Portside

Hard looks at SCOTUS and democracy in crisis

Some 425 Chicago public school students died between the 2013-14 and 2016-17 school years. One in four attended an alternative high school, though these schools accounted for only around 2 percent of the district’s enrollment.

Maybe they can get away with it, but it certainly seems worthwhile putting up a fight to stop them.

Bradley Manning spied for us. 50th anniversary March on Washington. Growing an artificial heart. Save Chicago public schools rally. iPhones made by iSlaves? Fast food workers strike: the third wave.

If those who are prosecuting this onslaught against our public schools succeed, they will have made workers more insecure, created a compliant, alienated, and low-wage labour force, and devised new ways to make money – a massive testing industry, for-profit schools, consulting services. They will also have put another nail in the coffin of democracy.

Teachers at one of Chicago's largest charter- school networks - run by the United Neighborhood Organization - have voted to organize into a union. Public school teacher, responds to question - what is behind charter schools. Idea of a motivated community of adults - parents, teachers, administrators - creating a unique school from the ground up, designed to serve that particular community - are not charter schools. AFT calls for moratorium on Common Core testing.

Mass school closings are a brutally vivid example of the disconnected politics of Chicago. This is the status quo that is no longer tolerable.More than 100 people arrested while taking part in mass civil disobedience against Rahm Emanuel's cuts and closures. Gary Younge reports from Chicago. Robert Koehler details impact on urban poor neighborhoods.