Former Teacher, Union Leader elected to Mayor of Chicago

 First of all, let me begin by congratulating Brandon Johnson on being elected as the next mayor of Chicago, and Janet Protasiewicz on her decisive win in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. These are two huge victories for progressives and for our movement. 

If we are serious about creating transformative change in this country — and if we're serious about taking on the powerful special interests that want to protect the status quo — we need to elect more great candidates at the grassroots level. That's why Brandon Johnson and Janet Protasiewicz's victories are so important. 

Our campaign was proud to have played a role in these victories, and I would like to thank supporters like you for all you've done to help make these victories possible. Our team reached out to people all across Chicago to encourage them to turn out to vote for Brandon Johnson, and to attend our GOTV rally with him last week. And we contacted Wisconsinites statewide informing them about early voting and Election Day voting for Janet Protasiewicz in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. 

Brandon Johnson is a former teacher who ran a campaign centered on economic justice and racial justice. What he did during his campaign for mayor, and what we have got to do all over this country, is continue the struggle to build a government that works for all of us, not just the wealthy few.

Chicago deserves a mayor who will invest in affordable housing, health care, fully-funded neighborhood schools, and good jobs. That's the kind of mayor that Brandon Johnson will be. He understands that we need not only job creation, but jobs that provide workers with decent wages, benefits, and working conditions. 

During the runoff election, Brandon overcame incredible odds after being outspent 2-to-1. The way he was able to do that was by bringing people together in a multi-racial, multi-generational movement. This past Tuesday, large numbers of working people all across the city of Chicago came together to say enough is enough. It is time to finally create a government that invests in the needs of its people. And with Brandon Johnson as mayor, Chicago will now have a city government that supports the working class and unions.

In Wisconsin, Janet Protasiewicz ended the conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years. Her victory will help protect the future of our democracy and will have an enormous impact on voting rights, abortion rights, redistricting, and potential challenges to 2024 election results in a key battleground state. 

Sacramento in the Trump House

Sacramento outgoing   first lady Michelle Rhee and  outgoing Mayor Kevin Johnson met with President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday as Rhee is in contention for education secretary for the incoming Republican administration.

Associated Press photos show Rhee and Johnson departing from the meeting at a Trump-owned golf club in Bedminster, N.J., smiling and shaking hands with the President-elect. Crystal Strait, chief of staff to Johnson, could not confirm if the mayor was in the room during Trump’s discussion with Rhee. See Bee article and photos here. http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article115941728.html

Johnson was unavailable for comment, Strait said. According to the Bee, 

"Rhee gained prominence as an education reformer while she was chancellor of schools in Washington, D.C., from 2007-10. In 2010, she formed StudentsFirst, a states-based education reform organization that advocates for school-choice initiatives and has been active in elections." She has been an ardent opponent of teachers unions and a supporter of efforts such as the defeated Vergara   decision.  ( see prior posts on this blog). She was a significant advisor to the Broad Academy for school leadership which trains and places school superintendents including a former Sacramento Superintendent Jonathon Raymond. Graduates have  advanced a corporate view of school "reform"  in Sacramento, Los Angeles, and around the nation.

Mayor Johnson Shoots an Air Ball

When A Mayor Shoots An Air Ball

 By Seth Sandronsky

Seth Sandronsky ZSpace Page 

Inaccuracy reigns in U.S. politics today. 

We turn to Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a two-term Democrat who rose to fame as a star guard in the NBA. Mr. Johnson is now visiting U.S. cities on a Mayors for Educational Excellence Tour with three mayors: Julián Castro of San Antonio; Michael Hancock of Denver and Angel Taveras of Providence, R.I.   

In a recent Politico opinion piece “On the road to school success,” Mr. Johnson shot an air ball concerning public education in Sacramento:

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/on-the-road-to-school-success-98352.html 

He wrote: “Facing the inherent difficulty of addressing the challenges of the city’s five school districts, Sacramento saw a need to attract proven education practices to the city. The mayor’s office helped convene and recruit prominent national organizations, and within just one year, City Year, Teach for America, StudentsFirst and College Track launched sites in the city. Each organization has had an immediate impact on schools and on student learning, and the influx of talented individuals invested in student success has created a promising environment for collaboration and innovation.” 

It is inaccurate to write that “Sacramento” saw a need to change its K-12 public education system. For the record, the public did not vote on the matter as Mr. Johnson described it. 

Wal-Mart gives big money to Mayor Kevin Johnson

Wal-Mart and the Walton Family Foundation, named for the family that created the company, have been the largest donors, contributing nearly $800,000 combined to nonprofits on behalf of Johnson and other council members since 2009, according to disclosure documents filed with the city clerk's office.

Those payments include $505,000 since last year to Johnson's education reform initiatives and other groups backed by the mayor. Johnson received another $210,000 from Wal-Mart between 2009 and 2011 – most of which was not reported by the mayor until December 2012. The Walmart Foundation also gave $50,000 last year to a neighborhood nonprofit organization founded by Schenirer, documents show.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/30/5534449/sacramento-mayor-kevin-johnson.html#storylink=cpy

Note. Mayor Johnson travels to many cities and speaks at events usually organized by a network of African American churches. He was on Obama's Mayor's Committee on Education.  He promotes the education agenda advocated by his wife Michelle Rhee and by the Walton family.  

WalMart Schools and Kevin Johnson

WalMart schools in Sacramento

A fine by the California Fair Political Practices Committee (FFPC) against Mayor Kevin Johnson revealed that the Mayor has received  $500,000 dollars from the Walton Family – the owners of WalMart- for his advocacy through the organization StandUP. 

The money did not go to the public schools but to advocacy for specific positions. Mayor Johnson has a number of well known positions on “school reform” starting with his initial role in privatizing Sacramento High School as a charter.   He serves as Chair of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s Education Reform Task Force.

Applying the WalMart perspective to schools would privatize  the public institutions.  WalMart is notoriously anti union and exploits its workers for the family’s own gains.  Low wages; pushing wage scales down: few benefits; passing  costs such as  adequate food and health care of workers off to the public programs; and an authoritarian even totalitarian management environment  are mainstays of WalMart stores.  I don’t think they will be able to import the teachers from China, but they will be able to cut wages, benefits, and job security. See http://forrespect.org.

One way you could improve schools would be to adequately fund them, however during the recent vital election to  fund the schools through California Prop. 30, Mayor Johnson and his wife Michelle Rhee were occupied in campaign events in other states. http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2012/11/what-was-kevin-johnson-doing-during.html

Kevin Johnson’s approach to school change is consistent with the anti teacher  efforts of Democrats for Educational Reform (see prior posts). Also see https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/

What was Kevin Johnson doing during the recent election ?

In this case the News and Review covers what the Sacramento Bee ignores.

Speaking of that whole Waiting for ‘Superman’ cult: What was Sacramento’s first couple doing this election season while hundreds of millions of dollars were on the line for Sacramento schools? Roving the country, trying to screw up other people’s school systems, of course.

Michelle Rhee, patron saint of the teacher-bashing movement, has been using her Sacramento-based StudentsFirst organization—a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization, of course—to funnel money into ballot measures in several states.

In Michigan, StudentsFirst funded anti-union groups trying to defeat a ballot measure that would put the right to organize unions for private and public employees into the state’s constitution. It’s a right that is recognized in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but apparently not one that Rhee thinks Michigan teachers (or any other workers) should have.

“I love teachers. Effective teachers,” she told members of the Michigan state Legislature while lobbying against the measure. By “effective” Rhee means teachers with high test scores: exactly the kind of evaluation system she instituted as chancellor of the Washington, D.C., schools before her boss, Mayor Adrian Fenty, was unelected and Rhee had to follow. The same kind of system that Raymond was warning about in his critique of Race to the Top.