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By Anthony Cody.

The schools of Chicago are ruled by a school board appointed by the mayor (though efforts are under way to allow for a democratically elected board.) For this reason, educators, students and parents are very interested in the upcoming mayoral election. The Chicago Teachers Union has been especially active, since incumbent mayor Rahm Emanuel has not been their friend. Union members won a strike in 2012, but the following year, more than 50 neighborhood schools were closed, and many charter schools have opened. CTU president Karen Lewis was forced to withdraw from the mayor’s race for health reasons, but she and the CTU have endorsed Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. Today the Garcia campaign announced that he has received the endorsement of Diane Ravitch as well. I asked Mr. Garcia to share his views on some of the issues educators are concerned about. 

Until an elected school board can be put in place, what criteria do you have for appointing board members?

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia: An elected representative school board is one of several components of checks and balances to ensure accountable leadership in public education. As Mayor, I will advocate for an elected school board in Springfield, and if the legislature fails to act, I will ask the federal courts to intervene because I believe the people of Chicago have a constitutionally protected right to elect the leaders of any institution as important as the School Board. I would also support the need for a public elected Chairman of the CPS board, and I would insist that the election be done by district to allow every community in the City to have fair representation on the School Board. Additionally, to ensure that elections do not turn into a popularity contest or lopsided by non-education informed interests, I would support articulating criteria for candidacy to be rooted in experience with public education and community engagement. And this is the criteria I would use to appoint members until an elected school board can be put in place.

What are your views on the early childhood needs for Chicago?

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia: Early care and education is a top priority for not only preparing our children to be school-ready, but also to strengthen families. Head start programs need to be established and supported in the communities with greatest need. The standards of Head Start as administered by the City should be compared to the standards of other early care facilities throughout the City, and raised to address any material disparity.

As Mayor, I would support building an integrated early learning and care system in Chicago which provides affordable, accessible, full-day programs for children birth to age five, with wrap-around care for working parents that guarantees living wages for the workforce with parity with early educators in public schools. I would also support an oversight body made up of workers and parents to guide the administration of early learning and care programs in the city so that they respond to community needs.

Is current funding for Chicago schools adequate? 

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia: No, too many students and teachers are lacking basic education needs. As Mayor, I would commit to ensuring that every student in our system has access to good textbooks, libraries, recreational facilities and course offerings in languages, literature and the arts.

If not, how will you go about increasing funding?

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia: As Mayor, I would support the redistribution of existing resources to ensure that all schools have at least the basics that are needed for teaching success.  In addition, I would affirmatively endorse reviewing and implementing proposals that realign resources collected in TIFs to general operating funds for Chicago Public Schools. For too long, TIFs have encroached upon the district’s ability to generate rightful public funds to support public education. While the increasing property taxes have allocated significant amounts of resources to TIFs, it has been at the expense of city services including Chicago Public Schools.

How will you address the backlog of payments the city owes workers’ pension funds?

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia: This is a problem we created together as a City, and it is a problem that will require everyone’s participation to resolve. The solution is necessarily two-fold as it is both a matter of dealing with existing debt in the form of inadequately funded liabilities and future benefits that are better aligned with our ability to provide for the retirement of future city workers. In dealing with existing liabilities, the payments that will be needed to bring the retirement systems to solvency will have to be drawn from savings that we may achieve on pension benefits for future workers and from revenues that are earmarked for bringing down the debt. In addition, changes to future benefits must be structured so that we never again defer on obligations that are owed to future retirees.

That said, I do not support cutting benefits for current retirees. Many retired City workers have only their pensions to see them through their old age. They have worked hard and paid into their pension funds for years, and it would be wrong to change the rules on them now. Although the Supreme Court of Illinois has not yet weighed in on the matter, I was not surprised that the Circuit Court ruled recently that the State pension legislation violated the clear language in the State Constitution, declaring pensions to be a contractual right of pensioners. If the Supreme Court accepts the Attorney General’s argument that the State may limit pension benefits as an exercise of its police powers, we will carefully review the ruling and its implications for further addressing this very serious problem.

Regardless of the outcome of that litigation, I would consider reducing the City’s contribution to pension benefits for future employees and other cost-saving measures. However, I believe in the right of collective bargaining and the important social policies that it reflects, and I would prefer to negotiate such changes with the elected union leadership. I respect the contributions our workers make to our city, and I believe we will be able to come up with a solution to everyone’s advantage, so long as we work together from that foundation of respect.

I also have a record of reducing taxes on Cook County taxpayers, including the sales tax, and I think it is important for our families and businesses to know we will not try to balance our books on their backs. I do not support a property tax rise to fund pensions, because I know too many families – and especially senior citizens — who are already struggling to pay their existing tax bills.

What is your position on charter schools?

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia: I believe it is necessary to change course dramatically from the so-called “reform” education agenda offered by Mayor Emanuel and instead take a new, holistic approach to our city’s schools. A sound public education system is the foundation of a functioning democracy and a healthy economy – just as access to quality public grade school and high school education is a basic right for all in our city.

I do not support a further expansion of charter schools, and I think any discussion on savings within the public school system must recognize that charters have become the new coin of political patronage. A glaring example is UNO, which received more than $100 million in state funds alone – yet whose leader Juan Rangel was forced to resign in the wake of reports of cronyism and corruption within the charter network he ran. Yet Rangel also earned $260,000 a year overseeing this charter system at the same time that he co-chaired Emanuel’s mayoral campaign and UNO personnel worked in local campaigns against Emanuel’s critics. This represents one of the most pernicious – but hardly unique – examples of pay-to-play politics, a classic form of pinstripe patronage in which the politically privileged reap the benefits of support for senior elected officials in exchange for high salaries, lack of oversight, and in education a notably poor delivery of benefits to the students who should be the most important stakeholders in this system. This toxic marriage of profit and politics short-changes the debt-plagued public school system, undermines students and fleeces taxpayers.

What will you do about the violence Chicago youth face in their neighborhoods?

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia: First, I would staff the police force adequately and train them to implement true community policing, a proven and effective strategy for preventing and reducing violence that focuses on building relationships of trust between police and the communities they serve.  Second, I would address the economic disparity and lack of opportunity that is associated with neighborhood violence by increasing the minimum wage to $15, addressing the infrastructure needs in our neighborhoods, and using city incentives to attract economic investment.

How will you help Chicago keep its neighborhood schools?

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia: My approach is grounded in giving basic democratic controls over the school system back to the public through an elected school board; reducing to the barest legal minimum the plethora of high-stakes, standardized tests by which we falsely judge schools, students, and teachers; placing a moratorium on further charter schools; expanding public education to include pre-kindergarten and even earlier; and reducing class size, which is one of the largest in the state. We need to stop pretending that standardized tests measure intelligence, learning or real world capabilities; they measure little more than the ability to take standardized tests, a skill that is rarely needed in the workplace.

What do you think? 

Author

Anthony Cody

Anthony Cody worked in the high poverty schools of Oakland, California, for 24 years, 18 of them as a middle school science teacher. He was one of the organizers of the Save Our Schools March in Washington, DC in 2011 and he is a founding member of The Network for Public Education. A graduate of UC Berkeley and San Jose State University, he now lives in Mendocino County, California.

Comments

  1. Johnny be good    

    No more “RAHMUNISM” keep our tax dollars in the classroom, not the boardroom. Garcia for mayor!

  2. Jasmine Smith    

    Last night was the first time I saw Mr. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and his family. Mrs. Garcia made a very bad first impression on me by bring a can of cola and a glass of ice on stage while accompanying her husband, a Mayoral candidate, who would only be speaking five or ten minutes. If others on stage had been carrying drinks what she did would not have seemed so odd. It’s hard to believe a simple can of cola couldn’t wait until she was back stage again. It makes one wonder was there something stronger than cola in that glass. Only a person who loves the booze would not have considered the implications of how this action could look. Those who like the booze or have family members who do, recognize Ms. Garcia’s behavior last night. Lets be real, the image of both Mayor and family is equally important in this job, especially when your still trying to get elected. Voters aren’t stupid enough to believe that a candidate has no personal problems, they just don’t want to know about them or have it interfere with the job they were hired to do. The present Mayors wife blended in with the crowd and allowed her husband to stand out and shine. Ms. Garcia, her can of coke and glass of ice had my full attention. I wonder how many others couldn’t take their eyes off her? Still I don’t think her behavior was so bad it could cost her husband the election I just think she needs to think before acting.

    I think one of the other mayoral candidate hurt his campaign by writing a book of his life story up to this point. True it was better his story came out before he run for Mayor but I wonder who had the bright idea he should run in the first place! I learned more than I ever really wanted to know about Mr. Wilson’s life and I believe it sealed any chances of his winning a public position as high as the Mayors office. Yes I believe a person can change for the better but I am not willing to bet the farm on it, not just yet anyway. It would be too easy for Mr. Wilson, if he messed up, to say you knew I was a snake before you elected me. It doesn’t seem to matter how much money some of these politicians have they never seem satisfied. Lets face it people in Chicago have seen more politicians padding their pockets than those who do not. And even some of those who start out so promising change after seeing all the money being thrown around and no one really monitoring it. If I had the patience, the gift to gab and was about 30 years younger I would go into politics. That’s where the easy money is. LOL

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