Chicago

Budget Offers Emanuel's First Moment of Reckoning

Tue, 10/11/2011
Days before he was elected mayor in February, Rahm Emanuel said City Hall’s “day of reckoning” had arrived after years of living beyond its means. At the time, though, Emanuel offered only a rough outline of how he would close the city’s perennial budget gaps. Now, Emanuel’s first real moment of reckoning as mayor has come, as he prepares to...
budget cuts, Chicago 2012 Budget, Chicago Budget Cuts, Chicago Budget Deficit, City Budget, City Services, city worker layoffs, City Workers, Economy, Government, Libraries, Police, Property Tax Increase, Rahm Emanuel Budget

As Protests Mount, Groups Sense an Opportunity

Mon, 10/10/2011
At an August training session for Action Now, an advocacy group for the poor, Madeline Talbott, the lead organizer, handed out a copy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” an impassioned plea for “people of good will” to join the fight for freedom and human rights. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice...
Action Now, Art, Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign, Don Terry, Federal Reserve, Foreclosures, Holly Krig, Human Rights, Independent, Jobs, labor unions, Occupy Chicago, Occupy Wall Street, President Obama, Protests, Stand Up Chicago

Warren: Again, Mass Transit Lanquishes

Fri, 10/07/2011
A cultural anthropologist should stick inside a vault the tape of Forrest Claypool, head of the Chicago Transit Authority, addressing a sea of dark suits at the City Club of Chicago breakfast on Tuesday. Mr. Claypool offered what the French call a tour d’horizon of a decaying transit system. In 25 years, researchers can find a reality about our...
Barack Obama, Boss, Breakfast, Chicago Transit Authority, Cook County Assessor, Cook County Board, CTA, Economy, Forrest Claypool, Government, Joe Berrios, labor, Politics, Public Transit, Rahm Emanuel, Springfield

Teachers Union Courts Aldermen

Mon, 10/03/2011
The Chicago Teachers Union’s closed-door “policy briefings” for aldermen Monday were as much about public relations as they were about school policy, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s unofficial City Council floor leader, Ald. Patrick O’Connor (40th Ward) said after attending one of the three sessions. For weeks, the union and Emanuel have been locked in a war...
Chicago Public Schools, Chicago School Day, Chicago Teachers, Chicago Teachers Union, City Council, City Hall, CPS, Education, Football, Hotel Allegro, Longer School Day, Tax Increment Financing, TIF, Walter Burnett

Assessments of Schools Are Flawed, Report Says

Fri, 09/30/2011
In 20 years of near-constant reform efforts, Chicago’s elementary school students have made few gains, high school students have advanced, and the achievement gap between poor and rich areas has widened, a major University of Chicago study found, contradicting impressions created by years of Chicago Public Schools testing data. The report examined...
Arne Duncan, Bar, Burley Elementary School, Chicago Public Schools, Chicago School Reform, CPS, Education, Education Reform, Jean-Claude Brizard, Lincoln Park, Longer School Day, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Paul Vallas, School Reform