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VIDEO: 'You pray at the altar of greed...' Substance video of December 14, 2011 Chicago Board of Education meeting shows context to the Mic Check and some Board security trying to stop reporters and cameras from covering the stories unfolding

Al Ramirez - December 15, 2011

A ten-minute Substance video from the December 14, 2011 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education is now available on You Tube, and continues the coverage of the important activities taking place around the corporate attacks on public schools in Chicago. As most Substance readers know, the Chicago Plan (and the Chicago Boys) are providing a model for the national attack on public schools. The URL for the video for those who can't get a hotlink is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxWv5x0rK38&list=UUiMLrWBQOQTZ0GRm0JDmU9Q&index=1&feature=plcp

Less than a minute after Adourthus McDowell completed his Mic Check, David Vitale made a sarcastic remark and tried to being the meeting. No sooner had Chief Executive Officer Jean-Claude Brizard begun to speak about the CPS Capital budget (which contrary to Brizard's canned claim, had not be conducted in full transparency), the Mic Check resumed. Retired teacher Debby Pope (black sweater, center) repeated the same poem McDowell had shared with the group, as both reporters and security aides moved in. During Pope's Mic Check, Vitale ordered that the Board go into closed session, a move that hadn't happened in the face of such organizing in more than 30 years, and the Board members and executives exited the room behind a phalanx of security. Pope was eventually pushed out of the room on Vitale's orders by security, but another half dozen people continued the chanting. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.The video was taken during the December 14, 2011 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education and begins with the warnings issued by Chicago Board of Education president David Vitale, one of the millionaire members of the school board. It then shows Chicago Schools Chief Executive Officer Jean-Claude Brizard attempting to begin his report on the CPS "Facilities Plan," which was developed in virtual secrecy by Brizard and his staff. But the Facilities Report never was completed, as the Mic Check began.

Among other things that viewers can see is CPS security at times trying to stop reporters from actually covering the news. In the background, during the first minutes of the video, Kenzo Shibata, who made the video published earlier (see the entry below on the Substance Home Page), can be seen trying to escape from the "pen" where CPS security demands that camera people and TV news crews stand. Like Rahm Emanuel, CPS tries to force reporters and other news people into assigned seats, refusing to allow coverage of their version of the new except from pre-determined angles. But when the news is actually taking place elsewhere, reporters and photographers have to move or miss the news. Eventually Shibata escapes the pen and gets to where the story actually was, but not before he is shoved around a bit by CPS security. (The swirling of his video shows the result, but Kenzo kept shooting).

The initial video, ten minutes long, shows the beginning of the Mic Check, from the first Mic Check hosted by South Side community activist Adourthus McDowell, and then the attempt by Chicago Board of Education President David Vitale to re-start the meeting following the end of McDowell's check.

At that point, viewers can see CPS Chief Executive Officer Jean-Claude Brizard attempt to begin, again, his presentation on the Board's capital budget, and his false claim that CPS had developed the half billion dollar plan with "transparency."

(Substance covered hearings on the Capital Plan during previous years, and in some years the Board hosted six regional hearings, some of which filled school auditoriums with principals, teachers, parents, children, and public officials; nothing of the sort was done by the Brizard administration this year, according to Substance reporter and former editor George N. Schmidt).

With Brizard at the podium for the presentation are Tim Cawley, Chief Administrative Officer of CPS, and Oliver Sicat, Chief Portfolio Officer of CPS. One year ago, none of these men, each of whom is paid in the six figures (Brizard $250,000 per year; Cawley $205,000 per year; Sicat, $165,000 per year) was working in CPS. None has ever taught in a real Chicago public school.

A few minutes before David Vitale entertained Mahalia Hines's motion that the Board go into closed session, the Substance camera caught Board member billionaire Penny Pritzker (above, second from left0 intensely watching (along with Board attorney Patrick Rocks, left), while Board member Andrea Zopp pursued her usual activities when the public was speaking (she reads her Blackberry and texts rather than paying attention), while the "Chief Education Officer" (Noemi Donoso) pursues the same pleasures as Zopp. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Brizard's presentation stops when the Mic Check resumes, this time led by retired Gage Park High School teacher Debby Pope. As the crowd again takes up the Mic Check presented this time by Debby Pope, security is ordered in by David Vitale and eventually pushes Pope, who is dwarfed by the security people who surround her, out of the room. But the Mic Check continues, and soon Vitale can be heard in the background saying, "...time for executive session."

At that point, Board member Mahalia Hines reads a motion from a script in front of her moving to bring the Board into closed session, a quick vote is called, and the five Board members march out of the room behind a phalanx of security, followed by several million dollars worth of CPS executives, most of whom, like Brizard, Cawley, and Sicat, have never taught in any real Chicago public school. (And most of whom have only been hired to their top administrative positions since Rahm Emanuel appointed the seven members of this Board of Education in May 2011).

At the time the Board did its walkout from its own meeting, only five of the seven members of the Board were present: Mahalia Hines, Jesse Ruiz, David Vitale, Penny Pritzker, and Andrea Zopp. At least two of these Board members are members of what the Occupy Movement is calling the "one percent", and one, Penny Pritzker, is clearly part of what might be called the ".00001 percent." Pritzker is one of the 250 wealthiest people on earth, with current wealth, as reported by Forbes magazine, between $1 billion and $2 billion. Substance is still investigating whether one other likely one percent on the Board (Henry Beinen, former President of Northwestern University) is also a multi-millionaire.

The march of the Board members and their underlings out of the Board chambers took place at approximately 11:10 a.m. on December 14, 2011.

Following the ten-minute video of the Mic Check and retreat of the Board, there is a two-minute video of what took place a few minutes earlier, a holiday song by the Kelly High School students. Not mentioned during that part of the meeting is that Kelly High School, like the majority of Chicago's real public high schools, could have been subjected to the humiliation of "turnaround" by the same people — including Brizard and Vitale — who can be heard praising the Kelly students and their teacher.

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