Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Politics / Clout City / News Rescue Me
Posted by Ben Joravsky on 07.29.09 at 02:30 PM
I just finished reading Chicago magazine's ode to Ron Huberman. The gist of the story is that he's a miracle worker sent in by Mayor Daley to rescue the public schools. Lucky us.
It seems to me that mayors named Daley have always been bringing in miracle workers to rescue the public schools. By my count, this particular Mayor Daley has rescued the public schools at least three other times: 1989, 1995, and 2001.
This time around he's bringing in Huberman to rescue the system from Arne Duncan, who was brought in to rescue it from Paul Vallas and Gery Chico, who were brought in to rescue it from—oh hell, even I can't remember.
Apparently, the schools need rescuing now more than ever. "What Huberman is walking into is a mess," reads a quote from the story. (Don't tell President Obama—he hired Duncan to rescue the Department of Education.)
Curiously, another quote calls Mayor Daley a "great judge of talent."
I guess he's had a lot of experience. He's got to keep bringing in new talent to rescue the schools from the old talent he sent in to rescue the schools.
Maybe he'll do a better job picking talent to run the Olympics.
Comments (5)
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I went to a top high school in the system and still thought that it was pretty sad. I wondered how bad it must be at the other schools and received my confirmation when I went to summer classes at one of the "regular" schools. Needless to say, the kids from the East Coast schools kicked my ass academically when I went to college until I could get up to speed. The situation is a disgrace.
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Jogging Ben's memory: Vallas was brought in to rescue the system from Argie Johnson, the last of the African-American superintendents. Now they're all white guys and are called CEOs.
http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2009/07…
The school system is a mess because Daley has his dirty finger prints all over the controls. He takes money from schools with his TIF programs. He hasn't fought for top notch education since he became mayor twenty years ago. He calls Chicago a first class city? You become first class with good schools Richie. This guy has been in charge at city hall 1/2 of my adult life; what the fuck! I still can't get over the fact Obama hired this guy called Arne Duncan to make public education worse for all of America. Their only change in education reform is to create more charter schools to steal more union jobs from the same union people that campaigned for his election. Obama won't have that support next election from the teachers union.
"He takes money from schools with his TIF programs."
EXACTLY. I remember a couple of years ago I had the pleasure to attend Rufus William's and Arne Duncan's party / waste of taxpayer money at Soldier Field to demand more state funding for CPS. Omarion (famous R&B singer) appeared on the JumboTron - it was great!!!!!!!!!!
If I remember correctly CPS was trying to fix a 70,000,000 budget shortfall - the funny thing is TIFs take upwards of 250,000,000 from the city each year. I wonder what would be a better way to fix CPS budget shortfalls - spend a million dollars and take 50,000 students out of class to fill soldier field, or simply end the practice of giving taxpayer money that should go towards the schools and instead give it to private developers? This questions is really a tough one.
If Ron Huberman can recreate the excitement I witnessed at Soldier Field and bring in, let's say, Mariah Carey or Justin Timberlake I'll consider him a success.
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