Pritzker & Elected
School Boards (the penny
dropped?)
Idiom: In Britain, a penny was initially a small
bronze coin worth one-hundredth by weight of a pound. Because of its ubiquitous nature in everyday
exchanges, the diminutive coin was employed in many phrases and colorful idioms
(penny for your thoughts, in for a penny, pretty penny). The Penny Dropped was an informal British
idiom for suggesting maybe someone had finally learned or understood something.
The hard fought campaign to
bring an elected school board to Chicago culminated this last Tuesday in a
resounding victory for concerned parents of students, grass-roots activists,
and the CTU. WBEZ radio reported approval of the ballot initiative to force an
elected rather than an appointed school board at over 85% of voters (New Momentum).
You might remember that the
original attempt to put a non-binding resolution on the ballot was denied
because ten Chicago alderman were three minutes late in getting it to the chair
of the Human Relations Committee. After
that, thousands of parents, teachers and students “committed to education” sought petition signatures from Chicago
residents to force the ballot referendum.
Communities Organized for Democracy in Education (CODE) was chief among
the many forces behind the initiative to an elected school board.
Pritzker, who has her own Noble network charter school, once identified the needs of students in Chicago
schools as simply enough skills in reading, math, and science to be productive
members of the workforce. As Diane
Ravitch notes, “Why no mention of the arts, of music, of physical education?” (For Shame Penny Pritzker). To get a sense of the injustice, Ravitch urges
watching the viral video of trial lawyer Matt farmer at a CTU rally, discussing
the inequalities in our city schools with an imaginary Penny Pritzker (https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=IMUboOIQT48 ).
Meanwhile, Pritzker, the national co-chair of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign described herself as simply ecstatic to be a part of Tuesday’s exciting albeit exhausting process. “My favorite story from last night was, as I was watching the President give his acceptance speech, I realized there were two young children sitting on the floor, holding their flags, to one side of me exhausted…And there was a very successful hedge fund manager to my right. And there was a labor leader in front of me. And there were some good friends of mine who’ve been volunteering…Everybody was just there. There was no distinction. Everybody’s just there for the same reason” (Harris, Melissa. Big Night, Behind the Scenes. Chicago Tribune. 8 Nov 2012).
Instead of sleeping when she
arrived home at two in the morning, Pritzker sat up and wrote notes to
friends, “I wrote them and congratulated
them. I wanted to share the feeling of
the moment…That personal touch, it matters.”
Note to Penny: 86.6% voted for an elected school board in
Chicago. That’s distinctive.
"The corruption we today call government..."
ReplyDelete- Chris Hedges
We are undergoing betrayal, injustice and the mass sale of government to the wealthy. Pension raiding, seizure of control of duly elected governmental boards, legalization of social service looting and more have become the "new normal."
New? Yes.
Normal? Only if the abnormal is normalized.
Penny is part of the new normal. 86.6% voted to declare her abnormal and unacceptable.
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