Fossil Fuel Debate

Chicago Teachers Pension Fund Continues to Punt on Fossil Fuel 

By Jim Vail

Newly elected Teacher Trustee Viktor Ochoa

The Chicago Teachers Pension Fund CTPF debated once again about divesting from fossil fuels and agreed to send the proposal to the investment committee to further study if such a profitable venture is worth sacrificing on behalf of the environment.

The Trustees noted that fossil fuel investments are very profitable, earning up to 30 percent returns.

Newly elected Teacher Trustee Viktor Ochoa said he cares about the environment because he drives a Prius - a hybrid car that relies less on gasoline than regular cars - and hopes to own an electric car. He like many other trustees is leery of divesting from fossil fuels.

"How do we do this thoughtfully," Ochoa said. "We have a fiduciary responsibility to our retirees."

"We're educators and we need to educate others how this affects the world," newly elected Teacher Trustee Quentin Washington said. "How can we leverage our investments. We need to encourage companies to go green who are looking to lower our carbon footprint."

Teacher Trustee Jacqueline Price-Ward said one way the fund is leveraging its investments to help the environment is by encouraging one company that is working in Aurora to also work with the Chicago Public Schools to help buildings switch to clean energy.

The CTPF passed a resolution at its October board meeting that recommended the pension board formalize a commitment to study divesting in a way that is practical and prudent and report back to the board. Investment Chair Phil Weiss had objected to the resolution by stating that this proposal should first be studied by the investment committee.

The fossil fuel debate was a political issue that Core, which won three of the five trustee positions in the last election, used to promote their goal of encouraging the fund to divest from fossil fuels that harm the Earth and contribute to global warming. The Core leadership got a fossil fuels resolution passed in the House of Delegates to encourage the pension board to divest from the fossil fuel sector.

Vaccine

Vaccine Battle

By Spark

As the world settles into a possible fifth upsurge of Covid, there is no let-up in the fight over vaccination. Republicans pose as defenders of “liberty” and “civil rights.” Democrats step forward as champions of “science.”

Both lie. And their squabbling hides the enormous culpability of the capitalist system -- and their own -- in the spread of Covid. Both parties continue to feed into capital’s drive for profit which has stripped bare the public health system. Draining money from public health, they left society with no way to organize a real response to the virus, just as they left roads and other public services to rot, just as they left education for working class kids to decay. Both parties reinforce the pharmaceutical industry’s grip over health care.

Vaccination was an enormous advance in its time, giving human society the possibility of escaping from the spread of contagious diseases, some of which wiped out whole societies.

Some of the vaccines against Covid also seem to be a big advance, based on new discoveries about the structure of viruses. Of course, no one can know for sure what lies ahead.

Some people said they were worried because this vaccine was developed so rapidly. In fact, they weren’t exactly wrong. Others said they felt like a guinea pig. They also weren’t exactly wrong.

But we face this reality: a contagious virus is spreading. To do nothing in the face of danger is a mistake. So we have to choose. The vaccine seems the least bad choice. It may even be very good.

How good is it? Time will tell. But we have to act right now. We do have to choose. And most scientists with experience in contagious diseases chose to take this vaccine. This is why the militants who work with Spark chose to be vaccinated. It is how they explain their choice to other people.

Having said this, it’s important to say that the vaccine is not the end-all-be-all. To put all our hope in vaccinating just this country ignores the reality of how Covid spreads. The Delta variant should have made it very clear: until Covid is controlled in the whole world, it won’t be controlled anywhere.

The virus is able to spread because so much of the world is impoverished, and poverty is an invitation to the virus to come right in. But poverty itself developed out of the way that capitalism divided up the world. In the middle of this epidemic, too many people have no access to the vaccines, to medicine and to medical care. It’s true in the world, and it’s true in this country.

The pharmaceutical industry shows what the hold of capitalism means. The vaccines and new medicines, which ought to be used to benefit humanity, instead are being used to benefit the profit line of big companies, and of the banks and investment companies that lie behind them.

The vaccines themselves were developed in facilities that were publicly funded. Yet Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson were given control of them for their own benefit.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans propose to take control of those vaccines and medicines away from the three companies.

Neither party proposes to cut ALL funding to big corporations and the wealthy class that owns them. Neither proposes to give that money instead to public health, public education, roads, water systems, forests, bridges, tunnels etc.

This latest squabble between the two parties shows they offer nothing to working people. Why should any of us line up behind either of them? That’s a fool’s game.

Working people have to organize to take on the problems we face, starting with the lack of decent jobs and adequate pay. We need safe workplaces, safe schools for our kids. We need training for young people so they can qualify for “modern” jobs. We’ll touch none of this until we prepare to fight -- that is, until we start to organize.

Book Review

Book Review

Refugee High By Elly Fishman

Review by Jim Vail

As a teacher and writer, I can count on my hand the number of books written about the Chicago Public Schools that would be worth reading for teachers who are in the trenches battling it out day after day.

My book of baptism was Greg Mitchie’s Holler if You Hear Me, his day by day account of teaching middle school in the Back of the Yards as a social studies teacher. The book was both inspirational, heart breaking and very realistic. He was a teacher who described exactly what we teachers go through every day trying to manage our classrooms and deal with the undaunting realities that face our students.

A new book has been published about Sullivan High School in Rogers Park that focuses on the lives of refugee students called Refugee High. The writer Elly Fishman has written a riveting account of several students who hailed from Syria, Iraq, Burma, Guatemala and the Congo posing as a fly on the wall. She was able to tail her students and record their lives not only in the classrooms, but in their homes and other places they frequent with their friends and relatives to paint the whole picture of their lives that many of us teachers wonder about as we try to teach and reach them in the classroom.

Her book was similar to two other fascinating accounts where the writer or journalist goes ‘undercover’ and lives with their subjects: 

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond - is a fascinating and heart-rending story about how the people are desperating trying to avoid the inevitable evictions that come with not paying the rent in Milwaukee. Desmond lived with these people so he could write an in-depth account of their plight. I believe Core had a study group that focused on this book to help shape the Chicago Teachers Union strategy to advocate for affordable housing. The other book - Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, where she too lived among the minimum wage workers trying desperately to get by on very little in the cruel industries of Wal-Mart and fast food.

These types of books where the writer lives with their subjects have both pros and cons. The pro is you read a riveting account of what these peoples’ lives are really like. The con is that the writer can easily slip away back into his or her comfortable middle class lifestyle and move on, leaving behind a very troubling account of a lifestyle we can read and gawk about, but do very little else. How much can they actually understand their subject if they are not really who they pretended to be in order to write about them? 

So I wondered who Elly Fishman was before I saw all the wonderful reviews about her book. She is not a teacher, she is a writer. She wrote for Chicago Magazine and she first wrote about Sullivan’s refugee students in a magazine article. She said she wanted to write a book about their lives when she showed up to the protest at O’Hare International Airport after President Trump had banned people from certain Muslim countries from entering the U.S.

When it comes to writing about the violence that the students face everyday, nobody knew more than George Schmidt who edited Substance News for years before he died. He would write and speak about how much gangs permeated the schools and even controlled some buildings, which he said you could tell by the amount of graffiti on the walls. Fishman also documented the gang violence at Sullivan High School. The refugee students from Africa got caught up in a confrontation with gangbangers for the simple fact that they did not know how to navigate the tricky world of Chicago teenage violence. If they are not street smart enough to quickly leave school and have family protection to escort them home quickly, then the gangs ever on the lookout for new recruits pounce. One boy from the Congo was shot and the family did what families from other countries have done - they left the city. I remember my sweet immigrant student Alfonso, who learned English and loved to smile, but was later mimicking the gangbangers’ dress and behavior. His mother moved back to Mexico which probably saved his life. His buddy and one of my favorite students, Williams, was not so lucky after he was shot and killed his first year at Farragut High School. His mother was too busy playing five-card draw at the casinos every night to do something about his chronic absences from school.

“In recent years, Rogers Park, like much of the city, has turned into a complicated mix of block-level gang territories run by young men who have splintered off from the long-standing ‘super’ gangs such as Gangster Disciples and Vice Lords.”

“According to a neighborhood gang map, Esengo’s (the Congo boy who was shot) path home crossed through three different gang territories: the blocks surrounding Sullivan High School are claimed by PBG, or the Pooh Bear Gang, a set of Gangster Disciple members named for the 15-year-old rapper Pooh Bear who was murdered in Rogers Park in January 2012. On Ashland, Esengo crossed through a several-block radius where Ashland Vikings, a mostly Puerto Rican gang, runs its operation. Closest to Esengo’s apartment building is an area known as “the jungle,” a large swath of blocks run by Loyalty Over Cash, or Loc City, another offshoot of Gangster Disciples, locked in a nine-year war with PBG.”

When I first started working at California and Cermak, one veteran teacher would tell me about the four different gangs that controlled each corner. Any teacher who has taught long enough in Chicago's public schools has attended student funerals. 

The other alarming picture Fishman paints in her book centers around her female Muslim students. One wanted to commit suicide because her parents wanted to sell her off to an older man to get married and have a family at the tender age of 15. It happened to her older sister, who once loved school. The pressures of the old way of life where women are treated as property continues even in this country.

“Shahina explains that she needs a job to pay back the man she was supposed to marry last year. Sarah’s heart sinks, but she doesn’t show it. Almost exactly one year ago, Shahina tells Sarah, her mother and stepfather sent her to Atlanta, Georgia, to marry a man named Hamid, almost ten years her senior. When Shahina made it clear she had no intention of marrying him, the wedding was called off. Now, she explains, she has to help pay back the $2,000 Hamid’s family paid her mother as an engagement gift.”

Girls continue to be bought and sold right here in a Chicago Public School. This practice of selling off women is common throughout the world, and not only in Muslim countries. My Greek mother told me when we visited her village across the Aegean Sea that there was a reason why the mothers would walk side by side with their daughters in the town at night as people sat outdoors in cafes overlooking the moonlit sea. She said they were showing off their daughters to future male suitors. My mother said her parents wanted the same for her, but she fell in love American-style and married an Irishman.

I highly recommend this moving, riveting and suspenseful novel about Sullivan High School and the intimate lives of its refugee students. Their stories are the stories of all our immigrant students and first generation kids who are desperately trying to make a better life in a rough city where danger lurks not only on every corner, but even in their homes.

Pension Election

Experience Wins Big in Chicago Teachers Pension Fund Election 

By Jim Vail

CTPF retired Trustee Lois Nelson was re-elected
with the most votes.

The Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund election results show minority status and experience played a big role in who won.

All three retired teacher trustees won re-election: Lois Nelson (5,033 votes), Mary Sharon Reilly (4,207 votes) and Maria J. Rodriguez (4,143 votes).

The two winning active teacher trustees were Quentin Washington (1,966 votes) and Victor Ochoa (1,800 votes).

The Chicago Teachers Union leadership caucus Core won three of the five trustee seats - Nelson, Reilly and Washington. Reilly the vice president of the pension fund was the only non-minority candidate to win her election.

The Members First opposition caucus won one teacher trustee position - Ochoa, a Latino who was previously affiliated with the former UPC ruling party before Core and Karen Lewis won in 2010.

The biggest surprise perhaps was the victory of Maria J. Rodriguez who ran as an independent and defeated the two parties who both fielded three retired teacher trustee candidates along with more resources. Core sent out an expensive postcard mailer to active and retired teachers, while Members First promoted their candidates on their active Facebook page.

About one-third of the retired teachers voted in this election, while only 12 percent of active teachers voted for their pension candidates.

Experience played a big role in this election. All three retired trustees who were re-elected in a crowded field of candidates had served for many years on the fund - VP trustee Reilly has over 20 years of experience on the fund while Rodriguez has served 16 years. Nelson has 8 years of experience.

CTPF woes began last summer when  President Jeffery Blackwell said the fund was rife with racism and misogyny. He then pushed the board to pass a resolution to censure three female minority trustees and reprimand one female trustee. His attack, which some say was politically motived, has either backfired or fizzled out.

Retired trustees Rodriguez and Reilly were re-elected despite the board's censures and reprimands. The other two teacher trustees who were censured were Gervaise Clay, who did not run for re-election, and Tina Padilla, who was not up for re-election.

Minority trustees continue to serve on a pension fund that is one of the leaders in the country when it comes to hiring people of color. Reilly, a white female trustee, who received the second highest vote total of retired teachers, had been reprimanded for using racist language. Reilly ran with Core who has made the fight against racism a top issue. 

Members First fielded three white female retired teacher candidates who all lost. Although MF made the censures an election issue, it did not play a role in the election results. Core's Lois Nelson received 3,000 more votes than Kathleen Cleary who runs their website.

The number of retired teachers who voted by paper ballots and online was about the same. 48 percent of retired teachers voted online and 52 percent voted by mail.

HOD Nov.

Report on the Meeting of the House of Delegates on November 3, 2021

By George Milkowski

I. Officer Reports

A. Recording Secretary Christel Williams-Hayes was absent due to a family emergency.  Pres. Jessie Sharkey gave a very brief summary of her report.  There is a PSRP personnel shortage but the CPS has agreed to hire 150 new PSRPs.  Delegates are asked to inform the Union if vacant positions are not filled soon.

B. Financial Report Kathy Catalano – Our fiscal year started July 1 and her report is only for two months.  The union expenditures are about $1.3 million per month not counting “pass throughs” to the IFT and the AFT.  We have not yet received any dues payments from the CPS so we are in the red right now.  On the plus side, the lease on our old location in the Merchandise Mart is over and we will no longer be required to make monthly payments on that.

C. Recording Secretary Maria Moreno – Maria reported that membership is up to 27,800 and of that 1,810 are retirees. 

Maria also said that, following the rules in the CTU constitution and by-laws, the Executive Board has appointed Erin Lynch to fill a vacancy on the CTU Board of Trustees.  The House is asked to approve her appointment to the Board of Trustees.  Erin, with whom I am acquainted, is a 14 year CPS veteran and has been an active Union delegate for nine years.  I voted with the majority for her approval.  The vote was 96-4% approval.

D. CTU-CTS Report –Chris Baehrend. The Charter Division of the CTU is working on a coordinated contract campaign for 2022.

Chris reported that there are four alternative high schools that have need based budgeting, not student based budgeting like the rest of the system.  They receive greater funds per student then the majority of schools although a good chunk of those funds go into the pockets of administrators of the schools.  One of them, the Youth Connection Leadership School, despite receiving funds from the Board to rent building space, is threatening to shut down because they feel they need more cash.

E. Vice President Stacy Davis Gates  - The CTU has started a program for first and second year teachers and clinicians seeking mentoring.  Teachers of color are especially encouraged to sign up.  There is room for 90 teachers and the mentees (is that a word?) will be given a $500 stipend.

Stacy addressed major concerns about the effect of the REACH teacher evaluation program.  Teacher evaluations are required by State law but the pandemic and school shut down has made proper evaluations problematic.  School districts that do not comply with State law on evaluations may lose some funding.  The CTU is negotiating with the CPS and hopes they can reach a reasonable evaluation protocol for all affected teachers.

Stacy also stated that due to pressure from the CTU, the Board has agreed to invest $10 million new dollars to address the severe sub shortage.

II. President’s Report – Jesse Sharkey   Pres. Sharkey addressed the issue of cleanliness and safety in the schools.  He gave examples of Jansen school that is supposed to have three custodians but only has 1 and ½, has no COVID testing and their contact tracing is an ineffective mess.

Jesse also referenced the problem of violence in and around the schools.  He feels that one way to address this problem is to have fully and properly staffed schools.  The new contract has led to an increase in hiring for almost every type of position but more people need to be brought on.

Jesse also said that the CPS is conducting more vaccination clinics in the schools but they have done little to communicate this to the parents and communities.  He said that delegates need to use their safety committees to keep track of staffing levels, COVID cases, contact tracing and so on. 

III. Department/Committee Reports

A.  Organizing – Rebecca Martinez/Curtis Bynum – The CTU is hosting a virtual delegates workshop and training session this weekend.  All delegates, especially new ones, are encouraged to attend.

More than 100 schools have participated in the CTU “Days of Action”.  These actions have including things like before school rallies and walk-ins, flyering and talking with parent, talking to the media, and filing OSHA complaints.

Teachers who have been asked to cover classes when subs are unavailable need to submit a list of missed prep periods to the principal before the end of the First Quarter if they expect to be compensated for their extra work.

The special CTU/CPS Class Size Committee has acted and so far there are 267 new positions in the schools, of which 151 are teaching positions.

B.  Legislation/Political Action – Kurt Hilgendorf.  Kurt said the past two weeks have been rather successful for the CTU.  Some bills that passed the General Assembly and are awaiting the Governor’s signature are SB1784, which imposes an immediate moratorium on closing schools, HB 2778, a COVID pay check protection bill that insures a paycheck for workers instead of forcing them to use sick days if they are out due to the pandemic, and SB101 which is an LSC empowerment bill, even for schools that are on probation.  Strong LSCs can help put pressure on the CPS to follow the law and to abide by our contract.

Kurt also said the City budget was approved with increased funding for housing, mental health treatment and violence prevention.  It also includes a provision for a one year test of a universal basic income for a few hundred Chicagoans

IV. New Business/Q and A

Bea Lumpkin mentioned that the current meeting of world leaders at the International Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, lauded Illinois for passage of the Clean Energy Jobs Act (CEJA).  Bea pointed out that the CTU was one of the key drivers to get the State to enact this legislation.

Margot Taylor (Chappel School) asked how new funds for subs would be allocated.  Jesse told her that the CPS indicates that it plans to hire a large number of Cadre subs.

Moseleen Parker asked about COVID interfering with a co-workers ability to attain tenure.  Jesse responded by saying that any teacher who works 150 days a year for four years, whether in-person or virtual, will be granted tenure.

Douglass Park Fest

Community and Schools Oppose Loud Concerts in Douglass Park

By Jim Vail

The community of North Lawndale is united against the Riot Fest because their beloved Douglass Park is off limits each year for almost a month to make way for an expensive four day musical concert for outsiders.

"Dear Alderman George Cardenas," a student wrote in a letter, "I am writing about the Riot Fest. People who are living there are trying to sleep, if they don't sleep their head will hurt and they will be in pain. People also don't use that really pretty park its blocked off. Some people will get fired and lose their jobs because they have to take the long path and will not have money."

I discussed the problems with Riot Fest and shutting down Douglass Park with my students. They all complained about how the concert is so loud they can't sleep or do homework, how the traffic is so bad during the week that their parents have to take alternate routes that makes them late (not to mention that the hospitals nearby have problems with emergency vehicles getting through!), how they cannot use the park to play soccer games or use the track to run, and that the smoke and crowds scare the animals.

The anger is visible throughout the area where flyers are posted on street sign posts demanding that Riot Fest 'Get the f%$# out of Douglass Park,' and 'Riot Fest gave Alderman George Cardenas $40,000.'

It got so bad that the mainstream media started to pick up the story that people are very unhappy with this monster concert taking over the beautiful public park and destroying their peace and quiet in a part of the city that has already been traumatized by poverty and violence.

A Facebook group called No Riot Fest in Douglass Park formed a couple years ago that details all the outrages people feel and what can be done to get the music concert to leave.

A community meeting was organized on October 10 to discuss what can be done. People noted that Riot Fest was kicked out of Humboldt Park several years earlier after the community rose up and the Alderman Roberto Maldonado stopped supporting the concert after homeowners complained. It moved to Douglass Park in 2015.

However, Alderman George Cardenas is solidly behind the privatization of the park and people complained that his brother was able to profit off the concert by charging concert goers a lot of money to use the Saucedo Elementary School parking lot during the Fest.

A taqueria owner said despite the large crowds who come his business was slow during the concert because the organizers had food vendors set up inside the park and made it difficult for people to leave and patronize local food vendors. One student's parent said they had to cancel their pizza order from a nearby pizzeria because the traffic was so bad. 

One community resident said the closure of Sacramento and California Avenues made it impossible to get into her car during the concert. 

Many of the soccer leagues where the local teams play have to cut their season short and go to another park that is difficult for families with limited transportation means.

Ernie Alvarez, a soccer coach for an after-school program for kids in schools in the surrounding area, said the Fest made the soccer fields unsafe to play, forcing his organization to get permits for other fields.

This was one of many cartoons to
lament Riot Fest kicking the children
out of their public park for almost a month.

The question organizers at the public meeting in the park said Riot Fest should consider relocating to Soldier Field or Grant Park to hold their concert.

The Tribune wrote that diesel fumes from trucks for the concert aggravate kids' allergies in an area where pollution is already high due to the factory. 

One resident noted that they could hear the loud booming music almost half a mile away. Some students at my school complained that they couldn't do their homework or concentrate because of the noise.

People at the meeting wondered how much money the Park District makes off the Fest to have to endure such damage. It is estimated that Riot Fest paid about $150,000 to use the park. Almost a third of that was spent on paying off Alderman Cardenas to support the concert. How much did Riot Fest make on the concert?

Lawndale and Little Village where the park intersects is Ground Zero on the West Side to gentrify the City of Chicago. Developers are buying up property all around as rents rise and low-income people move out. The public schools are losing enrollment as families can no longer afford to live in the area.

About 20 years ago the former Chicago Board of Education President Michael Scott headed the Park District and was behind a lot of real estate deals to develop land around the park. He tore out two beautiful baseball diamonds to build a nine hole golf course and mini-golf in order to help attract people with money. Scott had heavily invested in the area where land value was expected to skyrocket if Chicago landed the 2016 Olympics where they would build part of the Olympics infrastructure that would involve clearing out the land so that they could put up new developments. That dream ended when the Olympics went to Rio de Janiero and Scott killed himself a little while later.

Michael Scott's son is now the Alderman in Lawndale whose territory includes a part of Douglass Park. Park activists asked the Alderman back in 2015 why he did not inform the community about Riot Fest coming to Douglass Park for which he took "responsibility," and then said he does not have the staff power to knock on every door nor does the City give him money to send out mailers. He admitted that the concert is not for the community but claimed the park is "underutilized," a word that was used by the Chicago Public Schools to convince the public why schools had to be closed. He said the Fest paid $150,000 in permit fees to the Park District which is put into a general fund. He told people at the meeting that he would not hold a public meeting for the community about the Riot Fest because "every time Riot Fest comes to a meeting they get beat on."

So far people have complained at Park District board meetings and former Superintendent Michael Kelly said they were "evaluating" Riot Fest and other festivals for the future.

Douglass Park was the site of activism several years ago when a group of students from Village Leadership Academy protested the name. Douglass Park was originally named after Stephen Douglas, a former senator and corrupt businessman who profited off of slavery and said voters should decide to have a free or slave state. Despite the students protests, it wasn't until Black Lives Matter took center stage following the riots and protests of the police killing of George Floyd that the City's rulers decided it was time for a quick change to Frederick Douglass Park, named after the abolitionist hero and former slave.

Organizers are gathering petitions, continuing to speak out and encourage people to follow them on Facebook at No Riot Fest in Douglass Park.