Democracy in the air even as 'Mayor One Percent' fights for his political life... Struggles over the rights of children, families, and teachers to have real public schools -- and democracy -- increase in Chicago...
While dozens of people were spending part of their New Year's Eve marching at Chicago's City Hall demanding that Mayor Rahm Emanuel resign, a review of the struggles of 2015 shows that even without a teachers' strike and placing the protests over police murders separately, Chicago teachers, students, parents and concerned citizens are increasing their challenges to the anti-democratic and corrupt policies and practices of the Chicago Board of Education. Whether it was students holding a "read in" to dramatize the plan by the Board to terminate a librarian (thereby leaving the school with a library without a librarian, a common fact now in the nation's third largest school system) or students protesting a principal's censorship on their award-winning school newspaper, the spirit of democracy was growing around Chicago in 2015.
