School Reform (fixing the Chicago Public Schools) can only happen when there is some competition to and for the disgraceful and mortally dangerous Chicago Public Schools.  Chicago Public Schools are dominated by the most thuggishly similar faction of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) to Andy Stern and Anna Burger’s Services Employee International Union (SEIU) – Marilyn Stewart’s, formerly Ted Dallas’ United Progressive Caucus.  Marilyn Stewart must have attended Andy Stern’s workshops – ‘Back-stabbing Your Mentor – The Catalyst for Change!’

Chicago Teachers Union is flat-out, full-bore run by the thuggish United Progressive Caucus faction of that Union. Marilyn Stewart did an Andy Stern on faction founder Ted Dallas, last year, and linked Dallas to Debbie Lynch, who was the last CTU president who had both oars in the water.

Marilyn Stewart is a ‘Smile That Can Light Up A Room!’ invention of the SEIU Chicago media hacks at STNG – notably leftist Angela Caputo.  Think Carol Mosley Braun without people skills.  Marilyn Stewart, in reality, has all the charm and grace of a starving pit bull. Ask Ted Dallas. Marilyn tossed CTU V.P. Dallas out of his offices at Union Headquarters and padlocked the doors.

These are the clowns of CTU that the Chicago Media want you to smile and nod about as they and SEIU destroy School Reform.

Chicago Teachers Union is cover and camouflage for incompetents, time-servers, thugs, dummies, tools. Gee, who wouldn’t want in.   Teaching Professionals, serious scholarly and dedicated folks with skills, patience and empathy –CTU can’t have that.  Those people work in Catholic Schools – and many more in Charters.  That is until CTU and SEIU got their hooks around a couple of whiners who signed contracts with Charter International Schools (Civitas) and forced a vote to join CTU. These individuals, who had signed contracts to teach in Charter Schools, now, wanted out of those contracts and find cover in CTU.

Angela Caputo, an SEIU writer who also moonlights at Southtown Star, inking the particular whines about class loads and duties,  at Progress Illinois, an SEIU website run by the kids of pedigreed leftist radicals and paid for with the dues of SEIU Union Members.  SEIU is Acorn with an Advanced Degree.

Andy Stern is an Ivy League Leftist (U PENN –social work) and a sophisticated manipulator of the media.  I doubt very much if Andy, or most ‘labor activists’ of SEIU would know the business end of a broom, shovel, or wheelbarrow.  I’ll bet Andy hires a plumber (card checks him I hope) to toss-in a new sump pump.  He can quote Fanon, Che, and Hosea Hudson and knows how to get on Bill Maher and Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. Primarily Andy Stern plots and launches take-overs of low skill and no skill unions.

The absolute best way to amass power for Andy Stern is the complete elimination of skill building altogether.  Eliminate the means of producing a skilled work force and Andy Stern and SEIU gets more millions of hopelessly unskilled SEIU members.  Kill School Reform and once that is accomplished destroy the control of the Skilled Trades Unions over Apprenticeship Programs.  Power is amassed and the masses are the power.

Marilyn Stewart and the thugs of United Progressive Caucus have helped Andy Stern clear the way for a hopelessly unskilled pool of SEIU candidates from Chicago’s Public Schools. Most young people will not finish high school and will make dandy, but ethically challenged SEIU members, which will be just fine with Andy Stern and Anna Burger.

Many teachers in Chicago Public Schools are embarrassed and saddened by the oafish leadership of Marilyn Stewart’s United Progressive Caucus.  It is interesting to note that Marilyn Stewart who won the election to CTU by a nose-hair over Debbie Lynch, whose faction was Proactive Chicago Teachers and then Ms. Stewart ousted the founder of UPC faction Ted Dallas with all of sturm und drang appropriate to a Stern back-stabbing of a mentor with Ms. Stewart stifling any and all debate:

. . . the action on the floor of the House of Delegates was distinctly Chicago-style democracy; one delegate, quoted by the Sun-Times, likened it to the “Jerry Springer Show.”  Stewart chairs the meetings, and questions by delegates regarding budget transparency were shot down as “being out of order” by Stewart and verified by the CTU’s parliamentarian. A few innocuous questions were answered. Those questions were read from crib sheets. One question in particular (“How is this budget different from last year’s budget?”) was asked by two different members. This led to jeers from delegates throughout the crowd. One vote, regarding extending debate, was called by a stand-up sit down vote, tallied by sergeants-at-arms (who are political appointees of the UPC) was recounted multiple times, confusing delegates. A number of observers in the balcony used this chaos as an opportunity to count the votes themselves to verify accuracy, were promptly told to stop by a sergeant-at-arms, and then removed from the Plumbers Hall by the police.

This is the Leftist Animal House School of School Reform! Marilyn Stewart and SEIU are out to kill School Reform by destroying Charter Schools. Active Leftists like Mike Klonsky, Andy Stern, and Marilyn Stewart are engaged in the murder of School Reform, because Reform can only happen with real competition – Catholic Schools provide Public Schools with competition every where but in the inner city. Catholic and private schools eclipse all Public Schools, because of the Tax-Salaried Chicago Teachers Union.

The Wall Street Journal offered this on Teachers Unions War on Charters:

. . .  Appeasement on vouchers only whets unions appetites for eliminating all meaningful types of choice. With voucher programs facing termination in Washington, D.C., and heavy regulation in Milwaukee, the teachers unions have now set their sights on charter schools. Despite their proclamations about supporting charters, the actions of unions and their allies in state and national politics belie their rhetoric.

Unions are also seeking to strangle charter schools with red tape. New York already has the “card check” unionization procedure for teachers that replaces secret ballots with public arm-twisting. And the teachers unions appear to have collected enough cards to unionize the teachers at two highly successful charter schools in New York City. If unions force charters to enter into collective bargaining, one can only imagine how those schools will be able to maintain the flexible work rules that allow them to succeed. (Emphasis my own)

Radical leftists at SEIU and CTU do not want any School Reform whatsoever.  They want and demand generations of no skill and low skill people coming out of Chicago Public Schools to fill the ranks of tax-salaried unions under Andy Stern’s absolute control.

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Pat Hickey is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer