Curie Sign of Times!

Curie Basketball Forfeit a Sign of the Times!

By Jim Vail

The fact that Curie High School had to give up the city basketball championship - well we all know they won it fair and square on the hardwood - is a sign of the times.

We live in the age of creeping fascism. Big Brother is alive and well, ironically after the death of the Soviet Union.

The Chicago Public Schools merely reflect this neoliberal police state that does not want to see the same fate as the Soviets.

So they need to micromanage everything, create total fear and police the hell out of it all. We need administrators constantly watching teachers, and network bureaucrats constantly watching administrators and so on and so forth. 

Educators are feeling this to the point where our wonderful creative teachers are being micromanaged to death and forced to flee.  The paper work demands and threats for not dotting your eyes or crossing your ts make teachers not want to do all the extra stuff that makes learning a truly meaningful experience.

Gone, it seems, are the days when the schools said thank you for doing all that extra-curricular stuff, and how can we help you out to make this a memorable experience for the kids.

Now it's, did you fill out this form, and that form? Did you collect every permission form on the correct form? Was it stamped? Was it notarized?

Just to go on a field trip or coach a sport after school. Ask any CPS teacher honestly what kind of experience it is these days to do the extra stuff. You feel like they just don't want it, because we are a bureaucratic state gone wild, it seems.

So now we have the amazing Curie basketball team fallen victim to this insanity. 

People like Suntimes sports columnist Rick Telander just don't understand this. Telander, I feel, is one of the best sports writers out there with a leftist understanding of people power. He eloquently argued against the insanity of Chicago hosting the Olympic games.

But while his heart was with the kids, he wrote that it was the adults who let them down. Rick does not work for the Chicago Public Schools.  

The best statement on CPS I heard was from the guy who did PR for former CPS school chief and current candidate for lieutenant governor Paul Vallas. This guy worked in City Hall, and then he said his switch to the board of education was unbelievable. He could not believe how unorganized, overly bureaucratic and dis-functional the whole thing was. And that's in comparison to the regular city government.

The best part of the Curie forfeit was how it started. Your classic informer, someone calls CPS to say, hey, they didn't turn in the right form with that glossy side facing up and to the right! Ah, what asshole society can exist without our lovely informers. All you real teachers and administrators who do your jobs with passion and honesty know exactly who they are and where they surface.

But they serve the horrible system we have that is enriching a few and taking away from the rest of us. Until they fall, since those who are willing to sell their souls to destroy others are weak and vile creatures that those who use them easily throw to the trash when they're done.

The only decent thing is the Illinois State High School Association has deemed Curie still eligible.

The No. 2 rated high school basketball team in the country plays on.

Screw you Obama, CPS and hedge fund pigs who think you can control us!