The [Tuesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“More than 350,000 Chicago Public Schools students prepared to return to class Tuesday for the start of a new school year that already is riddled with fiscal instability,” the Sun-Times reports.

And at Kelvyn Park High School, which is slated to lose an additional $2.2 million from its budget, students and teachers wondered how they’re supposed to succeed with ever-shrinking resources.
“We have no college counselor,” Sherilyn Flores, a 17-year-old senior, said outside the Hermosa neighborhood high school. “I’m more worried about college this year than any other senior would be.”
The cuts have been going on since her freshman year in 2012, she said, adding: “High school doesn’t feel like high school anymore.”

That’s what kids at Robeson High School in Englewood told me two years ago: It just didn’t feel like high school. It felt like something less. Much, much less. And that was because budget cuts – and falling enrollment – had essentially eviscerated the school.

Kelvyn Park lost 19 staff positions, including the school’s clinical social worker who led a weekly support group for girls who survived sexual assault and abuse, and students, and teachers who coached sports teams and sponsored the National Honor Society, and the lone college counselor who also started a legal clinic to help the school’s immigrant families.
“And yet, they are still expected to just get by,” Jennifer Velasquez, a Local School Council member and a 2012 graduate of the school, said of Kelvyn Park students. “We know they are brilliant, but why does our mayor and the Board of Education make it almost impossible for low income black and brown students to get the support we deserve?”

Saint Forrest Sets Example
New CPS CEO Forrest Claypool refuses to say if his kids attend public school.
“Claypool wouldn’t come to the phone, and his chief of staff, Doug Kucia, hung up on us when we asked him about all this.”
Just . . . wow.
Doug Kucia, you are Today’s Worst Person In Chicago.
Charter Barter
Speaking of Kelvyn . . . go back through this thread to understand in part what’s happening between charters and neighborhood schools:

@phillipcantor @adrian_sgr @BeNoble @MartinLRitter @xianb8 @ILRaiseYourHand Kelvyn park hs near my home is known to take Pritzker pushouts.

— Lynda (@Lyndab08) September 7, 2015

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And then check out this series of tweets from Raise Your Hand to gain a better understanding of how we got here and where Rahm intends to keep going:

ICYMI, CPS opened 21,251 new seats mainly in charter/alt scls since fall 2012. Enrollment then dropped by 8k. http://t.co/yOq1uzNtQa.

— Raise Your Hand (@ILRaiseYourHand) September 8, 2015

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CPS will be voting on 25 new proposals for charter/alt scls in October! Just cut $200M from scls, say they may cut $480M more. For real.

— Raise Your Hand (@ILRaiseYourHand) September 8, 2015

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CPS opened these charter/alt scls just last fall. Enrollment keeps droppng. This policy is not working! https://t.co/DPnmztoaGX

— Raise Your Hand (@ILRaiseYourHand) September 8, 2015

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Every type of scl in CPS has waitlists. Magnets have highest #. Not what drives policy. http://t.co/lw74Eswc6v

— Raise Your Hand (@ILRaiseYourHand) September 8, 2015

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We have scl choice and no one is trying to take it away. It should include well-funded nh scls. CPS has over 130 chrtrs, 38 magnets, etc.

— Raise Your Hand (@ILRaiseYourHand) September 8, 2015

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Did anyone at these HSs have a choice in having another 10% of staff cut from budgets (3rd yr in row?) pic.twitter.com/0BZlm7c64W

— Raise Your Hand (@ILRaiseYourHand) September 8, 2015

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If you believe any real parent feedback goes into CPS scl design/planning, we have a bridge to sell you….

— Raise Your Hand (@ILRaiseYourHand) September 8, 2015

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What’s really obnoxious is that CPS opened all these scls knowing they were in huge financial trouble w/ no plan. https://t.co/DPnmztoaGX

— Raise Your Hand (@ILRaiseYourHand) September 8, 2015

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CPS used accounting gimmick shifting $650M in prop tax rev last yr + opened all these scls! Orange dots just one yr! https://t.co/DPnmztoaGX

— Raise Your Hand (@ILRaiseYourHand) September 8, 2015

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Garbage Mayor
“As he prepares to levy a suburban-style garbage pickup fee on Chicago residents, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is announcing changes in the way the city collects trash,” the Tribune reports.
“That reduction will not shrink the city’s yawning deficit – which Emanuel plans to help close with a property tax increase of between $450 million and $550 million – because the Department of Streets and Sanitation ‘will redirect the savings into other city services,’ according to the mayor’s office.”
1. Why?
2. What other city services?
Apparently unasked – and certainly unanswered.
Smells like teen bullshit to me.
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Two years ago, the Sun-Times notes, city inspector general Joe Ferguson said Emanuel was overstating the savings from moving garbage pick-up from a ward-by-ward system to a unified grid system by $42 million.
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“The savings generated will free up resources for other vital services like tree-trimming and rodent control, the mayor’s office said.”
Again, why not put the money toward deficit reduction? (By the way, how can we have a deficit when Rahm bragged during the last campaign that he had balanced four budgets in a row – as required by law? Answer: Depends on what you mean by “balanced.”) I know we need trees trimmed and rodents controlled, but this sounds like a bit of shimmy and shake to me.
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“The pledge to redirect the savings to city services should ease the fears of Chicago aldermen who are concerned that the decision to impose a garbage collection fee will ultimately pressure the city to reduce the size of city crews.”
Why? I don’t get the connection.
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“At the time [of Ferguson’s report], Emanuel responded with a promise to do better. Now he’s delivering – just in time to try to show Chicagoans that the fee they will soon be paying for garbage collection is being used more wisely.”
1. He’s delivering – two years later.
2. The money that will be collected by the fee will be used more wisely than the money that hasn’t been collected up to now?
3. If changing garbage collection will save $7 million, why introduce the fee?
Because we have to close the deficit.
Then why not throw that $7 million into deficit reduction too?
Rats and trees.
Did the rodent control and tree-trimming budgets just get cut by $7 million?
I’m telling you, something stinks here.
Carter Country
I think it’s safe to post this now . . .
STEVE: Former President Jimmy Carter Says He Has Cancer – Just Like America’s Spirit.
Too soon?
TIM: Not for me, but yeah, probably.
“Carter announces there’s a cancer on the post-presidency”
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The Beachwood Radio Hour #67
Dyett And The Problem With Process.
Plus: Mac Sabbath, The Hamburglars, Neo’s Last Dance, Hey Ya, and I Worked In Florida.
Who Are The Real Troublemakers?
A new Art Shay exhibit takes a look.
The Cub Factor: Joltin’ Joe
Best Cubs manager ever?
The White Sox Report: Life After Death
Another glimpse of The Plan. Plus: Baseball on Corn Island.
SportsTuesday: Good Job, Bears Fans
Not getting fooled again.
Farmers Insurance Keeps Trying To Recruit Me
Trust me, I’m not your man.
The Weekend In Chicago Rock
Featuring: Convoy, Toxic Holocaust, Thee Oh Sees, Gallery Night, Royal Southern Brotherhood, Jackson Browne, Nick Moss Band, The Roots, D’Angelo, Tycho, Atmosphere, Haywyre, Chromeo, Robert Glasper, Knife Party, Tesla, SOJA, The Chemical Brothers, Porter Robinson, Nahko and Medicine for the People, Def Leppard, Widespread Panic, Steve Aoki, Snails, Twenty One Pilots, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Styx, and O.A.R.
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BeachBook

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The Beachwood Tip Line: Ribbish.

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Posted on September 8, 2015