Chicago and Cook County News

Chicago Public Schools announced this week that they will close four traditional neighborhood schools and “turnaround” ten others – meaning the school’s teachers and principals get fired – due to those school’s poor academic performance. Additionally, two schools will be phased out, and no longer accept new students.

The winner from this shake-up would appear to be the Academy of Urban Leadership, a CPS contractor. AUSL runs neighborhood turnaround schools that – unlike charters – are part of the CPS-Chicago Teacher’s Union collective bargaining agreement.

Six of the ten turnarounds will be run by AUSL and three of the soon to be closed schools will reroute their students to AUSL. CPS will give about $20 million to each turnaround school. Teacher’s union President Karen Lewis called for an investigation about the conflict of interest between CPS and AUSL: CPS Board President David Vitale is the former board chairman of AUSL.

Charter schools also win from the shake-up as three soon to be closed schools will relocate students to charters. But the move comes the same week as news that most charter schools are, by one measure, performing worse than normal public schools. The state board of education released a report that eight of nine Chicago charter school networks do worse than the CPS average for the percentage of students who pass state standardized tests.  

The Chicago City Council’s focus has been on drawing a remap of the 50 wards that reflects the 2010 census. But the council could have dueling maps that may lead to a March referendum and also possible lawsuit, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. A majority of aldermen decided on a map that increases the number of wards with a Hispanic supermajority population to 13 and decreases the wards with an African American supermajority population to 17. But 41 of 50 aldermen must agree on a map and this hasn’t happened.

A new Wal-Mart express opened this week in Chicago’s affluent Lakeview neighborhood. Chicago taxpayers may have to pay for $1.1 million in renovations to sports stadiums Solider Field and U.S. Cellular Field.

State News

Lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn were unsuccessful in using the final day of the veto session to give juicy tax breaks to CME Group, Inc. and Sears Holding Corp.  The tax break package – which also included cuts to smaller firms and an increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit to working class families – was supposed to prevent CME Group and Sears from bolting the state.

Quinn and the General Assembly did use the veto session in other ways. They passed a final fiscal year budget that will keep seven state facilities, including three mental health facilities, open until the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2012.

The General Assembly also restored funding it previously cut for emergency and transitional housing, according to the Chicago News Coop. The result is that Chicago gets $4.7 million in housing for the Dept. of Family & Support Services that the city thought it had lost. Along with enhanced care, the extra money means restoring 22 of the 24 positions Chicago cut from the department.

Also, the Senate passed a bill that would subsidize the Taylorville Energy Center, a coal-to-gas plant in Taylorville, Illinois to be run by Nebraska-based Tenaska Energy. The Illinois House now must vote on a plan that will cost utility ratepayers $3.5 billion. Environmental groups are fiercely opposed to the bill, but the Illinois AFL-CIO supports the legislation for its job creation.

The failure to pass a tax break package has already had consequences. The Columbus, Ohio Dispatch reported Thursday that Ohio Gov. John Kasich has offered Hoffman Estates-based Sears $400 million to relocate to Ohio – and bring 6,000 jobs along with it. Quinn’s office says that the most they have offered Sears to stay is $100 million.

The General Assembly and Quinn may yet agree to tax break legislation this spring that will appease Sears. But any bill faces opposition from Occupy Wall Street protesters as well lawmakers who might not stomach giving big tax breaks to highly profitable corporations.

In other state news, federal prosecutors want U.S. District Judge Zagel to give Rod Blagojevich 15-20 years in prison as punishment for his corruption conviction. Zagel is expected to sentence Blagojevich next Tuesday. Blagojevich’s lawyers want the former governor to get probation.

National News

The unemployment rate fell to 8.6 percent in November, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics – the lowest unemployment rate since March 2009. Employers added 120,000 jobs last month. But the news is hardly all good: the biggest reason the unemployment rate fell is that 315,000 people gave up looking for a job.  

The number of children who receive free and reduced school lunches has jumped by 17 percent since the 2006-07 school year, according to a New York Times analysis released Wednesday. About 21 million now get aid from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture-run program. The Times called the increase a, “Huge shift in a vast program long characterized by incremental growth.”  

Also from the Times this week: A report that thousands of lost public sector jobs are disproportionately hurting African Americans.

Congress is debating whether to extend a payroll tax cut, which expires this December. President Obama and Democratic leadership want the tax cut extended, but Republicans want the tax cut plus an extension of unemployment benefits paid for by spending cuts elsewhere.

The Obama administration is weakening as many environmental regulations proposed by EPA as the Bush administration ever did, reports Mother Jones. The magazine cites a report from the Center on Progressive Reform that the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs – part of the Office of Management and Budget – has stepped in to weaken 84 percent of all proposed EPA rules. This office of a few dozen economists has, “waged war on environmental, health and safety protections” in both administrations.