Chicago's Grand School Closing Cost Scandal

http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2013/12/chicagos-grand-school-closing-cost.html

Movers haul books from closed schools to shuttered Von Humboldt Elementary for storage. The amount the district is paying to empty the closed schools is poised to triple.  WBEZ Linda Lutton

Board will vote today to triple its payments to GWS

Back in November of 2012, our CReATE research group began warning that the planned closing of more than 50 Chicago schools would not only fail to produce promised academic gains, but would not achieve the anticipated savings being touted by CPS. Then again in March of this year, we warned that district estimates of savings coming directly from school closings were largely overblown. At the time, these warnings wer ignored by the school board and downplayed in the local media.

But I must admit, we never anticipated the extent to which Rahm, Byrd-Bennett and CPS Liar-In-Chief Becky Carroll would go to mislead the public about the massive costs involved in closing those schools.  Thanks to WBEZ's Linda Lutton (apparently the only reporter who will touch this story), we now learn that pretty much any of this year's costs savings associated with the largest district school closings in history will be erased when the Board votes today to triple its payments to logistics firm Global Workplace Solutions.

This according to WBEZ:

Back in April—even before the vote to close 50 schools—the district signed a contract with logistics firm Global Workplace Solutions to move all the things out of schools. Price tag: $8.9 million...  In September, the district quietly doubled the amount of the contract, to $18.9 million. Chicago Public Schools’ closing czar [ex-Marine Col. Tom Tyrrell] said the reason for the overrun had to do with the volume of stuff movers found in the 43 shuttered buildings they are emptying out...Now, the agenda for Wednesday’s school board meeting shows the board will vote on another increase, this time to  $30.9 million, more than tripling the amount of the original contract with GWS.

This story seems to be too hot for both the Sun-Times and the Trib. In fact, on the eve of the board vote, the Tribune is going with another misleading feel-good story about how smoothly the transition to the "welcoming schools" is going. This despite the fact that only about half of the anticipated students even showed up a their assigned receiving schools.

Expect Rahm's hand-picked school board of head-nodders to go along with today's vote. We can also anticipate strong opposition coming from the City Council's Progressive Caucus members who should argue against any further payments to GWS.

Also see Lutton's WBEZ piece, "What happened to all the 'stuff' in Chicago's closed schools?"

CAUSE MEETS THIS TUESDAY December 17, @ 6:00 p.m. @ PUSH

CAUSE MEETS THIS TUESDAY December 17  @  6:00 p.m. @ Operation PUSH HEADQUARTERS 950 EAST 50th .

 

TEACH FOR SOUTH SHORE MEETS FRIDAY 5:00 p.m. Black United Fund of Illinois 1803 East 71st Street. BUFI - 773- 324-0494

A Shortage of Black Educators

Yesterday I called into the WVON, the Cliff Kelley show to talk about the incredible need for our communities to wake of to the reality of losing 12,000 professional teaching jobs and how that impacts the economy in our communities. In the late 90's and while Jackie Vaughn was president of the Chicago Teachers union, Jackie fought for all union teachers and SECURED the positions of Black teachers who previously had been denied access to tenure and job security. Reports indicate that the number of African American teachers were from 54% to 49% during her tenure. That means that of African American students to teachers were virtually equal since over 54% of the students at that time were African American. That meant that anyone in your family, mothers, sisters, fathers brothers would have equal access to a professional job within your community. These jobs would help sustain the economical system and add to the quality of life in our inner-city communities.

Since that period, the Black Teacher population may be as low as 12% this year. (THEY STOPPED REPORTING THE DROP IN AFRICAN AMERICAN TEACHERS) We can only guess that the last reports indicate a drop og 19% and with 50 school closings (95% in the AA community) and 6 turn-arounds, effecting the loss of over 3,000 teachers , our percentages may be as low as 12%. Meaning that over 12,000 jobs have been lost.

Most teachers that have lost jobs have moved on or took early retirement.
WE are NOT FIGHTING FOR Teachers to get their jobs back. That's the work of the union. C.A.U.S.E. Chicago Alliance of Urban School Educators supports all teachers , non-union and union. However, we are fighting to secure and demand that these jobs be given back to our community so that our young people will have an opportunity to work in their communities. We are tired of our children being used to support the lifestyle of others from other states , when these jobs are needed to stabilize the communities in which they live.

We cannot continue to out source all the jobs in our communities to support young people in other communities while our young college and High School graduates remained unemployed.

In addition, this is national agenda. New Orleans, Detroit, Cleveland and many other major districts when African Americans reside have been affected already or are in the process of being affected. There are approximately 180,000 teachers of African American descent terminated nation-wide and jobs in our communities have been taken from us and given to others. 


Please contact your elected officials, State Legislators , Alderman and Chicago Public Schools, Chicago Board of Educationor public school officials in districts effected by mass school closings to raise your voices about this injustice.


PLEASE join with , C.A.U.S.E. Chicago Alliance of Urban School Educators as we let our voices be heard that we demand these tax payer jobs be returned to our neighborhoods.

CAUSE HONORED FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE

Cause Meets Tuesday December 3, 2013. This is a replacement meeting for the one cancelled last week. In addition on Monday, December 2 @ 6:00 p.m. at Leona's 9156 S.Stony Island Chicago  , I will be honored by Education Village Keepers for the work I do with the Chicago Alliance of Urban School Educators, CAUSE . Please join us CAUSE members, everyone else is welcome.