By Steve Rhodes

“Contract negotiations between the city and striking teachers are set to resume Sunday after a long night of negotiations Saturday,” the Tribune reports.
“The talks lasted about 14 hours, breaking just before midnight. Negotiations are expected to resume at 10 a.m. Sunday, a Chicago Teachers Union spokeswoman said.
“Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said Saturday the city’s latest offer provides $38 million less toward contract expenses than the union is seeking in its most recent proposal.”
A federal mediator said in a document leaked to the Sun-Times on Friday that the split was $71 million.
Included: “[A]n extra $32 million on top of the district’s current offer to reduce class size, $10 million more to increase staffing, $19 million more toward salary hikes for veteran teachers at the top of the pay scale and low-paid paraprofessionals and another $10 million to increase stipends for athletics coaches.”

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Posted on October 27, 2019

By Steve Rhodes

“Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said he had thought until Monday that there had been progress toward a settlement, so that a teachers’ strike that started Thursday would end on short order,” CBS2 Chicago reports.
“But after Mayor Lori Lightfoot issued a letter urging the Chicago Teachers Union to end its strike without a settlement, saying Chicago Public Schools students ‘cannot afford to be out of school for any longer,’ Sharkey said a quick settlement is no longer likely.
“‘The mayor today has dashed our hopes for a quick settlement,’ Sharkey said.”
The media has accepted that formulation unquestioningly, but someone has to explain to me how a letter suggesting that negotiations continue while teachers return to their classrooms dashes hopes for a quick settlement.
“Early Monday morning, Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said CTU and Chicago Public Schools could reach an agreement in ‘a day or two,’ but by the end of the day, the union’s hopes were ‘dashed’ for a quick resolution as the day came to an end,” the Sun-Times reports.
Someone has to explain to me how that letter materially set back the substance of negotiations. A simple rejection of the ask and continuation of talks would have done.

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Posted on October 22, 2019

By Steve Rhodes

A collection of notes, observations, outrages and insights in no particular order.
I’ve heard union leaders repeatedly claim that the team negotiating on behalf of CPS and Mayor Lori Lightfoot is the same team that Rahm Emanuel put forth, in a CTU effort going back to the last mayoral campaign to brand Lightfoot as a Rahm-like creature. I’ve wondered what this meant, and if it was true because the same folks remain in leadership at CPS.
It turns out, though, that it’s not true.

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Posted on October 19, 2019

By Andre Perry/The Hechinger Report

A federal court ruled two weeks ago in Students for Fair Admissions vs Harvard that Harvard University can continue considering race in its admissions processes. Among the many different attributes the Ivy League university looks for in a potential student, such as academic potential, extracurricular activities, community service, maturity, ethical decision-making and new points of view, is the applicant’s race.
This should not be a big deal, bearing in mind that Harvard historically considered race when it came to admitting students, or at least, considered one race – white (and one gender – male). Until 1977, when the school first allowed “sex-blind admissions,” the ratio of men to women at Harvard was 4 to1. Predictably, the Graduate School of Education was the first to admit women, in 1920. Would-be women lawyers had to wait until 1950 to gain a chance at admission to the prestigious Harvard Law School. Black male matriculates are sprinkled throughout Harvard’s history, but the overwhelming majority of its graduates have been white men.
It turns out that other people of varying backgrounds have much to offer a democracy. President John F. Kennedy believed that when he introduced the concept of affirmative action in 1961 in the context of government contracts.

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Posted on October 15, 2019

By Michael Traugott/The Conversation

Pollsters are trying their best to track public opinion about the House Democrats’ decision to initiate an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.
Currently, it is doubtful the required two-thirds of the Senate, now controlled by Republicans, would vote to convict Trump. But senators’ votes could change by the time they receive the articles of impeachment from the House.
That is why tracking the changes in the president’s support in the polls is so important. Members of Congress will factor in what the public thinks as well as their own assessments of the president’s behavior.
For a variety of reasons, these are difficult measurements to make. As with all polling, the results depend to some extent on who is polled, what they are asked and when.

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Posted on October 14, 2019

By Cynthia Hooper/The Conversation

The Russians are calling it Ukrainegate.
“I never thought I’d say it, but CNN is right,” remarked one pundit on Russia 1, the country’s most-watched television station. “The person who wins in this situation is Putin.”

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Posted on October 11, 2019

By The World Organization Against Torture

President Donald Trump has nominated Marshall Billingslea, a man who openly advocated for the use of torture, to lead the human rights policy of the United States. This is deeply wrong in principle, and in practice puts both victims of torture and those defending them at increased risk.
The undersigned, members of the global SOS-Torture Network of the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), urge U.S. senators to reject Billingslea’s confirmation.

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Posted on October 10, 2019

By The United Nations Assistance Mission In Afghanistan

KABUL / GENEVA – A United Nations special report, which examines the impact on civilians of United States’ airstrikes on alleged drug-processing facilities on 5 May 2019 in Afghanistan, determines that the operation caused a large number of civilian casualties. The report also examines the legal framework applicable to this incident.
In June 2019, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), together with representatives of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, conducted a site visit to areas impacted by the strikes in Farah province’s Bakwa district, as part of its extensive fact-finding into the 5 May incident.
The UN verified 39 civilian casualties, among them 14 children and one woman, from multiple airstrikes on more than 60 sites that the United States Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) identified as drug-production facilities in Bakwa district and in parts of the neighbouring Delaram district of Nimroz province.

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Posted on October 9, 2019

By James Murphy/The Hechinger Report

I recently sat down with a family trying to decide whether to apply “early decision” to a super-selective school their son was unlikely to get into or instead to use the option at a less selective school they feared would be a waste because, What if he could get in there during the regular decision cycle? When I suggested he just apply to the school he really wanted to attend, they looked at me like I was too naive to cross the street on my own.
Lots of families will be having similar confounding conversations this fall. Correction: Lots of wealthy families will. The research on early-decision plans shows that the practice tends to provide a leg up to students who already own all the ladders.

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Posted on October 8, 2019

By Jake Pearson/ProPublica

As two of the most prolific political donors in the Donald Trump era, billionaires Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein have supported the president’s “America First” agenda.
Elizabeth, the president of their shipping supplies company, recently wrote to customers: “Personally, I am an American first. I care about American jobs.”
But when it comes to business, their company has sought special visas for foreign workers – going so far as to sue the government to secure one at the same time federal officials implemented the president’s more stringent immigration policies.

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Posted on October 7, 2019