The March 2010 Issue of Substance
Subscribe (Order Online) | Contact Substance | Suggestions (email)
Remember, Substance stays alive because of your subscriptions, individual purchases, and donations! Support Substance and allow us to expand our web content for your convenience!
If Arne Duncan were serious about Civil Rights... Chicago's Mr. Segregation takes another piece of the Chicago Plan national
Yesterday, March 8, 2010, corporate foundation stooge, Arne Duncan, was marched out to declare a commitment to civil rights enforcement that was absent during the reign of Bush II. And yet Duncan seems intent to . . .
MEDIA WATCH: Urban Prep! Urban Prep! Another mendacious Chicago 'miracle' that corporate media want to make sure you see in the 'right' way
In their usual way, both Chicago daily newspapers assured their readers on March 7 that they had discovered another one of those Chicago-style education miracles that the world needed to know about. The Chicago Tribune . . .
MEDIA WATCH: More corporate propaganda from the pages of the Sunday New York Times magazine
[Editor's Note: The following went up on March 7 at Jim Horn's Schools Matter blog and is reprinted here with premission. George N. Schmidt, Editor, Subtstance, Monday, March 8, 2010].
SUNDAY, MARCH . . .
News roundup on actions to save public education from March 4, 2010
Thanks to many people for sending us their first hand reports on the actions from March 4, 2010, and to others for sharing decent local news coverage from around the nation. The Chicago protest (see . . .
In 'Race to the Top', Duncan, as usual, ignores reality in favor of his free market and choice theology
By the end of the first week of March, the nation had experienced to massively contradictory events. In Washington, D.C., the President of the United States and the U.S. Secretary of Education continued an attack . . .
MEDIA WATCH: Chicago's Lies Go Viral Across USA as Duncan announces first 'Race To The Top' state winners... Most Media Praise 'Race To The Top' Without Checking The Silly Bases For It
As the announcement came in from the U.S. Department of Education on March 4, 2010, that most states had "lost" the first round of the so-called "Race To The Top" program one thing is clear . . .
Illinois political leaders begin to question value of ISAT, PSAE
It's not yet a chorus, but a growing number of Illinois political and educational leaders are beginning to question the value of the ISAT and PSAE state achievement tests. During the first week of March . . .
AFL-CIO condemns firing of Central Falls teachers
The AFL-CIO, the nation's central labor body, wasted no time in condemning President Barack Obama for his attack on the teachers of Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. The following reports detail the AFL-CIO . . .
Duncan and Obama are wrong to praise the firing of all the teachers at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island
[Editor's note. Many of us here at Substance are waiting to receive copies of Diane Ravitch's new book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education" . . .
LETTER: I teach at the 'Central Falls High School' of Miami, Florida, and we won't let you scapegoat us for your problems
I teach at a school just like Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. I am a teacher just like those summarily fired at Central Falls. Speaking to the US Chamber of Commerce this week, . . .
Substance Web traffic surpasses all previous records in February 2010 -- 445,904 total 'hits'
Traffic to the SubstanceNews Web site (www.substancenews.net) in February 2010 surpassed all previous months, despite the fact that the month only had 28 days. During the month, the total "hits" (as measured by Network Solutions . . .
President Obama backs Arne Duncan's union busting and teacher bashing from Central Falls (Rhode Island) to Chicago and across the entire USA
In case there was any lingering doubt about where the Obama administration stood on corporate "school reform," within a week after the ruthless purge of veteran teachers from Central Falls Rhode Island brought national attention . . .
MEDIA WATCH: First, hang out at District299.com (one back scratches the other)... Second, for a good laugh, readers should check out how The New York Times spins its Chicago 'turnaround' coverage to ignore thousands of angry black people denouncing 'turnaround'
We'll have a bit more to say about the puerile reporting by the Chicago News Cooperative in the February 28, 2010 New York Times (e.g., they didn't attend any of the closing hearings; didn't quote . . .
COWARDS: How Substance edits out anonymous e-mail messages if the writer doesn't provide a real return e-mail address
On the last day of February, we received an e-mail message from an anonymous poster who took up the cause of supporting CPS Turnaround Chief Officer Donald Fraynd and criticizing several of the critics of . . .
What is the superlative of Chutzpah? The incredible mendacity of Arne Duncan... U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan 'dumbed down' Chicago 'standards', took credit for the 'miracle of up'... but now he tells CNN the whole Chicago scam he spent eight years perfecting was 'lying to children'
One of the things that Chicago reporters who paid attention came to know within a year or two after Mayor Richard M. Daley made novice Arne Duncan the "Chief Executive Officer" of Chicago's public schools . . .
Gerald Bracey's 'Rotten Apple' Awards for 2000 said all there needed to be said about William Bennett's dishonesty... Bennett is now being dusted off by America's corporate media (CNN and others) to help Arne Duncan destroy America's public schools
[Editor's Note. The following is obviously published following Jerry's October 2009 death. it's rare that we will be publishing a piece of work a decade old as 'news', but the following 'Rotten Apple' awards for . . .
Chicago spins again to avoid the 'Katrina Effect' by keeping the turnaround hearings away from the victims of Chicago apartheid... Chicago Board of Education trying to hold hearings on AUSL 'turnarounds' in secret? Hearings on four schools to be held Monday evening, March 15, at CPS headquarters
Without any notice to the media, the Chicago Board of Education's "Office of New Schools" has quietly scheduled "hearings" on proposals to subject four Chicago schools — Bradwell, Curtis, and Deneen elementary schools and Phillips . . .
Data Warehousing will destroy your soul
[Editor's Note: As soon as the following piece by Susan Ohanian — Data Warehousing Will Destroy Your Soul, Publication Date: 2010-03-08 — was published, we can republish it here. Hopefully, readers will have the time . . .
CPS proposes to hire hundreds of new teachers while Ron Huberman says he has to prepare to cut thousands of jobs because of a near billion dollar 'deficit'
While claiming it must cut hundreds (perhaps thousands) of jobs, the Chicago Board of Education is simultaneously advertising around the nation and locally to hire new teachers. Is there an explanation? Secret Job Fairs and . . .
Bradwell vows to continue fight against 'turnaround'... Organizing continues to end 'turnaround' attacks on inner city Chicago schools
Parents, teachers, and students from Chicago's Bradwell Elementary School have vowed to continue the fight against 'turnaround' despite the vote of the Chicago Board of Education to subject their school to the draconian process at . . .
School Closure Star Rises Amid the Ashes... Jonathan Jackson brings personal commitment and resources of Rainbow PUSH on behalf of ghetto schools targeted for closing, 'turnaround'
Out the ashes shall rise a star. Jonanthan Jackson, one of the lesser known sons of civil rights activist Jesse Jackson Sr, has arisen to champion the cause of defending public education. Not only has . . .
NEWS ANALYSIS: March 4 protests stretch across California and all the way to New York... March 4th Actions and Beyond, a Critical Approach
The core issue of our time is the reality of the promise of perpetual war and escalating inequality met by the potential of a mass, activist, class conscious movement to transform both daily life and . . .
Bradwell, other 'turnaround' schools continue fight despite Board termination vote... Rainbow PUSH meeting gives renewed voice to Hit List targets
Despite a unanimous vote of the Chicago Board of Education to subject three Chicago elementary schools and two high schools to the Board's so-called "turnaround" at the Board's February 24, 2010, meeting, the schools are . . .
Thousand participate in March 4 march in New York City... Movement against charter schools, privatization, destruction of public schools
[img=1435]One month after thousands of teachers, students and citizens protested against a proposal by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to close 19 New York public schools and privatize many of them with charter schools, . . .
Chicago students take protest against Chicago schools' ‘deficit’, privatization, and proposed cuts to City Hall and Mayor's Office on March 4, 2010
[img=1433]Students from Julian High School and Little Village High School took their protests against budget cuts to City Hall on March 4, 2010, marching outside the building and then going inside to request a meeting . . .
UNION NEWS: Let's never forget — or forgive — the day President Barack Obama officially declared himself a scab by slandering the teachers of Central Falls, Rhode Island... Obama's complete Chamber of Commerce Scab Speech
It's time to inflate the rat and picket the White House and Chicago's public schools, now that Chicago has given the nation the biggest collection of scabs and union busters ever to work on the . . .
Uncensored March 2 Chicago Sun-Times Letter
[Editor's Note. The following is the uncensored and complete Op Ed that Deborah Lynch sent to the Chicago Sun-Times. As readers with both versions (what Deborah Lynch wrote and what the Sun-Times published) can see, . . .
Speech by Shantell Steve to Operation PUSH on February 27, 2010... 'Truth is dangerous to people doing wrong...'
[Editor's Note: The following speech was supposed to be delivered to the February 24, 2010 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education, as Shantell explains below. It was not delivered and teachers from CORE and . . .
Our children are not parking meters
[Editor's note: The following remarks were delivered to the February 24, 2010 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education by Joe Linehan, a teacher, in response to the CPS school closings. Additional reports on the . . .
Chicago students plan March 4 City Hall protest against proposed school budget cuts
Students from at least two Chicago high schools announced on March 3 that they are planning to protest at Chicago's City Hall against proposed school budget cuts on Thursday, March 4, 2010, beginning at 4:00 . . .
