Thread by @stacydavisgates

#Thread
1/ #ME: Feeling a way about the incuriosity/obvious bias in the press. Thought I'd annotate an article with my thoughts/analysis.

https://twitter.com/stacydavisgates/status/1183459623141019648

2/ #CPS: The CTU won’t agree to the money until it gets the other items on what Jackson calls its “social justice bargaining” agenda.

#ME How do Black and Brown children get anything w/o a justice oriented agenda? Or, a demand? Better question: Why don’t they already have it?

3/ #CPS: That includes everything from affordable housing , a dramatic increase in “community schools”, enforceable caps on class size, mandatory hiring of support personnel written into the contract and more teacher prep time with potential to shorten the school day.

4/ #ME: This is an agenda tailor made for a city that subjects its children to persistent gun violence & trauma. A school district that has maintained separate and unequal school communities. A district that's closed countless number of Black schools & fired Black teachers.

5/ #CPS: On Friday, Jackson pegged the cost of the union’s demands at $2.5 billion.

Funny, bc the mayor keeps saying: #CTU has NOT provided any contract proposals. So how can you cost them out if we haven’t given you any? Either we hv or hvnt?

6/ #CPS: Jackson claims CPS can’t afford (the contract), even though the school system is in far better financial shape than it was in 2012, thanks to the avalanche of state funding secured by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

7/ #ME: There is a BILLION dollars MORE in #CPS than last year. A funding formula that lowers class size and funds wrap around supports. #PutItInWriting

8/ #CPS: “It seems like they’re trying to get everything in the contract. ... We have to do this in a way where we prioritize the things that, we know, matter the most,” Jackson said.
#ME: Wat are #CPS priorities? 4 SW or 4 school nurses or 4 case managers more for 400K kids?

9/ #CPS: “We can’t solve all of the problems in Chicago through the” collective bargaining agreement,” she added. “I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

10/#ME: How can we solve them then? What's the mechanism? Trust y'all? Our kids taking the back seat in a city that has $ to build a $4-BILLION playground for the wealthy in one of the richest neighborhoods in the world but you make us beg for a social worker. #PutItInWriting

11/ #CPS Jackson acknowledged the CTU’s demand for a nurse, a social worker and a case manager for special education in every school is a laudable goal. But it can’t be written in stone.

12/ #ME: But, Lincoln Yards is written in stone. And, every single TIF boondoggle that prioritized wealthy developers over the children everyone swears they care so deeply about. She calls them laudable goals? These are basic minimums in districts with 90% white students.

13/ #CPS: “We cannot codify everything through the contract. Once you put it in a contract, these become permissible items to strike over,” she said.

14/ #ME Strike? Inconvenience? A baseline educational infrastructure for students that need the resources? Is this is abt power for the mayor? Mayoral control? Not abt the kids? But the lack of a social worker, case manager or smaller class size is convenient?

15/#CPS: “If we put this in the contract today, we’re gonna be held accountable to get this done when we know it’s gonna take a process and creativity to do that. No responsible manager would hamstring themselves” that way, she said.

16/ #ME: Flexibility? Like the flexibility to close Black schools? Fire Black teachers? Evict Black ppl from #CHI? That flexibility? Or, the flexibility to maintain separate and unequal schools? Or, the flexibility to maintain dirty school buildings?

17/ #CPS: “We could possibly be in the same position because, some of the things that have been promised. Things they thought they'd get if a different candidate had won are things that, once you get in & see everything — some of those things can’t happen in a short period

18/#Me: Why are Black children told to wait? Why are Brown children in cages at the border? Why is it okay ever for them to wait? For an elected official who said they would do the work? For an elected official who refuses to deliver?

19/ #CPS: “She is a very principled person. If people are looking for somebody who’s gonna make decisions based on politics and political agenda and optics, that’s not what they’re gonna get out of this mayor,” Jackson said.

20/ #ME: Principles aren’t about flexing power. Principles are about making sure the many and the least of these have equity and justice. Y’all’s analysis is way off. It’s wrong.

21/ #CPS: At a time when CPS is already hemorrhaging students, what she fears most is a strike that would only exacerbate that disturbing trend.

#ME: A Strike doesn’t do that. Schools without nurses, social workers, librarians, and over-sized classrooms do that.

22/ #CPS “We know that there is a mass exodus on the South and the West Side due to violence. ... We see fewer people immigrating — legally and illegally — to Chicago. And we see dramatically low birth rates,” she said.

23/ #ME: Nah. The eviction of Black people was a decision of political leadership that has no answer for Black unemployment, the destruction of public housing, mass firing of Black teachers and closing Black schools. Also, SEE: privatization.

24/ #CPS: “Stability matters. If we’re gonna stave off that dramatic trend, we’ve got to make sure that people who do live within the Chicago city limits, choose CPS and a big part of that is stability.
#ME: So, #PutItInWriting

PLS STOP GIVING RAHM CREDIT FOR SECURING THE FUNDING. IT WAS A COLLECTIVE OF THE MANY.