But who’s watching to make sure the school’s kitchens and lunchrooms are being kept up to safety standards?

CBS 2’s Pam Zekman reports.

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The seven members of Chicago’s Board of Education, along with CEO Jean-Claude Brizard, are, in theory, responsible for the governance of the city’s schools. In reality, they are only accountable to the man that appointed them—Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

As anyone who has ever witnessed a board hearing knows, members like Hyatt heiress Penny Pritzker and former Northwestern President Henry Bienen, when they bother to show up at all, nod indifferently to public testimony, toy with their smart phones, and reliably vote in the interests of their boss. This past winter, after the board voted unanimously to close or turnaround 17 schools, frustrated parents burst into tears, and community members chanted “Rubber Stamp!” until CPS security escorted them out of the room.

Unwilling to accept such belligerent disregard for community input, education organizers and activists have launched a campaign for an elected, representative school board. Communities Organized for Democracy in Education (CODE), a coalition of education groups, circulated petitions this summer to put the question to Chicagoans in an advisory referendum: should the Board of Education be elected instead of appointed by the mayor?

Melting the Rubber Stamp: Chicago’s Unelected Board of Education

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The vote not only exceeded the 75 percent required by state law, but some school networks voted 100 percent to authorize a strike, the union said.

The strike authorization vote began Wednesday, and according to the CTU, 91.55 percent of CTU members cast a ballot. The tallied votes give the union legal authority to call a strike in the fall.

Link

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in February, a group of Chicago Public Schools high-schoolers busted Chicago mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel‘s chops in a YouTube video (below) for making false statements about charter schools on the campaign trail:[claimed that, outside of two selective enrollment CPS high schools, the seven top-performing high schools were charters. The students didn’t think that sounded right, did some research, and found out that, in fact, none of the top seven were charter schools, and they explained that in their video.

That didn’t stop Rahm, though. He used the same false statement last month at a student forum. The Sun-Times actually ran an inset to the story correcting Rahm’s assertion, a public tsk-ing almost unheard of in Chicago’s mainstream media.

via Change of Subject: Perhaps a clue why Emanuel didn’t care about Brizard’s slippery graduation statistics.

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Chicago – The man Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel has selected to lead the Chicago Public Schools has a track record of improving graduation rates and test scores in his current job in Rochester, N.Y., but has also had conflicts with the teachers union there that recently resulted in a “no confidence” vote.

Jean-Claude Brizard, tapped Monday by Mr. Emanuel to be CEO of Chicago schools, has been superintendent of Rochester’s schools for the past three years. The choice has been eagerly awaited in Chicago, where schools have had three CEOs in the past three years. (Arne Duncan, the current US Education Department secretary, headed Chicago’s schools until his current appointment.)

Emanuel had signaled his intention to pick someone from outside Chicago, and rumors have been swirling about possible names – including Mr. Brizard – for some time.

via New Chicago schools chief has record of reform, but irked teachers – Yahoo! News.

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A Little Village Academy student cringes at an enchilada dish served at his school. Many students throw away their entrees uneaten and say they would rather bring food from home. The school, though, does not allow students to bring in their own lunches, unless they have a medical condition or a food allergy.

By Monica Eng and Joel Hood, Tribune reporters

Fernando Dominguez cut the figure of a young revolutionary leader during a recent lunch period at his elementary school.

“Who thinks the lunch is not good enough?” the seventh-grader shouted to his lunch mates in Spanish and English.

Dozens of hands flew in the air and fellow students shouted along: “We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch!”

Fernando waved his hand over the crowd and asked a visiting reporter: “Do you see the situation?”

At his public school, Little Village Academy on Chicago’s West Side, students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.

Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.

“Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school,” Carmona said. “It’s about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It’s milk versus a Coke. But with allergies and any medical issue, of course, we would make an exception.”

Any school that bans homemade lunches also puts more money in the pockets of the district’s food provider, Chartwells-Thompson. The federal government pays the district for each free or reduced-price lunch taken, and the caterer receives a set fee from the district per lunch.

Some Chicago schools ban some lunches brought from home

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When my oldest daughter started in the Chicago Public Schools some 14 years ago, I was thrilled that our school system celebrated diversity by including physically disabled children in regular classrooms.

When I returned to the public schools as a substitute teacher last year, it didn’t take long for me to observe that mainstreaming, which had started out as such a good idea, had become a serious problem, endangering not only special education children but those in regular education as well—producing disastrously unequal and ineffective results.

As I chatted with teachers, administrators and parents, I learned I wasn’t alone in this view. Worse, few people wanted to talk about the issue out of fear of retaliation by a well-organized lobby of special education advocates.

via CATALYST CHICAGO :: Guest Column.

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