University corruption

REVIEW OF JAPANESE COMEDY SERIES

How to be likable in a crisis

By Stephen Wilson

 

 

 

It represents riveting entertainment! I confess to having watched  some episodes twice! 

The Japanese dark comedy series 'How to be likable in a crisis {which can be seen on the channel N.H.K. World Japan every Sunday} is about the woes of a hapless and blundering Japanese Journalist Kanzaki Makoti who finds himself ensnared in a web of corruption at a university when he assumes the new post of P.R. representative for a university. Kanzaki has already done a stint as a television reporter. Kanzaki strives to live a simple and straightforward life where he can do his job well, please everyone and make everyone around him happy. He seeks social approval and popularity. He swiftly attains this because of his charisma and good looks. He declares "Being likable is everything. Trust me. "Alas, if only life was so simple! It takes a painful encounter with his ex-girlfriend to instruct him that it is better to follow one's conscience than to be likable.

 

After taking up his post as a P.R. representative for a university, Kanzaki is asked by the board of management to smooth out a scandal  which has just arisen. The scandal threatens to ruin the reputation of the University. A young female researcher has found that a prominent professor has faked his research results. Despite complaining about this issue with staff, nothing has been done to punish the culprit. Instead there has been a crude and ineffective cover up.  The young researcher has turned into a whistle blower. Kanzaki is asked to appease the student by offering her a post of researcher on condition she remains silent. The young researcher, Minori, happens to be Kanzaki's ex-girl friend. When she receives the offer she turns it down in disgust and storms out of a restaurant deeply offended. She explains to Kanzaki that by becoming a researcher people took her seriously and respected her. She adores doing research, but is against corruption and injustice. She informs Kanzaki that young researchers are so badly paid and ill-treated that some are driven to suicide. Kanzaki is moved. He tells her "You love research but gave it up to stop corruption". The ploy fails and later the local newspaper exposes the scandal.

 

The management are forced to order an investigation. But nobody wants to investigate this scandal. Only an eccentric Doctor Sawado is prepared to take up the post. They ask for Kanzaki to control him. The doctor happens to be on the side of the whistle blower and Kanzaki finds it difficult to control his antics especially when he becomes drunk. There are many comical scenes. Sawado falls in love with Minori and says, "I would be willing to give up my red scarf for her" then takes it off and hurls it out on to the street. For all his troubles Kanzaki is beaten unconscious and fails to rein in on Sawado. He turns up at the office offering his resignation only to be told he has done a great job and things have turned out well. Sawado has been suspended for his outrageous behavior and so can no longer perform an embarrassing investigation.

 

This is a black comedy which claims to be a microcosm of Japan. I felt it was not just about Japan. It could be about Russia or America. For instance, at the institute of Power and Energy in Moscow there have been corruption scandals and some English teachers feel they are being forced to fulfill a quota of academic articles to hold on to their jobs. The results are often poor quality articles where they are expected to pay for the  cost or find sponsors to cover the costs. Rutger Bregman writes in his book 'Human Kind, A Hopeful History', 2020, about 'Academics who are evaluated on their published output, and then tempted to put forward fake results.' In Psychology, two of the most famous experiments by Philip Zimbardo in 1971, and Stanley Milgram in 1963 were exposed as  being based on fake evidence. Despite students who were later 'whistleblowers' spilling the beans, a lot of psychologists still won't acknowledge the obvious. Instead of admitting the results were rendered fake by explicit experimenter bias they merely understate 'Doubts have been raised about the validity of the results'. By the way, those two experiments are extensively quoted in student Psychology textbooks. So although this series is often highly amusing it is also at times somber and sad. We witness the shattering of illusions held by idealists seeking a decent and just educational environment. Kanzaki himself feels he is being tainted by this corruption by being asked to make compromises. The young Minori can no longer pursue scientific research.

Nevertheless this series is worth watching for the very good acting and the absurd humor. The laughter might be good medicine to beat the Winter blues!

Kugler Fired

CTU Fires Beloved Long Time Field Rep Kugler 

By Jim Vail

CTU fired Field Rep John Kugler shown here next to 
Alderwoman & CTU member Sue Garza.

The Grinch stole Christmas for beloved Chicago Teachers Union Field Rep John Kugler after the CTU fired the long-time active fighter just before the holiday break.

"The reason they say I was fired was filing complaints against CPS attorneys and saying that I hid it from CTU management," Kugler said in a statement to Second City Teachers. "I had no notice. I was fired on the spot and locked out of all my work and records immediately."

He said he was given two weeks during the Christmas Holiday to find a job and get insurance for his family of six.

An outpouring of support for Kugler on the teachers Facebook pages followed the announcement that was posted this week by former Pension Trustee and retired high school Teacher Bernie Eshoo who wrote, "Just heard that CTU leadership fired, highly regarded and long time rank and file supporter, field rep. Dr. John Kugler."

"This is a great loss for Members," David Benjamin wrote on the Members First fb page. "John was an experienced and knowledgeable field rep. There were so many times I reached out to him to get clarification or guidance when helping members."

"John Kugler is one of the field reps that members give accolades to consistently," wrote Kathleen Cleary. "What a terrible thing to do right before Christmas."

Kugler was the face of the CTU's historic radical fight back against the ruling business class that went to war against the teachers union and public education. The city's rulers were used to getting their way with the old company union until everything flipped when a group of "radical Trotskyites" took control of the union, as former Mayor Rahm Emanuel put it.

He was talking about people like John Kugler who got in everyone's face when going to bat for the union members. 

Kugler's fiery rhetoric, fighting spirit and keen mind forged what some would say was the heart and soul of a union that took it to the streets to fight back.

Kugler backed down to no one, whether it was the principals he was fighting or his bosses at the CTU headquarters on Carroll Street. He was a member of the Teamsters union and filed many grievances and lawsuits. 

John Kugler is speaking out at the Chicago Board of Education
where he fought privatization schemes that closed many public schools.

His CTU bosses then said enough is enough and fired him.

The Teachers Union is known for purging any outspoken radicals who may have played a key role to help put the union in power. It is the classic playbook any group in power deploys in order to stay there.

His fellow field rep Joey McDermott was similarly fired for criticizing the union bosses despite his outstanding performance as a field rep who the teachers loved. Over 1200 CTU members signed a petition to unsuccessfully reinstate McDermott who was dismissed two years ago.

"We were two field reps who filed grievances and called out leadership's dishonesty and malfeasance," McDermott wrote to Second City Teachers. "We both met a similar fate. This leadership is more concerned with maintaining their own power than they are concerned with serving our members." 

CTU fired former Field Rep Joey McDermott

Everybody has a Kugler story. Here's mine:  When Race to the Top was implemented after Core's historic win in 2010, the city's power brokers went to war against the union and its teachers. My principal and Mr. Kugler battled it out like a couple of gangsters vying for control of the streets. The teacher who told me about this explosive fight in the office said she then fainted as she saw both sides almost at each other's throats. I said to myself, damn - this union is in good hands!

Kugler never backed down to anyone, anywhere. When he was the delegate at Hyde Park High School, he was known to wear a tape recorder around his neck as he walked the hallways and would record any confrontations with the administrators.

He was so good he drove himself out of his jobs. He took his work very seriously, and always had time to talk to any member.

Kugler told me CPS always breaks its policies, the only way to stop it is by fighting them. Dr. Kugler and CTU President Karen Lewis who passed away last year both emphatically spoke about fighting back. 

Kugler took over the reigns of Substance News after editor and long-time union activist George Schmidt passed away in 2018. Schmidt was similarly fired by the union for his calling out his bosses, and fired many times as a teacher delegate because he always went to war with the principals. Mayor Richard Daley fired Schmidt and put him on a blacklist after he published the Case Exam questions to protest a silly standardized test that then CPS Chief Paul Vallas implemented on behalf of his corporate chieftains.

Kugler didn't miss a beat exposing the bosses including the union while he edited Substance. A recent article noted that the CTU lawyers led by Core founder Jackson Potter's mother Robin Potter will pocket most of the money from a settlement that faulted CPS for unfairly firing many black teachers during the massive school closings in 2013.

That type of courage puts a target on you.

Kugler said he will speak more about his case in the future. For now, he'll do what he's always done - fight the bosses!

McDermott, who settled his dismissal case with the union and is now back to being a high school teacher, said Kugler will contest his firing. 

"Unfortunately they will probably waste members dues money with another costly settlement," McDermott said. "They like to throw money at a problem to make someone disappear."

Pension Meeting Dec

Chicago Teachers Pension Fund Meeting December, 2021

By Jim Vail

The Chicago Teachers Pension Fund got back down to work for its monthly December meeting to discuss the fund's business since the appointment of the new CTPF Executive Director on August 2, 2021.

The meeting began with public participation and only John Butterfield from RTAC - the Retired Teachers Assoc. - spoke on countering the bill which was passed earlier this year, waiving payback for overpayments from retired members. 

CTPF President Jeffery Blackwell and Principal Trustee Jerry Travlos were not present at the Thursday, Dec. 16 pension meeting.

CTPF Director Carlton Lenoir told Teacher Trustee and Investment Chair Phil Weiss that they were addressing his concern about missing several report card pickup days due to the board meetings being held on Thursdays when the high schools meet parents which upset his principal.

The next topic on the agenda entailed approval to amend the Employee Handbook. The trustees asked questions about the grievance procedure vs. whistleblower complaints. The fund was rocked by numerous whistleblower complaints against trustees and other employees over the last year but the validity of many were called into question. 

Retired Teacher Trustee Lois Nelson asked what is the process when a complaint is made and an employee complains about not being treated fairly by a manager. The fund's attorney Daniel Hurtado said the employee complaint first goes to the HR Director (the fund is currently searching for a new HR Dir.), they talk to the employee, write it up, read the complaint and sign off on it, then conduct an investigation before making a recommendation to remedy the complaint. He said the employee handbook spells it out clearly.

However, if the employee is not satisfied with the outcome they can escalate their concern to the Executive Director and then to the Executive Board that was formed in the wake of Blackwell's letter who accused the fund of racism and misogyny. The Executive Board is comprised of 4 trustees - Pres. Blackwell, VP Mary Sharon Reilly, Recording Sec. Jacqueline Price-Ward and Investment Chair Phil Weiss. The lawyer added that an employee who files sex harassment charges, for example, can also go to the EEOC or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. CPS Board Trustee Dwayne Truss said he was concerned about employees filing frivolous cases that were more about personality issues rather than legitimate concerns.   

The next interesting question concerns the fund's nearly 125 employees and the issues of raises. Trustee Maria Rodriguez said she is concerned that they were not following a uniform policy of giving employees raises, which can create an unpleasant atmosphere given that the 5.9% raise will be given to everyone in January 2022.

The board's attorney said that that the raises are not really raises because it is stated the maximum amount they can earn. Hurtado said it is tough to attract employees due to the pandemic and they need to make salaries competitive. There have been complaints that some employees are not getting raises.

The concern about pay raises raises the question of unionization. The fund's employees are not members of a union, ironically enough, even though the fund is for the Chicago Teachers Union members. CTU Employees are members of a union and the Field Reps who file grievances are members of the Teamsters.

There was a mention of forming a union for CTPF employees over 10 years ago during the dark days of Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind that were designed to attack unions. The funds' employees were subjected to merit pay, where raises were tied to performance. The teachers had successfully fought off merit pay where it became very subjective based on test scores and other questionable measurements that in turn created an unhealthy competition between teachers. CTPF employee merit pay ended in 2019.

The board said that trustees who wish to attend conferences that involved costs exceeding a $250 registration fee need to seek approval in advance. Trustees enjoy attending investment conferences in exotic places which critics argue can be a way to buy off their votes for those who sponsor the conferences.

A presentation was then made concerning the Trustees fiduciary responsibilities when overseeing a $13.3 billion teachers pension fund. The presenters said there have been a lot of lawsuits filed against 401ks and 403bs. There have been many suits filed against 403b retirement accounts at universities, including a current lawsuit against Northwestern University and its 403b supplemental retirement accounts that is being heard at the U.S. Supreme Court level with a ruling expected next summer.

The concerns are there are too many investment options which leads to investment paralysis, locked in investments which favor certain vendors, and excessive fees.

There have been concerns when the Chicago Public Schools turned over all its 403b supplemental retirement accounts to AIG Finance. While it appears there are no concerns among activists who have been writing about the changes here on the Chicago teachers facebook pages, AIG is no stranger when it comes to corruption. Their executives were notorious for collecting pay raises after the 2008 subprime financial meltdown in which they needed a government handout to stay afloat after backing toxic investments from Goldman Sachs and other investment funds that ultimately bankrupted some municipalities. 

HOD Dec

Report on the Meeting of the House of Delegates on December 8, 2021

By George Milkowski

Please note:  Because of the COVID 19 pandemic, this meeting was conducted as a webinar via a video conference

The meeting began at 4:36 p.m..

I. Officer Reports

A. Recording Secretary Christel Williams-Hayes – Christel used most of her time talking about the CTU member at Carnegie School who contracted COVID and died and the actions teachers there have taken.  They have refused to go back into the building and are teaching remotely.

B. Financial Report Kathy Catalano – Kathy said that figures are in for our first fiscal quarter.  Although we have started receiving member dues from the Board, we also have obligations for “pass through” assessments to the IFT and AFT.  We are $4,555.000 in the red right now but this is normal and we had planned in our budget to be $4,801,000 in the red at this time so we are in better shape than expected.

C. Recording Secretary Maria Moreno – Our membership is 27,466 of which 1,364 are retiree members.  

    Maria announced that the CTU will host an in-person New Member event on December 15 from 4-30-6:30 p.m. in the Union building.

    The Union has started a mentoring program for new teachers and clinicians.  The “We Care” program is being led by Tara Stamps and she asked delegates who are interested in being mentors to contact her.

D.  Charter Division – Chris Baehrend – Chris reported that one of the smallest charter schools, the Youth Connection Leadership Academy, is threatening to close.  The teachers will be conducting a picket protest at 3:30 p.m. at 3424 S. State, just a few blocks from Police Headquarters.  Because it is a small school, they are asking for help in picketing. They also plan to transfer the students to one of their non-union schools.

E. Vice President Stacy Davis Gates  - Stacy said the Union has been receiving a lot of phone calls from members who are stressed out.  She said it is important to take care of one’s physical and mental health and there is help in the contract that is available to all at little or no out of pocket expenses.

    Stacy also asked for donations of winter outerwear in good condition and/or monetary donations to the CTU Foundation.  Students in need will be eligible for the donations.

II. President’s Report – Jesse Sharkey

Pres. Sharkey said that there are attempts by well-funded right wing lawyers to sue the Union on behalf of certain faculty or staff.  These are individuals who opted out of Union membership and would like the Rauner Era Janus decision to be retroactive.  They have lost at the district level and the appeals level and Jesse does not see them winning based on the law even if they appeal to the Supreme Court.

Jesse addressed the continuing problem of a deep sub shortage.  The CPS is offering a bonus of $420 to subs who work at least 12 days in a month.

Jesse said that coaches will be receiving their promised higher stipends per agreement with the CPS.  The increase should be reflected in their paychecks starting December 17.

Jesse gave two teachers from Carnegie a chance to explain what happened that led to the death of JonL Bush and the actions teachers have taken.  One of them said that there are 23 classrooms at Carnegie and half have been in and out of quarantine since the school year began.

Jesse also turned over the microphone to Nora Flanagan.  She works at North Side Prep but was involved in a problem at Taft H.S..  She said that a white nationalist group, Turning Point, USA, has been trying to recruit and organize students at Taft.   However, as parents and teachers learned more about the group, they and the principal took quick action to deny them access to the building.

Jesse also asked the House to change the date of the next House meeting from January 5 to January 12.  This was approved 96-4%.

.III. Item for Action

The CTU passed a resolution to call this month “New Member December”.  Its purpose is to recruit and welcome new members into the Union and to let them know how important the Union is to their daily working lives.  This passed 98-2%.

IV. Department/Committee Reports

A.  Organizing – Jim Cavallero – The CTU has helped organize a vigil for Carnegie School member Jonl Bush and he asked that delegates have their members were red tomorrow, December 9, in solidarity with the Carnegie teachers.  He also said delegates should make use of a Cleaning/Facilities toolkit to help document problems of cleanliness in the buildings.

Jim announced the CTU will be hosting a webinar on December 15 for clinicians.

B.  Grievance Report – Leah Raffanti – The Union has been working with the CPS and has used the contract to get 64 more Cadre subs hired although more are needed.  She added that the CPS has agreed to accept standards set by the ISBE to allow individuals with two years of college to be subs.

Leah also reported that the class size committee has acted to establish 220 new teaching positions.

C.  Political/Legislative - Kurt Hilgendorf – Kurt highlighted two new laws signed by Gov. Pritzker.  The first, HB1975, addresses sexual misconduct in the schools.  This was a direct response to the recent scandal at Marine Leadership Academy.  The second law, SB 101 re-instates authority and power to certain LSCs.

There are two bills the Governor has not yet signed.  The first is HB 2778 that deals with paid leave for people who contract COVID.  The second is SB1784, which imposes a moratorium on all school closings.

Lastly, due to the late arrival of figures from the Census Bureau, the spring primary has been moved to June 28.  This means that signature collection for politicians who are friendly to the CTU begins in January and lasts a few months.  Given the time of year it will be difficult to help our political allies out but Kurt said we need to support them as they have supported us.

V. New Business/Questions and Answers

Kim works in a middle school that is departmentalized like in the high schools.  Many classes are oversized and they need TAs but are not eligible for the remedies that are offered to high schools.  Jesse recognized that she had a valid point and the CTU will work to see if anything can be done.

Denise said that the vaccination deadline for teachers has been rescinded and she has concerns about the COVID variants.  She asked what the Union is doing regarding this.  Jesse answered, saying the CPS is dragging its feet on vaccinations and testing.  He said the Union has taken a position in favor of vaccination but is opposed to teachers and staff being fired when police, firefighters, and other employees of the City are not.

A far Southside delegate said her principal has refused to meet with the Safety Committee.  She said the school is not cleaned properly and air filters on the machines are filthy and not changed very often.  Jesse responded and said that the problem of non-co-operation by principals has occurred at other schools, too.  When brought to their attention many of the principals have been contacted by the CPS and told that they are required to co-operate with the Committee by law.

Moselean said that COVID testing at her school is impractical as teachers cannot leave their full classes to go to on-site testing location and there is no proper sub coverage.  The CTU will try to get extended on-site hours for the testing.

The meeting ended at 7:03 p.m..  

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.