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THE CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS: ALLERGIC TO PARENT, STUDENT, TEACHER, UNION, &

CITIZEN ACTIVISM (PART II)

BY

LUIS GABRIEL AGUILERA

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THE CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS: ALLERGIC TO PARENT, STUDENT, TEACHER, UNIONAND CITIZEN ACTIVISM (PART II)

By: Luis Gabriel Aguilera

Original: 09/18/12

Revised: 09/24/12

I am going to shine the light on some elephants hereso much of them that its going to look like one big flyingcircus. But instead of smiles and cheers, I will probably upset some people. Hopefully more.

My mother certainly didnt like the scent of the elephants. Im thinking of the time when she and myfather once took my brothers and me as kids down to see them after the show on a trip to the circus. I didnt mindit. My thoughts and sentiments were concentrated elsewhere as my boy eyes looked on with part interested delightat the magnificent wrinkly creatures and part displeasure at seeing them also shackled at the front and back legsas they were trooped around the concrete floor. I wasnt sure how to take it at first. But then I started feeling

juvenile wonder being overrun by the stark reality of irreverence. I was growing upset. Despite my musings, I didcatch my fathers stoic response to my mothers wincing over what she perceivedas foul odors and her discomfortwith watching a man with a large pushbroom clean up the mess. He bluntly said to her in Spanish, Someonehas to do it,meaning that there was just no way around it and thats that, someone eventually has to clean up themess. As we all walked away from the scene, one thing I took away was an early impression that there can bequestionable things that lie behind a show. Future experiences would confirm this to be the case.

Today its dancing elephants andasses Im staring at. Laugh if you will. Its therapeutic. But soon someof you are going to get very angry. Ive learned in life (the good-old-fashioned hard way) that once youvecalmed down from whatever emotional trip youve been on and have done some meticulous assessing of a complexsituation;once youvedone some real reflecting on possible solutions and such, that you have a struggling chance

to be pragmatic and strategic enough to take care of things correctly without resorting to tossing a brick oremotionally short-circuiting yourself, in both cases losing it altogether. Butfirst the painful truth

CHICAGO Evidently the big picture on what brought about theteachers strike in Chicago isnt exactly clear to some. So I decided to do afollow-up to apieceI wrote almost two years ago and broaden things abit, for others and myself. The hope is to clarify matters that should makeall who care about quality public education very uneasy and provide atleast some workable solutions. Unless we really wish to plunge into full-scale mediocrity or worse, we should treat the nurturing of quality of

education and equal access to it with great care and utmost importance.

Dont be fooled; the strike in Chicago wasnt just about teachersfighting over salary increases. No, this strike was a backlash to the abusethat has been ongoing and increasing over the years from a disastrousChicago Public Schools central office micromanagement culture thattoday permeates the district and is coupled with close and farawaychieftains simply calling the wrong shots on education reform. Add to

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this that local and central office systemic corruption has made teaching in this nations third largest publicschool district more difficult with each passing year, to the point of making things unbearable for students,parents and teachers alike. And the teachers here (those who can) leave in droves.

As one can imagine, it is difficult to do the house cleaning when ones home is in a perpetualtornado. In a June 2009 study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research at The University of Chicagotitled The Schools Teachers Leave: Teacher Mobility in Chicago Public Schools, the study reported thatOn average, teacher stability rates in Chicago are not substantially different than the rates seen nationally;about 80 percent of CPS teachers remain teaching in their school from one year to the next. This is only

slightly lower than the national average of 84 percent. However these one-year stability rates hit a soberingstatisticwithin five years, the typical CPS school loses over half its teachers. Many schools turn over halfof their teaching staffs in three yearsAbout 100 CPS schools suffer from chronically high rates of teacherturnover, losing a quarter or more of their teaching staff every year. In all of these schools, all students arelow-income.

But while the authors of the report understand that the vast majority of schools with chronicallylow teacher stability struggle with very low levels of student achievement and wisely explain that school

leadership must dedicate extraordinary time to recruiting andmentoring teachers year after year if they are to provide their studentswith effective new teachers, this naively assumes that the school

leaders entrusted with carrying out such support for their teachersalong with their administrative functions are dutifully doing so. A fewof us know better than that.

As someone who taught in CPS and came to the field via analternative certification program, Iand many of my fellow alternativecohorts--have seen things bizarrely out of place at the administrativelevel. For those of us who have done or are doing the good work, itisnt the children who drain usits the adults. And, as we shall seehere, if you want to track down whos principally running these schoolsto the ground, take a close look at the top administrators and mid-levelbureaucrats. Its said, the devil is in the details; but equally, the devil is

in the bureaucracy.

So the Chicago Teachers Union strike, with a whoppingmajority of teachers in favor, wasnt just about salary increases. The abuse,in one form or another, just got to them. The last straw was DemocratMayor Rahm Emanuels attempts to ram through his woeful educationreforms. What is so wrong with Rahms brand of education reform? TheWashington Posts Valerie Strauss formidably pointed out how bad thesereforms were in a recentarticleone of the best pieces on the subject todate. Shefurther enlightened readersin another post by correctly pointingout that using student test scores primarily to evaluate teacher

performance, as reformers like Rahm would like to do, is severely flawed inthat it dismisses other factors that also contribute to student achievement,factors such as class sizes instructional time home and communitysupports or challenges individual student needs and abilities, health andattendance specific tests used etc.These arent excuses for the teachers.These are very good reasons why some students arent doing as well asothers or better than others. Imagine that, taking into account factors likeparents and administrators as part of the package for how well a student performs in school. Now imagine,for example, blaming Mother Theresa for poverty in Calcutta, the same Mother Theresa who used herNobel Peace Prize of $192,000 dollars to help the poor in India. Ridiculous, eh? Or lets blame firemen for

http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/schools-teachers-leave-teacher-mobility-chicago-public-schoolshttp://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/schools-teachers-leave-teacher-mobility-chicago-public-schoolshttp://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/schools-teachers-leave-teacher-mobility-chicago-public-schoolshttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-real-problem-with-rahms-school-reforms-in-chicago/2012/09/11/c77c3cc4-fba4-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_blog.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-real-problem-with-rahms-school-reforms-in-chicago/2012/09/11/c77c3cc4-fba4-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_blog.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/getting-teacher-evaluation-right/2011/09/15/gIQAPzs9UK_blog.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/getting-teacher-evaluation-right/2011/09/15/gIQAPzs9UK_blog.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/getting-teacher-evaluation-right/2011/09/15/gIQAPzs9UK_blog.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/getting-teacher-evaluation-right/2011/09/15/gIQAPzs9UK_blog.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-real-problem-with-rahms-school-reforms-in-chicago/2012/09/11/c77c3cc4-fba4-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_blog.htmlhttp://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/schools-teachers-leave-teacher-mobility-chicago-public-schools

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allowing a house to burn down as a result of being ensnarled in rush hour traffic and being provided onlyfire extinguishers to fight the fire. How fair would that be?

Teachers are facilitators to the great exercise of learning, but they are not the super women or menthat anyone would like to paint them to be. We cannot ask everything of them regarding studentperformance as they are not the only major factor that determines student performance. But in Rahmsworld, student testing would make up 50% of teachers evaluation. Forget all other details. Why scapegoatthe one group that is up to its ears in work rather than address complex issues in a workable way? That is avery good question. It certainly is a good way to handle not only the teachers by putting them on the

defensive but also manipulate public thought and conversation. Well, if thatwas the intent, it backfired.

No, what this Chicago teachers strike was about was no less thanputting the proverbial foot down. These waves of wrongful educationreform and the various types and levels of corruption born of unsoundpolicies coupled with pre-existing corrupt conditions is doing (and has done)severe damage to public education in this city. Theres the heart of thematter. And the teachers jumped off the rickety bus in Chicago to try to stopthe current political and privateer drivers from running the kids over onceand for all.

I mean, really, as one woman told me as we watched thethousands of rank and file of red shirts, mostly women, pass us by on thestreets of downtown Chicago, these are teachers. It takes a lot to upset ateacher. I know, I responded. I used to teach at CPS. For now, it

seems that the teachers have won. Though I suspect this is just a battle among many more to come. Its abigger picture here. And what exactly does that big picture look like?

With a masters degree in teaching, some experience in the field teaching successfully on the SouthSide of Chicago with the Chicago Public Schools before I was wrongfully terminated, and having spokenover the years with various educators across the country, it is my estimation, and that of many othereducators I know, that neither the Republican nor Democrat administrations have done a good job of

elevating the quality of public education for the last ten years. It appears the reverse and intentionally so. Ilearned a little bit about circus acts at The University of Chicago where I completed my undergraduatestudies. Beyond the thin veil of their public antagonistic bickering that riles their constituents at theirpleasure for voting points as well as for maintaining distractions, it is apparent that the leadership of thesetwo sides of the same coin are simply trying to tell educators what to do from many miles away withouthaving a clue as to what is really needed at the local levels. Even worse, I do think they do know what isterribly needed to truly upgrade our public schools, but as my students used to say to me, They just dontcare, Mr. Aguilera.

On the Democrat side, for example, we have sitting in this country Arne Duncan as our Secretary ofEducation, a man who has been given an F by noteworthy education expert Diane Ravitch and stronglyrejected by other genuineeducatorsat the top of their game. Duncan, by the way, provokes rolls of the eyes

here in Chicago among our teachers, parents and students of the system then alike. You would think thatObama would have selected someone a bit more qualified fromthe education realm than someone who merely set up a charterschool with his friends at Ariel Investment Funds and thenmoved on to become CEO of the Chicago Public Schoolswhere he paved the way to further grease the wheels to hissame pals at Ariel and moved on voraciously with charterschool expansioncharter schools that suck up public taxpayerdollars with questionable results as studies have shown (more

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on this later). And how else did Duncan fare as CEO of the CPS? Well, what happened to the$5.4 billiondollars of unfunded Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF) money that was coming straight out of thepaychecks of teachers between FY2001-FY2010 when Duncan was CEO of the CPS from 2001-2008? Howand where was it then leaking away into then Democrat Mayor Daleys failed Renaissance 2010 reforms thatamounted tomuch ado about nothing for the kids? I have asnapshotof what happened, but would like thefull photo album. Maybe, Arne, a former professional basketball player, longtime friend to Obama, andsomeone who did some tutoring for some poor kids some time ago did do a great job as CEO of the CPS.But for whom and what is the question. And there is Americas education czar provided to us by the

Democrat party and their subordinates dictating to teachers.The Chicago police and firemen I know joke about this type of authoritarian pestilence, as they

know how leadership likes to rule from afar in some cozy setting, d iffering to numbers and stats at best,differing to ego at worst, without knowing or experiencing the perils of the job on a day-to-day basis, as ifevery fire is one and the same. I cant tell you the number of complaints I heard from my cop friends overRon Huberman when he was fast-tracked by then Mayor Daley to become Assistant Deputy Superintendentat the Chicago Police Department. Huberman went on to be appointed by the same mayor to the positionof President of the Chicago Transit Authority. And then he was appointed to the Chicago Public Schools byDaley again to become its CEO. Now theres a superman. But you certainly wont find large crowdspublically supporting Hubermans so-called accomplishments anytime soon. And today, surprise-surprise,with his revolving door credentials, Huberman works at an investment firm. There are plenty of local stories

on teachers careers being disrupted or even destroyed because central office officials get it viciouslywrongin their climate-controlled confines, never admitting their mistakes. Perhaps we should include sociopathicdetector tests when it comes to leadership positions. In any case, I defer to individual and collaborativeeducation (of the transparent and cooperative kind) and individual and collaborative quality research thathas been show to work in the varied classrooms that are out there. What we as Americans have receivedfrom our leadership is another story. Apparently, the joke is really on us.

And what a joke of education reform it has been for the last seventeen years. Well stick to the lastten just for times sake.

The bipartisan policy ofNo Child Left Behind(NCLB) put into play in 2002 under George W. Bushhas at its core a policy that pushes standardized testing with a one-size-fits-all approach, the worst aspects of

it being both a perpetuation of a culture that emphasizes teaching to the tests and a whittled downcurriculum so that subjects such as the arts, history, language and musicare sacrificed for math, reading, and the sciences. This is a majordisservice to learners who operate at different modes: linguistic mode(i.e., via communication, reading and watching), non-linguistic mode (i.e.,via mental pictures, smell, kinesthetic, tactile, auditory, and taste) and theaffective mode (i.e., via feelings, emotions, and mood). Not surprisingly,the one-size-fits-all approach is also a cheap way of going abouteducation. So much for quality public education as a national treasure.

Unfortunately, the Democrat leadership has not halted the

disastrous NCLB policy, but has instead provided their version of achoice via waivers if states go along with their own rubbish to theeducation solution withRace to the Top. As reported byUSA Today,The Obama administration has begun doling out extra money to thestates that tie teacher evaluations to test scores, despite the fact thatthere arebetter methods for teacher evaluation. Race to the Bottom, er,

Top (a Duncan masterpiece) has placed extreme emphasis on teacher accountability (with ineffectivemeasuring tools instead of like those mentioned above from the Strauss article) and corporate stylecompetition with their high-stakes testing culture (just a re-mix of teaching to the tests). This leads tomuch tension in the classrooms. Stressful classrooms are not where the magic of good learning occurs,

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especially if your students are coming from very stressful livingsituations. But apparently none of these Democrat educationreformers got the memo onNel Noddingsand placing care in theclassroom as the vehicle to success. I would be less cynical. But Ireally think a stronger wake-up call is needed.

Still, our politicians and policymakers are not solely toblame. I havent been this provoked by these waves of

wrongheaded education reform since I read

Bill Readings The University in Ruins inthe late nineties regarding reformshappening at the university level. Thepublishers blurb for the book is candid onwhat such reforms were about:Increasingly, universities are turning intotransnational corporations, and the idea of culture is being replaced by the discourseof excellence. On the surface, this does not seem particularly pernicious. The author

cautions, however, that we should not embrace this techno-bureaucratic appeal too quickly. The newUniversity of Excellence is a corporation driven by market forces, and, as such, is more interested in profitmargins than thought. I had already gotten a whiff of this great transition from nation-state governance of

the university to corporate-state governance Readings spoke about in his work at The University of Chicagowhile I was an undergraduate student there between 1991-1995. 1993 was the telling year of the uninspiringchanges to come as corporate money began gaining ground on the campus itself at a school where, as fellowclassmates and I would say, fun would come to die and the life of the mind was the way of themoment. Community bank ATMs were being switched out for their megabank corporate counterparts andthe proliferation of fast food enterprises on sacred campus ground began springing up. The school, a placebeyond geekdom, had never been a spot for such transitory commercial riff raff, so it was a bit of a shock.

Of course, beyond the symbolic cosmetic changes on campus, like gangbangers strategically claimingtheir drug territory with their emblematic graffiti, there were deeper fundamental changes at play. I still havea paper that was dispersed to the campus community written by one of the most ardent critics of thenuniversity president Hugo Sonnenschein who, like some injured dictator, was ramming his own reforms likethe current Chicago mayor. The paper was from rascally professor emeritus Marshall Sahlins, who wouldlater bequoted in The Chicago Magazineas saying that Sonnenschein gave us no intellectual plan for theUniversity. He only spoke about money.

At the time, I was as disgusted as I am with todays education reform at the public schools level.But it was more than just about expanding undergraduate enrollment. It was more than just about increasingendowments to compete with what the Ivy Leagues were raking in. It was more than just raising the level ofhype and making money off of it. It was also about dumbing the place down. In the end, the schools famedCommon Core curriculum suffered as The Core was whittled down from 21 to 15 classes in 1999. HugoSonnenschein would go on to resign in 2000. (I still remember hollering in the student quads while Iwatched him pass by one day in his last days as president, Hugo! And after he waved back, my yelling,

You go, Hugo!)

The truth is that such corporate educational reforms are movements in the very wrong direction.The ever-streamlining corporate culture that is more concerned with net earnings than anything else is notwell-suited in that the corporate culture is not well versed on genuine education matters. It is too narrowlyfocused on accruing wealth, and it is hopelessly attempting to make a uniform product out of very differenttypes of people in a technological society that continues to create mash-up societies on the spot. Corporateeducation reformers dramatically reduce the variables that make a quality education.

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Despite my schooling at the U of C and in addition to the quality education I received fromkindergarten and on, I can honestly say that I could not comprehensively describe what quality educationlooked like and how it becomes so until after I received my masters degree in teaching and entered thetrenches myself. Even today, with all that I have read, studied and experienced, I am still learning this art ofteaching and what makes quality education. Ironically, this general lowering of education comes at a timewhen educators have learned a great deal of how to educate. In my field of teaching languages, for instance,you have a wide spectrum of how to teach a second language that can be roughly said to run from thecommunicative approach on one end to the grammar-based approach on the other. Depending on how

creative the teacher is and how skillful the teacher is in assessing the circumstances of the students beingtaught, the reality is that the spectrums line is neither that straight nor fixed but varied and flexible toadaptation depending on the mentioned circumstances. One really has to think out of the box to get it. Butwith education reform of the corporate-state kind, good luck in getting anything so remotely fine-tuned andlocalized.

So current education reform is about money. As a friend of mine from the private sectorcommented on the current assault of public education , they want it all, Lou.And without mincing words,Big Business, Big Corporate, Big Money is about making money. Meetings are held to do this. Agendas areset. And bankers and venture capitalists would love to get a hold of public pension money, among othersizable portions of the public education trough, going to great lengths to make a case against current publicpension programs by spreadingmythsabout them. Thankfully, there is seriouspushbackto such nonsense.

Now the natives are getting restless, as they now see that there is no room for educating with such reforms.

If this is all sounding familiar to some you who teach in, say, Los Angeles or New York, its becausethis Chicago teachers strike wasnt just a local matter, restricted to just one American metropolis and Illinoispolitics as usual. Though, from the manner in which the greedy teachers issue was (and has been) sold bysome in the citys mainstream media despite the fact that it hasnt been the teachers who have been fatteningup their wallets and bank accounts over the years in Chicago with vast amounts of money intended forthings like schools but going elsewhere, youd think that plenty of lunchtime arrangements were conductedand its all been Chicago and FIB politics as usual.

What this teachers strike was in Chicago isa global conversation really, as it has to do with the futureof quality education for many folks in this country and beyond. Because make no mistake, the formula of

what makes quality education happen is under major assault ascarpetbaggersfrom the Democrat Party, laThe Chicago Way variety, ram through another stage of education reform from state to state, with thisone being, as education expert Diane Ravitch (someone whose work you should know if you care at allabout education in a serious way) calls, education apartheid, continuing in many ways the practices oftheirsupposed arch-enemies, the Republican Party. Then again, what if I told you thatfour of the top tenIllinois elementary schoolsfor 2010-2011 were in Chicago from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) andsixof the top ten Illlinois high schools for 2012 were also in Chicago, also from the CPS? Would you thenthink that the CPS does possess a formula of producing good schools, and eventually good students? Iwould. And it does. The question is why isnt it replicated, duplicated or refined as much? Thats a verygood question. Because from personal experience as a successful teacher (this from two education coachesreviews, students evaluations of my work, instructor evaluations, etc.) and

giving it some thought, I think a suitable quality education can be offered tothose not attending those top schools. It just isnt being done. So what gives?Ill get to that in a bit.

I really think its more insidious than a continuance of blocking qualitypublic school education for the vast majority of Chicagos 400,000 publicschool students, mostly impoverished Blacks and Latinos and the not exactlyaffluent White, Asian, etc. students that do exist here in the Windy City anddont make it into the top schools either as some suggest. Lets not get so easilydivided and conquered here, people, the current waves of education reform

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-schaitberger/public-employee-pensions_b_1665029.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-schaitberger/public-employee-pensions_b_1665029.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-schaitberger/public-employee-pensions_b_1665029.htmlhttp://www.cepr.net/publications/reports/the-origins-and-severity-of-the-public-pension-crisishttp://www.cepr.net/publications/reports/the-origins-and-severity-of-the-public-pension-crisishttp://www.cepr.net/publications/reports/the-origins-and-severity-of-the-public-pension-crisishttp://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/cps-cutbacks-budget-crisis-layoffs-ron-huberman/Content?oid=1604461http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/cps-cutbacks-budget-crisis-layoffs-ron-huberman/Content?oid=1604461http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2012/08/10/hyde-park-hotel-construction-draws-protestshttp://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2012/08/10/hyde-park-hotel-construction-draws-protestshttp://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2012/08/10/hyde-park-hotel-construction-draws-protestshttp://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-true-tif-tally/Content?oid=999808http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-true-tif-tally/Content?oid=999808http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/wealthy-base-helps-emanue_n_1881468.html?icid=hp_education_art_morehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/wealthy-base-helps-emanue_n_1881468.html?icid=hp_education_art_morehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/wealthy-base-helps-emanue_n_1881468.html?icid=hp_education_art_morehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-real-problem-with-rahms-school-reforms-in-chicago/2012/09/11/c77c3cc4-fba4-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_blog.htmlhttp://dianeravitch.net/2012/09/17/chicago-education-apartheid/http://dianeravitch.net/2012/09/17/chicago-education-apartheid/http://newprogs.org/blog/2012/01/14/education-under-democraticrepublican-uni-partyhttp://newprogs.org/blog/2012/01/14/education-under-democraticrepublican-uni-partyhttp://newprogs.org/blog/2012/01/14/education-under-democraticrepublican-uni-partyhttp://www.schooldigger.com/go/IL/schoolrank.aspx?pagetype=top10http://www.schooldigger.com/go/IL/schoolrank.aspx?pagetype=top10http://www.schooldigger.com/go/IL/schoolrank.aspx?pagetype=top10http://www.schooldigger.com/go/IL/schoolrank.aspx?pagetype=top10http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/illinoishttp://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/illinoishttp://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/illinoishttp://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/illinoishttp://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/illinoishttp://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/illinoishttp://www.schooldigger.com/go/IL/schoolrank.aspx?pagetype=top10http://www.schooldigger.com/go/IL/schoolrank.aspx?pagetype=top10http://newprogs.org/blog/2012/01/14/education-under-democraticrepublican-uni-partyhttp://dianeravitch.net/2012/09/17/chicago-education-apartheid/http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-real-problem-with-rahms-school-reforms-in-chicago/2012/09/11/c77c3cc4-fba4-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_blog.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/wealthy-base-helps-emanue_n_1881468.html?icid=hp_education_art_morehttp://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-true-tif-tally/Content?oid=999808http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2012/08/10/hyde-park-hotel-construction-draws-protestshttp://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/cps-cutbacks-budget-crisis-layoffs-ron-huberman/Content?oid=1604461http://www.cepr.net/publications/reports/the-origins-and-severity-of-the-public-pension-crisishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-schaitberger/public-employee-pensions_b_1665029.html

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and their rippling effects arent just going to negatively affect the poor alone. Im afraid this is all going tolead to a two-tier public education system in America where the majority of its citizens are going to bedeprived of a quality education while a small percentage of the wealthy and/or connected will fare well inthe short-term but not for the long-term. Business as usual? Yes and no. I think there is a bit of a differencehere. Eventually, given the major involvement of Big Money today in education matters, an educationbubble will be created that can mean only one thing when it pops: epic fail. Why do I say this? Because, assome of us already know, this current reform that has in part various financial entities salivating to get atthe public education trough is made up of no less than what notable American economist Dean Baker

writes are a set of policies (that) have been tried and failed, and yet keep expanding! For example, thegreat miracle of charter schools (a Duncan favorite) has time and again been shown to benot as miraculousas they have been made out to be by their proponents, with the same mediocre results being true in placeslike Detroitorseveral other places. And we have already seen in some cases what great lengths these so-called education reformers will go to make themselves look good on paper when in fact theyre not, to theextent of falsifying test scores. This doesnt mean that those kids who continue to fail arent teachable.They are. Ive seen it with my own eyes. Its that the bulls, whether ignorantly or maliciously, have as theirfoundation for education a corporate approach that will not lead to a type of education that producescreative critical-thinkers, innovators, etc.what this country, this world, really needs more of. The reformsof these education reformers rest on a limited vision at best and at worse, sets of lies. Ultimately, I thinkthose academic pockets of resistance that are scattered across this country will not be able to balance outwhat greater product is being made and what greater culture is being created in all of thisa further

dumbed down American population, especially when faced with high teacher turnover rate as worthwhileveterans are forced out and new teachers have a five-year shelf life, keeping the labor cheap and politicallyunknowing. Eventually, when you dumb it down so much, you run the risk of collapse like that of a houseof cards. Remember, these are moneymakers and opportunistic politicians playing with our futures. Haventwe seen this before? Except, retrieving the art of educating is not a fifteen-minute recipe that comes fromthe side of a box. There will be no quick bailout for us. Again.

So either we have a narrow-minded and thus incompetent group of people pushing forth educationreform; or we have, well, savvy individuals who wish to milk the public education trough and drain thevitality of quality public school education to maintain monopolized power over others, disregarding long-term consequences. I think its a combo package. But certainly underlying and protecting this train is, gasp,

hold on to your seats, corruption.Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it boils down to corruption. I dont want to get too roots reggae here.

And we can argue about pedagogy day in and day out, with only the classroom being the true tester ofhypothesis. But one thing that is clearly blocking any healthy and genuineeducation reform is the corruption, be it in the form of material greed,ignorance, power hunger, chest heaving, etc. And if I have learned anythingfrom living more than thirty-eight years in Chicago is that its now a rainbowcoalition of the corrupt that come in various shapes, sizes and forms. This isone characteristic of The Chicago Way: it is diverse. In the state of Illinoisweve had four governors go to jail (three Democrats and one Republican),with two recent ones (a Democrat and a Republican) having been convicted in

the last six years. And The Chicago Way is notorious for being a cesspool of illegal activity among itspoliticians. Does anyone seriously think that our school system can be any better with such people in office?But is it that bad at the Chicago Publics Schools and the Chicago Board of Education?Well, you be the judge.

A friend of mine who worked at the CPS downtown central office noted to meone day that when the Board president shows up dead in the river and no one fromthe board or CPS blinks an eye, theres something seriously wrong in there. Thisfriend of mine was of course referring to the bizarre death of former City of ChicagoBoard of Education president and political fixer Michael Scott, a Daley confidante,

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/201291774248929713.htmlhttp://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/201291774248929713.htmlhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704170404575624562978485450.htmlhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704170404575624562978485450.htmlhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704170404575624562978485450.htmlhttp://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/07/new_detroit_charter_school_rep.htmlhttp://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/07/new_detroit_charter_school_rep.htmlhttp://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-06-school-testing_N.htmhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-06-school-testing_N.htmhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-06-school-testing_N.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Illinoishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Illinoishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_politicshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_politicshttp://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2011/Conspiracy-Theories-Surrounding-Michael-Scotts-Apparent-Suicide/index.php?cparticle=3&siarticle=2#artanchttp://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2011/Conspiracy-Theories-Surrounding-Michael-Scotts-Apparent-Suicide/index.php?cparticle=3&siarticle=2#artanchttp://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2011/Conspiracy-Theories-Surrounding-Michael-Scotts-Apparent-Suicide/index.php?cparticle=3&siarticle=2#artanchttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_politicshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Illinoishttp://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-06-school-testing_N.htmhttp://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/07/new_detroit_charter_school_rep.htmlhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704170404575624562978485450.htmlhttp://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/201291774248929713.html

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found dead in mid-November of 2009 in the Chicago river of what was later ruled a suicide amidst someawry real-estate dealings, interesting expenditureswhile serving as Board president that got slapped on thetaxpayers back, and after being handed a federal grand jury subpoena regarding an investigation into a clout-based admission list at some of the Chicagos top public schoolsa list over which Arne Duncanpresidedwhen he was CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. But Scott has not been alone on corruption at the CPS.Year after year the hits keep coming on from the CPS Inspector General Sullivans office and elsewhereabout the districts employee and officials misconduct. More recently in July, the Chicago Tribune reportedthat twentyprincipals and assistant principals are among 26 current and former Chicago Public Schools

employees who provided false income information on applications to get their children into the federal freeor reduced-price lunch program. Readers will notice that no names were given in the report. I have beentold by insiders at the CPS that this is done to protect those with political ties, to not embarrass the otherend of the link. When there is wrongdoing and nothing gets done about it, the hand washing excuse is itspolitical. Oh, and how many times have I heard that line. At the local school level, at the high school whereI taught, I had the unfortunate experience of having our head of discipline bearrested and charged for bankrobberythis after a high-speed car chase that resulted in injury to a police officerwhile I was a teacherthere at the school. Interestingly enough, none of the various news reports linked this employee to theschool where I worked (i.e., Bronzeville Scholastic Institute), nor to his position as head of discipline, butonly mentioned him as the DuSable campus football coach. (As a disclaimer, I, via my lawyer, have beenfighting a certain manifestation of corruption through litigation that amounts to a 1st Amendment rightviolation, discriminatory treatment, wrongful termination, etc. Along with the federal suit, there are two

discrimination suits in play.)

So are we getting a better idea of who and what is truly blocking education? My suggestion: dont goafter the teachers; go after the administrators and their bosses. From personal experience, research, andtalking to dozens of dedicated teachers, it is they that are really making a mess of things. Schools with highlevels of teacher turnover rates are suspect, as are places where the numbers just seem to good to be true.As far as current education reform, what if I were to ask you the question plastered on the photo image ofthe Matrix character Morpheus in the latest internet meme: WHAT IF I TOLD YOU TEACHERSKNOW MORE ABOUT SCHOOLS THAN BILLIONAIRES DO?

Ending greed is not going to happen anytime soon. Neither is ending overall corruption. The key isnot to look at the corrupt as strong. Make no mistake, corruption is ultimately weak at the end of the day. Ithas many holes by which to undermine it. The owners of corruption that use nepotism, patronage,cronyism, etc. to cultivate chaos and prevent good teachers from performing their jobs can be marginalizedto the extent that individuals who partake in such activities are given the opportunity to shape up or shipout. Doing so can be as simple as having talks with those minor offenders not in line with the mission ofeducating others or themselves, letting them know how they are hurting themselves more than anyone else.Personally, for me, its sad to see any animal shackledelephant or ass. In worse case scenarios, where folksare embezzling, stealing, etc., marginalizing can be a collective enterprise of having communities of teachers,parents, etc. gather documents, build formal cases and approach the appropriate authorities over the matter,as well as simultaneously getting the word out to media sources who are also sick of it and civic entitieswho, like many of us, want a stronger and healthier country to live in. In Chicago, we have a district generalinspector, state, local and federal agencies that are only emails away. These initiatives I have seen work. As

for the education reformers, well, getting informed is a start. Calling it out is a second step. But activismsurely is also key. I will have to give this some more thought.

The reality is that marching has its limits. Its really just a start to somethingmore exciting. What awaits us now is to clean up the surrounding mess once the dustsettles. Count yourselves lucky if the mess you see can be done with a minor bit of theoccasional dusting on your own. Otherwise, now you know what the power of it is indoing it in union with others. So take your pick of the fallen apples. From what I cantell of this life, suffering comes not only from not seeking the good, but suffering also

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comes from not doing the good when the good is found.

Luis Gabriel Aguilera

All photos by: Luis Gabriel Aguilera

Luis Gabriel Aguilera is author ofGabriels Fire: A Memoir, writer, educator,DJ, andelectronic musiccomposerof both experimental and underground dance music. He holds a B.A. degree in social sciences

from The University of Chicago where he graduated with honors with a concentration in Latin

American Studies. Luis also holds a Master of Arts in Teaching from National-Louis University with a

concentration in teaching languages.

Luis is actively pursuing two discrimination suits against the Board of Education of the City of Chicago

and fellow respondents and a federal lawsuit against the Board of Education of the City of Chicago.

Donations to his legal defense fund may be made to Luis Aguilera via his pay pall account:

fspectrum@yahoo.com. This essay is free, but the litigation has been anything but...

When not working, Luis enjoys his free time playing disc golf with family and friends, cooking, and juststaying active. Luis can be reached atluisgaguilera@gmail.comfor any/all concerns, including public

speaking engagements and use of his music for theatrical works, etc.

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