquarters while the meeting proceeded on the fifth floor. While seats on the fifth floor were filled with Board staff and a group of visiting social worker interns. Parents and others who wished to speak were often too late to get into the meeting after being shuttled from the 19th floor.

By Sister Grim

Once upon a time it was THAT time — election time—in the city of Chicago, located, as ewesual, in the sorry, scandal-ridden cheapskate state of Ill-A-Noise. To be accurate, it was primary election time, but it was almost as much fun as a real, serious, election.

By Rich Gibson

In 1935, at the annual bacchanal of the American Federation of Labor in Atlantic City, the bushy-eyed, bulbous, reactionary leader of the United Mine Workers, John L. Lewis, slugged the President of the racist Carpenters’ Union, William Hutcheson, in the mouth. Hutcheson had offended Lewis with a slight about a rubber worker. That punch, 71 years ago, is seen as the symbol of what became the formative moment of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The CIO was born out of the slug aimed at the American Federation of Labor.