Chicagoans brace for more violence with warm weather

In his recent visit to Chicago, former president Barack Obama held a meeting at the South Shore Cultural Center, along with his wife Michelle, to discuss plans for his presidential library, and his vision for that space. Included in his remarks, were some unexpected, and even unbridled comments about problems facing the city.  Leading them, was the increasing violence that has pockmarked the city’s reputation. As Obama remarked, “if you ask a lot of people outside of Chicago about Chicago, what’s the first thing they talk about? They talk about the violence.”

So far the city has exceeded the 762 homicides from last year, with over 1,000 people shot, and it seems well on its way to pass its two decade record. With the approach of summer, Chicago is poised for further increases with increasingly warmer temperatures. The link between hot weather, and crime, supported by scientific evidence, already has some residents fearful.

This past weekend, the city saw 18 people shot as the mercury rose, and fall.

Severe heat increases crime, according to psychologist Lance Workman at the University of Glamorgan (UK) who has established a link between hot weather and the levels of serotonin – a brain chemical – that is released, with a side-effect that can heighten aggression.

“‘Violent crime and riots increase as temperatures rise,’ he emphasized, and ‘“The majority of riots in the USA occur when the temperature increases to between 27C and 32 C (81 to 90 Fahrenheit). When the temperature goes over 32C, however, riots level off and begin to fall because people become so hot they can't be bothered."

While police have effectively kept crime away from the downtown areas, the tourists, and the predominantly white North side, the near daily media coverage of blacks shooting other blacks (albeit low-income blacks) is a near daily occurrence, especially in some neighborhoods, such as Englewood. The increased violence has also exacerbated racial tensions in a city with a long history of racial segregation. And, it has  fueled suspicion towards blacks from white visitors, even middle class blacks, as they make their daily commute to work, or school.

That commute has also become fraught with tension, as Chicago’s public transportation system, especially the Red Line subway, has become rife with robberies, some even in broad daylight, and others, in early evenings, with roaming gangs stealing, often under gun point, wallets, purses, and cell phones. Chicago Transit Authority officials, say that video surveillance cameras can help apprehend perpetrators, but most get away.

A local community newspaper features a police blotter detailing the crimes, and most offenders are not apprehended. Activists, such as Eric Russell, have suggested the use of Guardian Angels style monitors, as well as dedicated text numbers for riders to report crimes, and audio announcements that the trains are being monitored. Yet, to appear (as in London) are plainclothes police, riding the trains.

Seemingly, most of the attention is given, by CTA, and Chicago police, to the homeless who sleep on the trains, often lacking the money to pay another, required, fare at each end of the Red line.

Sup. Eddie Johnson

 Last year there was a focus on cheaters who jumped the turnstile, as CTA officials felt that there was linkage between those that did so, and system violence. This year that seems to not be a tactic.

Adding to the racially charged atmosphere are the divisions from the 2016 elections, and the much publicized capture, and torture, of a young white male by four black teenagers, who yelled, “Fuck Trump,” and “Fuck white people, as they slashed his clothes, and other indignities. As a consequence the city is on edge, as headlines blare the latest violent sprees.

Gangs and guns are prevalent in equal measure, and ways to prevent both have been on the forefront of police concern. There have been intervention methods, by police, used to track social media bragging, and provocation, to proposed legislation to thwart, or at least contain their violence, which can spill into the streets, killing innocent bystanders. Often the headlines are full of stories where toddlers, or school age children, become drive by casualties.

A recent case had two police officers shot as they ran a covert operation, but instead were shot by a gang member who may or may not have thought they were rival gang members. According to the Chicago Tribune, it was “unclear what the shooter knew that the unmarked, covert van carried officers or if he thought that they were rival gang members.”

The suspects were reputed to be members of the La Raza street gang, one of four Hispanic gangs believed to he responsible for about three dozen shootings tied to semi-automatic rifles,” in a West side neighborhood, according to reports.

Adding to the threats to quality of life in that Back of the Yards neighborhoods is an increasing use of rifles, “styled after AR-15s and AK-47s . . . a menacing new development in the gang fights,” and they also noted, “a menacing new development in the gang fights.”

As The Chicago Sun-Times reported: “Further antagonizing police challenges are carjackings, near downtown areas, and in some neighborhoods. Whether it’s a Bears wide receiver’s Maserati or the 2006 BMW heisted in an incident that led to a man being shot early Tuesday, carjackings are making headlines around downtown Chicago and on the West and North sides.

City crime statistics show their numbers have been on the rise: Vehicular hijackings in Chicago nearly doubled between 2015 and 2016 and are occurring with the same frequency this year.

Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the uptick “appears to be a pattern between Area Central and Area North involving juveniles and targeting higher-end vehicles.”

Mayor Emanuel

Efforts in March, of this year, by CPD superintendent, Eddie Johnson, to push a bill through the state legislature to curb guns was caught in the ongoing donnybrook between state Democrats and Republicans, who led by Gov. Bruce Rauner, opposed the bill, saying that it was too soft on crime.

Regional differences between city and suburb, but also downstate, in more rural areas, (where hunting is prevalent), have differing opinions regarding gun control, made the bill, which emerged from committee by one vote, dead on arrival in the Illinois Senate.

Drug usage has vastly increased in the surrounding suburbs with heroin, leading as the drug of choice, even among affluent families, and many lawmakers demurred, so as not to be soft on the offenders, or the dealers.

“The proposal would increase the sentencing guidelines for judges deciding punishment for repeat gun felons. Instead of a range of three to 14 years, judges would hand out sentences in the range of seven to 14 years. If judges wanted to depart from that guideline, they would have to explain why,” reported the Chicago Tribune.

Race of course entered the picture, and while attempts to limit low level criminals from the jails, rehabilitations is still sought by many, including Sen. Patricia Van Pelt, who claimed, that “more arrests is just going to cost us more money.”

Sen. Don Harmon noted that,  “Almost 900 black and brown men were killed with guns last year. If there were 900 heroin overdoses in DuPage County, we'd be moving heaven and earth to deal with it, and we sit on our hands while kids are getting shot.”

Running along like an old-school television crawl, under the banner of crime prevention, is the tension between CPD and that of the black community, which earned national headlines with the shooting of an unarmed black teenager, named Laquan McDonald, created the tipping point between effective, and lawful, policing and what others have called deadly racial profiling.

The delayed release of police video, from the incident, ensnared Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and the State’s Attorney Office, whose previous head Anita Alvarez, seemed to be in a political blockage as Emanuel, allegedly had the tape held from public scrutiny, as he faced an unexpected challenge from former Cook County Board member, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.

After that, and repeated revelations of police brutality, going back to the days of Cmdr. John Burge, who was convicted of torturing black prisoners, guilty, or innocent, the issue of police brutality reached a fever pitch.

With charges of racism, many called for Emanuel to resign, which he did not do, but did manage to win, albeit shaken, after a runoff election,a historic first for Chicago. Since then there has been a Department of Justice investigation, under the Obama administration, in its outgoing days, that had, then Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, issuing a scathing report, that included among other charges, pervasive racism.

Reaction form CPD and the Fraternal Order of Police, was wholly negative, and was labelled as a political untruth, or even “crap, and that police could not do their jobs, with increased regulations and policy changes, mandated reports, and videos.In fact, many police and their supporters trashing the findings.

Increased satisfaction led the Fraternal Order of Police to vote out Dean Angelo, as head, and put Kevin Graham, in his place. Graham, outspoken in his opposition to reform, and the DOJ report, had the Tribune reporting, “Graham has slammed the media for allegedly lying about police misconduct claims and applauded [Jeff] Sessions' move to review the federal government's reform agreements with local police agencies. He also said he disagreed with Emanuel and Supt. Eddie Johnson's pledges to continue pursuing reform.”

“Sessions recognizes that the police are generally doing a good job and must be allowed to continue to do so. We think this decision is a step in the right direction to restoring law and order and diminishing violent crime in the city,” he continued.

Jeff Sessions, the new US Attorney General has vowed that he will not use a consent decree to enforce the findings and police have gone into retrenchment mode against all suggestions, otherwise, for improvement.

Nearly five years ago, for my now defunct Examiner column, I spoke with Dr. Dennis Rosenbaum, professor of criminology, law and justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who has done research on anti-gang and anti-violence strategies in Chicago, and more than a dozen cities across the nation. He emphasized what he thinks is a key role for prevention: putting police in the community so that they get a feel for the community, and most importantly to know the residents, identify the repeat offenders, and “the people [that are supportive] of police efforts.”

This idea was compromised by a shortage of police, under the Richard M. Daley administration, with a “cost savings” formula for greater overtime, one that proved to be self-defeating. There has been increased recruiting, by Emanuel, but observers feel that it will take years before any positive effect can be seen by the new officers, due to lack of experience.

In a recent North Side meeting with the newly created Community Policing Advisory Panel, residents asked for “ a change in the “police culture”, and “greater accessibility.” Also, asked for were police from “every ethnic group,” with preference to working in their own neighborhoods.

Heard then, and previously, were “more foot patrols, bike patrols, and more personal contact. We want friendly police community interaction.”

Present at that meeting was Johnson, but who said little beyond, “the rest of the country is looking at Chicago right now.” One of those, looking, is President Trump who has frequently used the city as an example of what’s gone wrong with America’s largest cities.

Many academics and lawmakers have stated that the root causes of the violence in the black neighborhoods are economic disinvestment and opportunities for employment. Illinois has the highest black unemployment of the nation at 12.7 percent compared to 6.7 for Latinos and 5 percent for whites..

Add to that, an often fragmented family structure, without two parents. To counter that, Emanuel has established a mentoring program, that the city’s website calls “a bold and aggressive effort to invest $36 million in public and private funds over three years to expand mentoring programs to serve at risk youth across the city.”

Designed as a volunteer based program, he “has set aside the cash to bankroll an immediate expansion of Becoming A Man, the program with the best track record for results. Also known as BAM, Becoming A Man served 2,700 students in the last school year and has seen crimes fall and graduation rates soar among its participants.

Now, the program will add room for nearly 1,400 more students — a total of 4,080. That will help deliver on the mayor’s promise to provide a mentor to every one of the 7,200 eighth-, ninth- and tenth-grade boys in Chicago’s 20 most violent neighborhoods,” reported the Chicago-Sun Times.

A local columnist for the Chicago Tribune, said, “As long as we live isolated in our demographic, geographic bubbles, largely ignorant of each other, the city's troubles won't be fixed. Mentoring programs are one way to open the borders.”

Many of these efforts, be they economic efforts, or mentoring programs, will take time; a lot of time, and some effects may not be seen for more than a generation. Meanwhile, it may be a long hot summer.

Valerie Jarrett encourages NEIU graduates to "be a force for good,"

Valerie Jarrett

For every college commencement, the standing tradition is that there must be a keynote speaker, receiving an honorary doctorate, and encouraging graduates to greatness and the promise of a future, solely their own.  There have been some memorable ones, and some that might be well forgotten. Rising to the occasion, on Monday, was former senior advisor to President Obama, Valerie Jarrett, who went beyond platitudes for the 900 graduates of Chicago’s Northeastern Illinois University.

Using the vision of the Obama presidency, as a fulcrum, she joined it to the progressive legacy that both he, and First Lady Michelle Obama, emphasized, not merely one that was political, although there was that, but the diversity of all people, including herself, “to connect with people of different life experiences other than my own.”

Jarrett, a Chicago native, who was born abroad when her father, an African-American physician, had to go overseas, to Iran, to practice, noted ruefully, where he earned half as much as his white counterparts. Returning to Chicago she later had a professional life that took her on an equally diverse path, before she reached the White House, (including law school), serving as the Chief Executive Office of The Habitat Company in Chicago, Chairman of the Chicago Transit Board, and Deputy Chief of Staff former Mayor Richard M. Daley, among other equally notable achievements.

While her own path took her to the corridors of power, she was able to give back to the the community, with many efforts, but especially through her position as chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls, an initiative that helps support the efforts of gender based equality.

Most pointedly, with the controversies of the new administration, which she never mentioned, by name, she reminded the graduates that “the world looks to the United States for leadership,” and they should not be afraid to be part of the resistance needed, a theme that both the former president, and former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have espoused in the aftermath of the election.

Often overlooked, but not by Jarrett, is the power of the voting booth, and that they as citizens should vote, and “not just in the presidential elections,” in perhaps a nod to the 2018 midterm elections when defeated Democrats are expected to affect the most change, and resistance, to the presidency of Donald Trump.

For such an occasion, and by such a person closely aligned, not only to the Obama administration, but to Barack and Michelle themselves, Jarrett has been credited with helping to shape both their image and response to challenges.  Extending this experience, she encouraged the graduates to “be willing to engage,” in the process of change, that their education can now help them to achieve.

Coming on the heels of the remarks by student speaker Joshua Koo, who emphasized embracing the benefits of being a pragmatic romantic, who could help change the world, Jarrett’s remarks were targeted to a group of students, many of whom are first time college graduates, from low-income backgrounds, or who have made the commitment to advanced degrees at a less traditional age.

Koo also referred to the challenges of the “greater change,” a theme that echoed that of the Obama campaign of “change we can believe in,” and Jarrett did not hesitate to give the litany of change effected by the Obama administration: health care through the Affordable Care Act, the rehabilitation of the auto industry, restoring the economy with confidence and creativity, and managing two wars, to name but a few.

She also did not shy away from the challenges they faced: unemployment at 10 percent, 40 million people without health insurance, a broken immigration system, and, “the worst fiscal crisis” in decades.  But, throughout the tough times, she and others in the administration, were able to harness the courage to soldier on.

Throughout all she said that Obama ‘was able to bend the arc of the universe towards justice.” The results included a “reduction of unemployment from 10 to 5 percent, the lowest poverty level since 1961, three-quarters of all Americans with health insurance, higher graduation rates, and diplomatic relations with Cuba”

Doing what was right, and not bending to self-serving interests, brought the former president last week to receive the prestigious John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award where for the first time publicly acknowledging the Republican efforts to dismantle his signature legacy of health care, he said, "I hope that current members of Congress recall that it actually doesn't take a lot of courage to aid those who are already powerful, already comfortable, already influential. But it does require some courage to champion the vulnerable and the sick and the infirm.”

Jarrett quoted Kennedy when she said, that the graduates need to embrace his challenge, by having “the courage to move the country forward in the face of great challenges,” and, “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

Perhaps at no other time, since they were first penned, have they held so much significance for millions of Americans in a new millennium, with even greater challenges, than those in 1961.

While acknowledging that in his presidential years that Obama found his leadership core, “his true north,” (referencing Bill George’s inspirational book of that title), Jarret felt that, she too, in working on the behalf of the future of the country, “our true north was you.” In summation, to resounding applause, she challenged the new graduates to “be a force for good, and yes we can.”

Passages charter votes to strike, could be first in nation

In March, Chicago avoided a charter teacher strike, by ASPIRA charter schools through some last minute negotiations, but now after a vote on Thursday, union educators at Passages Charter School voted overwhelmingly to strike. In a statement they said, “After nearly a year of bargaining with management has failed to produce a fair contract. Teachers voted 43 to zero to strike, in a bargaining unit of 46 members. Thursday’s vote authorizes the bargaining committee to set a strike date in the coming weeks if AHS does not make an acceptable offer.”

The strike would be the first of a charter school network in the nation.

They were one of the first charter schools created in Chicago, and today serves roughly 500 students -- including a large population of immigrant and refugee students of Asian and African heritage. With 46 unionized educators -- including teachers, teachers assistants and paraprofessionals -- all certified, last April, as members of ChiACTS Local 4343, which represents educators at 32 charter schools in Chicago.

“We care deeply about our students,” says third grade teacher Gina Mengarelli, a member of Passages’ ChiACTS bargaining team. “Many of our kids, as refugees and immigrants, look to the school as an environment to support the hopes and dreams they bring to their new country. It is simply wrong for management to invest so little in these children and the frontline workers who are responsible for their education.”

Educators charge that the school’s management spends too much on management and overhead compared to other single-site charters, and too little on staff and students. Furthermore, “many teachers with BAs and even those with master's degrees earn salaries in the $30,000 - $40,000 range for work weeks that can easily top 60 hours.”

They also assert that the school is “an outlier when it comes to teacher salaries, with teachers earning 20% less than teachers at other Chicago charters. That low spending level for the school’s dedicated teachers and staff lands Passages far below the average in budget comparisons across charters.”

As with their non-charter counterparts, there have been cuts to classes such as music and Spanish language instruction. which, along with Urdu, is the language most commonly spoken by their immigrant students.

“We really believe in the mission of this school, but management needs to provide us the resources to carry out that mission, says paraprofessional Ann Stella-Tayler. We’ve been negotiating for almost a year, and our members are united in telling AHS that it’s past time that they treat Passages students, teachers and staff fairly.”

Passages has no income outside of what it collects from CPS, and union members charge that the disparity in salaries for Passages educators and those at other charters is driven by AHS mismanagement of funds and the fact that AHS simply does not contribute enough to the school’s budget from its own funds.

Chicago’s other single-site charters typically provide 5-10% of their financial resources from private fundraising revenue -- a practice touted in the early days of the CPS push for charters as a way to harness private dollars to support publicly funded education. Passages raises zero dollars from private fundraising revenue.

“These educators are the heart of the school and their students’ greatest advocates,” says Chris Baehrend, President of ChiACTS Local 4343. “No teacher wants to strike -- we want to be in class, with our students, where we belong. But if it takes a strike to force change that improves the education of Passages’ students, then our members will be on the picket line until we achieve those improvements.”

Passages’ union educators will be back at the bargaining table next week.

Byrd-Bennett sentencing just tip of iceberg for CPS woes

Mayor Emanuel and Barbara Byrd-Bennett

In the end, she got what was coming to her, say her critics; after all she betrayed the trust that was given to her by the city’s mayor, but when Barbara Byrd-Bennett received her sentence of 4 and ½ years in prison on Friday for agreeing to take a bribe from a suburban education outfit, in exchange for $23 million in no-bid contracts to the SUPES training academy, it also spoke volumes about the long standing reputation of Chicago as being a corrupt city, but also about Chicago Public Schools, how decisions are made, and especially how Mayor Rahm Emanuel has become ensnared in the web of money, intrigue and incompetence that hold the nation’s third largest school system hostage.

“Byrd-Bennett was promised hundreds of thousands of dollars as a "signing bonus" once she left her duties at CPS and rejoined SUPES as a consultant, her plea deal said. The bonus was to be concealed in trust accounts set up in the names [of] her twin grandsons — with the cash available to her once she left CPS,” reported the Chicago Tribune.

The majority of the 400,000 students in CPS are Black or Latino, with the perception that the schools are inferior, and many white parents, especially of means, send their children to private, or parochial Catholic schools. While perception maybe one-tenth of the law, it holds more sway in a city noted for its long history of racial segregation.

Bennett’s deal simply added another layer to the perception of ineffectiveness, and corruption, that has many parents, and mayoral critics, throwing up their hands. The schools also face a budget deficit that cut help for special needs students, and removed most of the extracurricular instruction, and music.

When she entered the arena of bribes, she heralded a training class, for principals, by SUPES as Chicago Public Schools faced a debt of $1 billion, when it was approved in 2013; and there had been a great deal of complaints by some that the instruction provided by SUPES was inadequate, to say the least, and that the lack of true knowledge by the trainers was a source of contention among many educators.

Past History
Besides the financial hole, the relationship with CPS and SUPES had been long-standing, and had produced, before she was hired (to replace outgoing Jean-Claude Brizard), Byrd-Bennett worked “as a paid coach for SUPES while collecting a $21,500-a month paycheck from CPS as a contract education adviser to Brizard.”  

This spurred an investigation by the CPS inspector general based on revelations by Catalyst Chicago an independent “news organization that serves as a watchdog and resource for school improvement in Chicago,” according to its website.

The contract was the highest no-bid contract in the district’s recent history and much of the objections stemmed from the enormity of the contract, and should have sent alarm bells ringing up and down the corridors of City Hall.

Wendy Katten, president of the parents group, Raise Your Hand, said, “We went to the board and asked them to end this contract and redirect the money to schools. It shouldn’t have to lead to a federal investigation to get action.”

Expanding on her original statements, Katten also told FOX TV Chicago at the time, that “A $20 million no-bid contract … is a questionable use of funds at a time when our students have 94 less art positions, 58 less [physical education] positions, and 54 less music positions for the fall, and CEO Byrd-Bennett is in the press discussing online courses for these programs,” she says. “We have to ask where the priorities of this district are right now.”

Warning Signs

There were also earlier warning signs: As I noted, at the time, Bennett was “No stranger to controversy, or investigation, when she led the Cleveland school district she was accused of using private donations for lavish hotel accommodations, and “fancy restaurants,” but a probe revealed no wrongdoing, but investigators urged the district to keep a tighter rein on spending, and as the Chicago Tribune reported, there was a silver lining to that cloud, when “she was credited with straightening out finances, improving test scores and raising the high school graduation rate.”

Her performance in Chicago was mixed at best, with some saying, at least she had previous educational experience, and, as we have seen on the national level, that is not a prerequisite for a cabinet level position.

Elected School Board?

If oversight has been lacking, much of the criticism has been against Emanuel and his handpicked school board, and one that many say could be cured by an elected school board. Last November at a meeting held by State Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) to support legislative action for it, apparent at the meeting was a growing sense of anger and frustration at a school board, and a system that many feel does a disservice to its students with draconian cuts, some schools that have lost $750,000 from its budget with a 20 percent staff reduction.

Present at that meeting was Kurt Hilgendorf, representing the Chicago Teachers Union who noted that in the recent advisory referendum in the last election, 37 wards voted for an elected school board, “more than for Rahm Emanuel [to remain in office].”

He also noted that Chicago’s appointed board had been in place since 1995, and that it “is bad for policymaking,” and “has limited participation for parents,” especially with “the rapid decline in neighborhood school enrollment,” which are being drained by the charter schools favored by the board.

Opinions do vary for an elected school board, and former Alderman Dick SImpson, now an associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago,commented in 2012 for the Chicago Journal: “An elected school board would get the voice of citizens between the near dictatorial control of Mayor Emanuel and opposition by the Chicago Teacher's Union. We citizens pay for the school system and we parents depend upon the system to educate our children. We should have a voice separate from the mayor's that can provide a check and balance to both the mayor and the union.”

He also issued a cautionary note: “there are problems. First, if we held school board elections citywide rather than by district, we could end up with racial imbalance. Ninety percent of the students in the system are black and Hispanic but most of the elected board could be white. Second, with more than 600 schools to supervise, it is unclear how much any school board -- appointed or elected -- can do to really govern the system. Third, when we had elections of other local agencies like Model Cities, the political machine controlled the outcome in order to control the patronage jobs. The Democratic Party could control the outcome of school board elections as well.”

Noting that while an elected board is not a perfect panacea, especially for quick solutions for CPS indebtedness, Simpson concluded that, “on balance we need a positive start [towards change] and no solution, no financial solution, or representation problem can be solved easily.”

Naysayers do abound, and in an editorial last year for the Chicago Tribune, Peter Cunningham executive director of Education Post, a Chicago not-for-profit organization that supports education reform, and former assistant secretary for communications in the U.S. Department of Education, and spokesman for Chicago Public Schools, disagreed and said, “For the most part, elected school boards in large urban districts perpetuate the status quo. Examples abound, from the corrupt and ineffective pre-Katrina New Orleans school board to Los Angeles today, where paralyzing debates and acrimonious seven-figure school board elections are now the norm.”

WIth the Byrd-Bennett fiasco, many parents, legislators, and others want  tighter control over finances, and they think that it can be had with an elected board, yet Cunningham says just the opposite might happen: “Chicago mayors have directed billions of non education dollars to support schoolchildren. Without control, they may not.”

Financial Fiasco

Last year CPS faced a deficit of more than $1.1 billion, and according to their website, this year, they say, “due to a veto of the bill that moved toward more equitable pension funding for CPS, we have amended the online budget to reflect a reduction of $104 million in appropriation through furlough days and a freeze of non-personnel funds at schools.”

In the past, especially, under the Daley administration, pensions were either underfunded, or payments were not made at all, leading to a financial precipice.

They are referring to a veto by Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner last year of $215 million that was needed towards mandated pension obligations, that many felt would never materialize, other than hoped for. This prompted a response by Chicago Teachers Union, President Karen Lewis, who said: “He was never going to give us any money,” she told The Chicago Tribune, “He’s a liar, he always has been . . . He is trying to starve CPS, that’s his goal.”

Lawsuit citing inequity

Emanuel, for his part, besides trying to wrangle money from the state has also who steadfastly tried to to help either end the funding formula that has given less money to Chicago schools, or to give it a benefice of cash.  He also sued the governor and the Illinois School Board of Education under “separate and unequal systems of funding for public education in Illinois,” on behalf of African American and Latino students, a move that was defeated on Friday, that the suit lacked a “sufficient argument under law.”.  This not only lost the $215 million that was needed but also any leverage for the pension payments, or to finish the school year, on time.

The current budget gap is $129 million.

Cook County Judge Franklin Valderrama “said he is sympathetic to the needs of a district like CPS that represents hundreds of thousands of poor and minority children, and termed the state's defense of the current situation "startlingly out of touch." However, he added CPS' lawsuit "is not the vehicle to challenge that reality,” reported Crain’s Chicago Business.

On the heels of Valderrama’s decision, Emanuel told reporters that students will be in class till June 20, the formal end of the school year.  What remains is how to pay for it. Suggestions have been made to use funds -- again -- from the tax-increment financing funds, as proposed by local alderman, Roderick Sawyer and George Cardenas.

Back to finances

Chicago Board of Education President Frank Clark says that he doesn’t know where the money will come from either, but said, “We’re going to find a way to fund this.”

Complicating financial matters further was the 2017 CPS budget which held some questionable line items, such as $17.3 million for new annexes and classrooms in a district whose lowered enrollment is forcing some schools to consolidate with others.

But, most lacking, at the time, according to Laurence Msall, of The Civic Federation,was a plan for capital expenditures, who “recommends that the District provide a plan detailing how it will balance revenues with expenditures in the event that revenue and/or labor contract savings are not realized in FY 2017 and that it continue to work with the State to secure equitable funding.” A goal that is further complicated by a Fitch rating CPS bonds to junk status, which results in more expensive borrowing as Emanuel has discovered.

With the partisan standoff, in Springfield, this is hope that springs eternal. As the Board of Education, sought to obtain $945 million in borrowing for capital projects, without any long-term capital improvement plan, the “the budget becomes self-defeating by accounting standards. But, spokesperson Emily Bittner insisted that “CPS’ revenues match expenditures, and expenditures are down $232 million from FY16.”

Despite the optimism it seems like a lose-lose situation, without even a Hail Mary pass from Springfield, the effect on students, and morale, is bound to be deleterious, as the clock ticks.