| « A Few Instances Where President Obama Has Broken, Despite Being From Chicago | Saint Boniface Is a Danger to Residents » |
Education Fri Jul 24 2009
CPS organizes Job Fair...Shhh! Don't Tell Anyone
Displaced Teachers, concerned parents, and employees concerned over tyrannical principals spoke during the public participation portion of Wednesday's Chicago Board of Education monthly meeting. Board President Micheal Scott and CEO of CPS Ron Huberman castigated many of these Chicago taxpayers for expressing their concerns in the public arena.
CORE member Jay Rehak expressed his concern that Huberman would attempt put CPS on two-tiered pension as he did while at the helm of the CTA. Rehak was also concerned about pension holidays. Current budget shortfalls in the CPS make these options desirable for public administrators.
Rehak:
I hope to some day, God willing, retire from CPS. In that retirement, I hope to receive the full pension that I will have earned. I am concerned about the financial health of the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, not only for myself, but also for my brothers and sisters in the system who hope to retire both before me and after me.
Huberman shamed Rehak for relaying what he claimed were falsehoods and accused Rehack of being misleading. Board president Michael Scott shouted over Rehak as he attempted to defend his own honor.
The mood of the meeting shifted from ominous and combative to lighthearted as one teacher asked Huberman about a rumor. She heard that CPS was holding a secret job fair that was invite-only and dibs would be given to first-year alternative certification teachers in programs like Teach for America and the Chicago Teaching Fellows. The notion made Huberman and his newly hand-picked CPS administration team burst into laughter.
"I can dispel the rumor,'' schools CEO Ron Huberman told the giggling crowd. "There are no secret teacher fairs. Any teacher fairs are public. Everyone is invited, and they are advertised.''
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Huberman found out a few hours late that there was indeed a secret job fair to be held July 31 from noon to 3 pm. at the Lakeside Center of McCormick Place, 2301 S. Lake Shore Dr.
Although the new buzzword of "accountability" is thrown around the CPS to justify the caustic policy of school "turnarounds," apparently when it comes to bureaucracy, the CPS advocates for a free-for-all. According to spokesperson for CPS, Monique Bond:
"There will be no reprimand for an honest mistake.''
This puts either the internal communications of the CPS into question, or the honesty of its leaders. If an "honest mistake" created a secret job fair and said fair was never relayed to the CEO, how much stock can be taken in Huberman's word when he says that teachers pensions are safe.? He stated that CPS will not go after pensions with the same confidence as he "dispelled" the rumor that there was no secret job fair.
