Secondcityteachers Rises Again
By Jim Vail
May 4, 2013


Secondcityteachers is now officially a news site blog that switched from the website Secondcityteacher.webs.com.

I did this for a couple of reasons.

First - I feel it is important to update information on a daily basis so that people will regularly read the website.

Secondcityteachers.blogspot.com will do this.  I pledge to update the website regularly so that people can tune in and read regular reports.  You and I know there is nothing worse than for a website to have old information when we are hungry for the latest information.

Second - You all will be able to comment.  I know the comments section can easily be abused when you have people using fake names and posting ugly comments.  Such is a democracy - it ain't pretty when everyone can participate.  But it is important to hear what everyone thinks about a story and any further insight or critique is welcome!

Third - It will be easy to regularly update and give people the real cutting news stories the corporate media ignores.  The former secondcity news site was not easy to regularly update, now it is!

My mission as stated in my profile is to provide analysis about the fight to save public education and the role the Chicago Teachers Union is playing in this fight, to expose political corruption that affects all of us and provide world analysis.  We have an excellent correspondent from Moscow, Stephen Wilson, who sends regular reports from the Red capital that illustrates how the challenges we face here in Chicago, are the same challenges across the globe.

In terms of the media - this is my two cents of thoughts:

The new website DNAinfo.com is covering the neighborhoods very well.  They are the website to read about what is happening in the various hoods on the north and south sides of the city.  They have covered the school closings wonderfully.   Interestingly enough, they are funded by Rickets, the billionaire battling with the city over Wrigley Field and the Chicago Cubs he bought.

The top education news sites are the Chicago Teachers Union - CTUnet.com whose blog updated on a daily basis is wonderful, and Substancenews.net - where I reported; George Schmidt is the city's public education guru who knows what is happening and has always provided brilliant analysis.  And the Reader's Ben Joravsky is hitting the Chicago Public Schools hard with great reporting (but the Reader was recently bought by the Sun Times whose board of directors are directly tied to Rahm Emanuel).

When it comes to the regular mainstream media - we can't hid our heads in the sand.  The Sun Times has been brilliant with its exposes on UNO corruption (and they say our CTU's excellent research department has helped), Catalyst and NPR will provide top notch education reporting from time to time, and even the Chicago Tribune will surprise you.

The press plays a powerful role.  The media makes the elite jump from time to time.  That is why they need to control it.  The Chicago Board of Education can do outlandish things, but when Substancenews and John Kugler noted they hired a crook to head one of the area offices a few years ago when Ron Huberman was heading the schools, they had to back off.

That's the power of the media!

So thank you for reading this, and remember to tune in regularly so that we can gather the information we need to fight back the 1% who control our government, and mainstream media, who are taking us back to the dark ages.    

Knowledge is power.  But we need the right knowledge to open our eyes to what we face. 

###