If you look in the dictionary under nepotism and political insider you will find several pages have been set aside for Matt Hynes. Son of former Cook County Assessor Tom Hynes and brother of Dan Hynes, the former state comptroller he is publicly known for running his brother’s hilariously quixotic campaign for Governor in 2010 and his corporate lawyer mojo. To get a sense of why Matt gets so many pages in both categories you have only to read one of the oddest press releases I’ve ever come across from Chapman and Cutler LLP back in 2006, which announced that Matt and his dad were both joining the consummate insider firm in one of the ultimate insider rackets, the municipal bond game. http://www.chapman.com/media/news/media.386.pdf. The funny part is that the entire press release is about what an asset Tom will be, making Matt like that third player to be named later as salary cap space when your team trades for a new power forward. I think all of us need to understand that Matt Hynes is financial lawyer who thinks corporate and works insider. It’s not that his “counsel” won’t be competent, he’s not THAT guy; it’s just that he does not understand that there should be a public component in public policy.

Mike sits on The Civil Rights Agenda board and that makes Mike someone who lives his values. http://www.jointcra.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46&Itemid=28. I truly wonder how he’s going to get on with these people. Not because of the LGBTQ stands of the Administration, I think Mayor Emanuel will do some things the community will like a great deal. But Mike is a genuinely good guy. He is likely to be alarmed by what passes for public policy in an administration that has a deep dislike of government and the public.

Every once and a while I quip that this or that reads like a demon’s resume or this is a resume that would make a demon proud or would make a demon blush; you get the gist of the point I’m making. And since I’m about to talk about a lawyer at the epically evil law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, you may expect me to say the same thing. I won’t, because now I’m pretty sure that resume speaks for itself. Demon’s I think, http://www.kirkland.com/sitecontent.cfm?contentID=220&itemID=7978 have a stronger moral compass.

Michelle T. Boone will be the new head of the public-private partnership that is running our arts scene. The Joyce Foundation, which already has decided that it has no interest in being a force for accountability http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-03-26/news/ct-met-rahm-transition-funding-20110326_1_joyce-foundation-transition-new-mayor in Chicago so having one of its officers running Department of Cultural affairs seems fair. There actually isn’t a lot to say about her that is negative or for that matter positive. She cares about people and she works for a foundation that cares about protecting the interests of organized money. What will be interesting is will she be on board with the privatizing impulses that is in the DNA of the Emanuel Administration.

Rosemarie "Rosie" Andolino is has a name and a nickname that makes her sound like a mobster and a political pedigree that makes her more worse than a mobster as she is a  protégé of Victor Reyes. Being a protégé of Victor Reyes is like being descended from Satan or Dracula. What you need to understand is that Rosie is in charge of the really messed O’Hare expansion and she learned to in charge from one of the people that brought us the Hired Truck scandal. She’s been leading the O’Hare expansion from beginning to its continued monkeyshines where $26.5 million could have gone to a client of her mentor Victor Reyes and Mayoral friend  and torture co-conspirator Dick Devine, except somehow the city didn’t go for it.
If “Rosie” ends up doing something terrible she has been well-schooled in the Sith Lord arts of corruption and avarice. There is also the chance that without Mayor Daley to push the entire thing forward that the entire O’Hare expansion might just crumble and if that happens it’s good remember the Rosemarie was NEVER qualified to be in charge of the expansion in the first damn place or the Department of Aviation right now. To get a sense of how unqualified she is you need to recall that the former Chief of Security at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, James Maurer, said that O’Hare is vulnerable to terrorist attack — in part because his superiors repeatedly ignored his warnings about security gaps. Maurer’s lawsuit accused Rosemarie Andolino of showing more interest in projects to expand O'Hare than in security.  On a hopeful note, Mayor Emanuel, in keeping her around demonstrates that he is still just a mob boss and not a full-blown super villain. One more thing, if anyone is going to jail for run of the mill stealing it’ll be Rosemarie and it’ll probably be Victor Reyes’ fault.

Soo Choi, now a deputy in the inspector general's office, will take charge of the Department of Human Resources -- the city's hiring hall. I only have one question: WHAT IS A NICE GIRL LIKE THIS DOING WITH PEOPLE LIKE THESE? I have one guess; Mayor Emanuel plans to put the four corner smack down on the hiring of city workers. If you think about it you really don’t need the Shakman experts when you don’t plan to have many of those “lazy” city workers lolling around on the public dole because you’re too busy shoveling money into the pockets of private corporations as you get rid of them and their damn pensions.

As befits a bureaucrat you should have no idea who she is but since she’s in charge of the Department of Revenue in a city that is a frick-frackin’ financial mess you should know that at the epicenter of the parking meter deal you will find the name Bea Reyna-Hickey. Anyone at the epicenter of the parking meter deal really shouldn’t be allowed to work anywhere near a department titled revenue.
On a hilarious and interesting side note she once got suspended for not keeping the lid tightly enough on her department and word got out about something the Mayor wanted kept quiet. You could see this as a good thing but the fact that she still has a job and who can say if she was ever suspended tells us that she is exactly who she appears to be. A political bureaucrat who’s very interested in doing what she’s told.

She ran the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Office of Management and Budget under CEO Arne Duncan; which means she was around for a lot of things that should make no one with the title management in their job title proud.

One way to look at this is that she helped us get in this mess she should help us get out. Look how well it worked out for Arne Duncan. He transformed his abject failure into a blue print to spread it across the entire country. Perhaps Elizabeth will be the next Chicago education miracle to escape from the city.

David Reynolds seems like a fairly good guy. Even the private company he comes from EarthTech/AECOM is not one that elicits shudders of terror but the real question is does he have the capacity to deal with the travelling, cavalcade of corruption that is and has been Fleet Management. On the upside Mayor Daley was good for bikes, it might be the only reason he gets let into Heaven. Maybe Mayor Emanuel is really serious about making Fleet Management a cleaner entity.  That would be a great thing.

Powerful people get criticized all the time. Media people rarely get beaten on for being bad to their staff members. That takes a special kind of unpleasant and Chris Mather apparently has just that. She and her deputies face at least nine fairly substantive complaints and no one in D.C. is fighting to keep her in the city or the department. Here’s a peek into her “management style” from her staff’s point of view. “…more to a dictatorship than that of a relationship built upon mutual trust and respect between employees and their managers.” And  “… a hostile work environment, (based on) retaliation and/or prohibited personnel practices,” 

“This is very serious and never in our entire careers have we encountered such egregious, mean and poor management.”

She’s going to be a formidable gatekeeper and our arthritic, French-poodle like media is going to do whatever she tells them out of a deep and reflexive fear. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/53254.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/top-usda-official-leaving-to-work-for-rahm-emanuel-faces-employment-discrimination-complaints/2011/04/14/AFJAHfeD_blog.html?hpid=z2

John Pfeiffer seems like a great guy, with just a touch the evangelical Christian in him… which I will admit makes me nervous, but I think people should pay close attention to him. If someone does get all disenchanted and starts talking out of school it’s my bet it will be John.

The new Commissioner presently runs an organization that tries to blend organized money’s pursuit of profits over people with providing services for the common good of ordinary people. The Chicago Workforce Investment Council is that organization. They see people as human commodities. What they do is connect people to the skills they need to serve corporate needs. Think of it as a “just in time” inventory model for human beings and if that makes you feel a littlee queasy it should. http://www.cwic.org/WhoWeAre/FundersandPartners.aspx. If it reminds you of the Clinton era retraining schemes that’s because that’s what it is. http://sociology.berkeley.edu/public_sociology_pdf/weir.pdf. Worse yet, just like ending “Welfare as we know it” this will produce similar results just on a city-wide basis. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0341/is_4_56/ai_70460016/. The poor need to brace themselves.

I honestly feel bad for this guy. If you are not from Chicago our media does such a terrible job of covering powerful people you might think that Rahm Emanuel is a tough-minded reformer who’s going to clean up corruption and cronyism in Chicago and run this city like a business. You could think: “Man, this is where I want to be, being part of the building blocks of the 21st century urban revitalization of urban America!” I think that’s what happened to Gabe… this poor guy is not gonna like his visit here to our fair city at all.

He most reminds me of Ron Huberman with a dash of Victor Reyes and just like Ron and Victor someday he will go to jail. http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/one-story-up/2009/09/new-cta-chief-terry-peterson-has-ties-to-public-housing-corruption-scandal.html. That he still has a job in this reform administration tells you about half of what you need to know about our new reform mayor.

He is the poster boy for the perversion of the term “reformer”.  He’s not a nice guy. We used to all know he was a hatchet man who took names, kicked ass and hated government so much he NEVER wanted to run for office because democracy just got in the way of the power. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-01-13/news/9801130218_1_mayor-richard-daley-park-district-city-hall.

He cut deals with the incredibly corrupt entity and politically connected G.F. Structures Inc. while running the Park District. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2000-06-11/news/0006110049_1_fencing-markup-government-contracts. And while at the Park District he was absolute hell on the working people there. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-01-03/news/9501030036_1_zoo-workers-new-labor-pact-unfair-labor-practice-charges.

Somehow firing a bunch of people, cutting their wages, eliminating their benefits and making them “more productive” i.e. working longer hours for less pay came to mean “reform” and now that reform is coming to the CTA. Oh, joy. http://www.igci.us/blog/rahm-emanuel-picks-forrest-claypool-to-head-cta/.

Aside from not being sure if the city has ever had this position in recent memory Felicia Davis has exactly both of the qualifications for any political appointment. One, she’s loyal, she worked on the campaign as an aide, she worked on the transition on the Foundation dime and then she smoothly took this gig that may have been created just for her. Two, she’s meant for the gig. What could be better than a loyalist, who used to be a cop and possesses a political background to be a liaison between police and a VERY political administration? I think she’s likely to do a great job... whatever that job is.

But who the hell is this Renaissance woman who can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a basil, garlic butter reduction while handcuffing some unruly patron to the wet bar? We went into the way back machine and came up with this from the Edwin Eisendrath for Governor campaign disaster. That’s right, here is a woman whose job credentials seem less than solid but I’m pretty sure she can do this job... whatever it is. http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/politics/dont_blame_edwin.php

After 9/11 he decided that everything he would do in law enforcement had to have a counter terrorism edge. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-05-03/news/ct-met-top-cop-20110502_1_police-superintendent-police-officer-ground-zero. Sadly, he’s not hunting for terrorists or even defending anyone against them. He’s running the city’s response to emergency calls from policing issues right up to alien invasions in city department that is so corrupt actual demons won’t take a job there because it would make them look bad. What this department needs is a proven administrator who can get a handle on this whorehouse. That’s probably not this guy if his stint at the Federal Protective Services tells us anything.

•  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18826405
•  http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09859t.pdf
• http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20100526/DEPARTMENTS03/5260301/1018/DEPARTMENTS/&template=art_mobile.

Let me make this easy on you… this is not the guy we’re looking for but he’s the guy we’ve got… prepare yourselves.

Robert Hoff is currently the Commissioner of the Chicago Fire Department (CFD) and the man knows his business as a fireman. Chicago’s Fire Department’s problem has nothing to do with putting out fires… it’s problem is that fact that it is shot through with the kind of racism that puts one to thinking of white sheets and night riders. Hoff is a 3rd-generation firefighter with more than 30 years of experience. There is hope that things are getting better http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2837410,fire-department-black-leaders-102610.article.

But man, he has a lot to manage around race in an administration that doesn’t seem too interested in addressing the racial issue because they simply haven’t talked about in all their transition publications, propaganda or sound bites. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/22/chicago-fire-department-r_n_471894.html
http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/10-06-04-important-victory-in-legal-battl.html

We have a new Superintendent of police in a city where crime is under control. In Chicago our murder rate’s is at record lows. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-01/news/ct-met-chicago-murder-totals-20110101_1_chicago-murder-rate-violent-crime-police-data-show. Our crime rate is not insane. http://www.chicagodefender.com/article-10247-police-say-chicago-c.html.

What our officers have is an aggression/brutality problem… They don’t get on with community folks all that well… http://www.chicagojustice.org/articles/criticism-by-association-and-more-apples ... just like their new leader… http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/newark_police_director_mccarth_4.html.

The highlights here make him perfect for the Chicago Police Department. He leaves with the ACLU looking into “police misconduct” i.e. brutality and with the community at his throat. He’s gonna fit right in here if we are to continue policing in the style of the 1930’s. Too bad we're noting going toe to toe with Al Capone anymore.

Jason DeHaan will continue to serve as the Chief Information Officer of the City of Chicago and Brett Goldstein will be the Chief Data Officer and neither of these fellows seems like a bad sort. Maybe they’ll surprise us all but usually guys like this don't go for bad.

http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&Template=/Templates/TemplateHomepage/ALEC_1502_20070319T102535_LayoutHomePage.cfm.

To be fair John IBM’s Citizenship & Technology group is not as ultra-right as the rest of ALEC’s benefactors but you can learn a lot about a person by who they hang around with and are willing to work for.

She is the consummate insider going through the revolving door of government service to corporate wealth. Her organization, Scott Balice Strategies LLC, specializes in privatization. She is a walking conflict of interest at the very best and at worst a gateway to some horrid public policy. http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2011/04/19/emanuels-pick-for-city-cfo-from-firm-known-for-privatization-work & http://www.epi.org/page/-/old/issueguides/socialsecurity/policybriefs/privatization.pdf.

I know Mayor Emanuel said that you have to wait two years to lobby once you leave his administration. So how does it work if you join the administration from a place that will be dealing with the administration and are now the bridge between the administration and that place?

Alexandra is such an avid believer in privatization that one of our city’s arch-fiends of market-forces, Laurence Msall, loves her and Lois Scott. When the President of the Chicago Civic Federation, a guy that HATES government thinks you’re going to do a great job and you work in government… government and the governed are in real trouble. Here’s what he said about Alexandra & Lois Scott http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-chicago/chicago-going-on privatization-binge and here’s what he hopes they will to do “for” us http://civicfed.org/sites/default/files/civicfed_226.pdf. You read that right? It scared you didn't?

While holding the post of Deputy State Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer for the State of Ohio Treasury he oversaw more than $11 billion in state investments, $9 billion in state debt obligations and over $150 billion per year in custodial assets for Ohio's pension systems and by oversaw I mean give money to banks involved in fraud and contracts to friends and cronies. http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2010/06/ohio_treasurer_picks_bank_faci.html. He should be right at home here in Chicago... I got an incredibly bad feeling about this guy.

You have heard that he will work for $1 a year and this may be because that’s how much his services may actually be worth. Here’s an example of some of his financial wizardry: MidOcean Partners got into bed with Sbarro, based in Melville, N.Y., employs about 5,000 people and that led to Sbarro cutting jobs and closing stores in the wake of the global financial crisis. Its troubles stem in part from debt taken on in 2007 to back a buyout by private-equity firm MidOcean Partners. The private-equity firm’s current ownership stake is likely to be wiped out in the bankruptcy.

Battered by the recession Sbarro closed more than 150 restaurants in two years. It showed a loss of about $29.3 million during the first nine months of last year on sales of roughly $239 million. For 2009 it reported a loss of $ 37.2 million. It had about $12.67 million cash and cash equivalents at the end of September. Bad for the little people but the Deputy Mayor looked out for his people. The losses prompted the company in December to raise salaries and hand out bonuses for top executives and managers to keep them from leaving.

Meantime, Sbarro’s lackluster earnings caused it to violate its debt terms, which led to the bankruptcy. Then, after the bankruptcy, MidOcean and the Deputy Mayor were among the first entities in line, to get some cash afterwards. http://wearechangenewjersey.com/?m=201104. If Mr. Angelson runs the city like a business all I can see is the scene from Godfather II where Hyman Roth cuts up the birthday cake in Havana. God help a brother out.

She was general counsel for several major corporations, including Sears Holdings Corporation and Exelon. We already know how Sears puts profits over people. http://www.retail-worker.com/forum/about5910.html but that is small potatoes compared to the sorts of things Exelon has been known to get up to. http://www.cleanwater.org/feature/series-cover-ups-undermines-faith-exelon. She was their lawyer during that sort of thing.

Now on the up side Exelon did pull out of the Chamber of Commerce because it denies global warming… of course Exelon thinks NUCLEAR energy… the thing they cover up about, is a safe alternative. Andrea Zopp, another person who knows how to keep the powerful safe is now on a Board that can give them access to millions of public dollars.

At one point in his life Rod was Integrys Energy Group’s Vice President for Public Affairs. During that time he was a mouthpiece for a cost-cutting entity that cared more about making cash than the safety of its workers.  http://crooksandliars.com/taxonomy/term/548. So that should give us a sense of what Rod is capable of saying for money and at least here he can only hurt children... that does sound bad doesn't it?

Penny Pritzker is a businesswoman and education advocate who thinks our schools should be run on the same principles as venture capital firms. You know the same principles that have guided our economy into the “excellent” condition we find it in now. http://www.thefundchicago.org/index.php?tray=content_series&tid=top12&cid=289. She is also the Chairman of the Board of one of the most morally bankrupt corporations that has ever ruined the lives of ordinary people. TransUnion. http://debtandcredit2.blogspot.com/2008/04/credit-score-scam.html & http://do512blog.com/transunion-news-cash-payouts-for-some-austinites/. If you or I stole like 1/100^th of that kind of money they’d put us UNDER the jail.

In addition to being the mother of all around excellent artist Common she is just a salt of the earth good person hanging around with the rest of the Board. Comparatively speaking if this was the Last Supper she’d be the one in the middle giving the blessing. Pray for her because every time she looks around the table she is gazing into Nietzsche’s Abyss… okay, it’s not that bad but what is a nice woman like this doing with people like that?

He is really an investment banker and former Board of Director at Bear Stearns during some of the worst abuses that ended in the firm’s demise. http://www.shareholderforum.com/e-mtg/Library/20100914_NYTimes.htm Barclays claims Bear Stearns deliberately covered up negative information to defraud its investors, noting in its lawsuit in Manhattan federal court that the sudden collapse was "one of the most high-profile and shocking hedge fund failures of the last decade." http://www.nypost.com/seven/12202007/business/bears_cares_mount_786185.htm.

He is also being sued by the Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit & the Wayne County Employees Retirement System to stop the sale of 95 million shares of Bear Sterns to profit from killing their retirement, nice guy. http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/LB_motionTRO.pdf?mod=WSJBlog. I wonder if he’ll work for a dollar too… I mean that erases all the bad things he's already done and will excuse him from the bad things he plans to do.

He is the Chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education but to get sense of his level of ethics and proven values you need to know two things. One, he took at least one definitely unethical and possibly illegal trip on the dime of lobbyists who directly benefited from his position. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-10-20/news/0410200192_1_lobbyists-ethics-law-legislators-and-state-officials.

He also approved the elimination of gifted programs and after school programs http://www.semissourian.com/story/1556371.html. So at least we know that his “heart” such as it is, is in the right place for the right people... they may just not be your people.

David Vitale served as Chief Administrative Officer of Chicago Public Schools under CEO Arne Duncan and so was around when the Office of the Inspector General… “…analyzed and criticized Board Office expenditures made by procurement card and purchase order. In addition, OIG investigations into clout admissions and preferential treatment of applicants for admission into selective enrollment high schools and other elite CPS schools resulted in findings that faulted the involvement of the Board Office, the CEO’s office, the Mayor’s office, politicians and benefactors in a process that should have been fair and impartial, but was instead tainted by politics and favoritism.” http://www.cps.edu/About_CPS/Departments/Documents/OIG_FY_2010AnnualReport.pdf.

What you should note is that this investigation was of the system Arne Duncan left behind that he managed and now he's in charge of the entire school board. It reads like a monster movie at the part where our heroes realize that they don't have the necessary tools for all of them to survive 'til dawn.

She is the current Chief Human Capital Officer of the Chicago Public Schools and she comes from Sears Holdings, Inc. and Sears, Roebuck and Co. Here we have a human resources officer from a place that takes the human right out of the resources title. http://www.retail-worker.com/forum/about5910.html. This may make her the perfect face for the cuts and punishment likely to be doled out to the rank and file.

She is a woman who has spent most of her life fighting to increase Latino representation in corporate America. This is not a nefarious past time and in fact it’s a great thing to be doing since that’s where the money and power is concentrated and it keeps getting whiter and more male. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/corporate-boards-getting-_n_856650.html.

Her claim to education fame though is her work at the University of Pennsylvania Fels Government Research Service, where she worked on data-driven performance management for Philadelphia public schools and the Philadelphia Workforce Development Corporation. D3M, as the wonks call it, is an old school thing of using data from tests to re-teach the material to get better results. Not controversial but HOW it’s used… really controversial.

Ms. Sáenz is what is known as an incentivist. She’s fixated on improving test numbers not the process of how this is done. She’s a corporate “get it done” type not an instructionalist who is consumed with the learning. We should be on the lookout for cut corners and all manner of chicanery because she is going to be very focused on getting the job done.

Read this and learn more. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/eduwonkette/search.html?blog_id=56&tag=No%20Child%20Left%20Behind%20Act

He is the current general counsel to the Chicago Public Schools. He was once one of the lead legal minds that tried to get rid of the Shakman Decree that bans political hiring i.e. patronage. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-03-31/news/0403310163_1_decree-patronage-hiring. When Robert Sorich was in deep dutch during the Hired Truck scandal http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/RUSSO/index.php/entry/1419/. When then CPS leader Ron Huberman began expanding his executive staff without following procedures that had been in place for decades of public disclosure of every executive hiring about $90,000 per year Mr. Rocks was there and participated in a policy of stalling all Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1893.

What you need to know about Patrick is that he is an expert at protecting the powerful and thwarting the aspirations of ordinary people to find out what the powerful are up to. He’s like that kid who never gets in trouble but is always standing next to the not too bright kid with the cherry bomb. The kid with the cherry bomb can never explain why he's had this bad idea and Patrick just shrugs as if he has not a thing to do with hijinx and monkeyshines. Patrick is always there when trouble breaks out but never gets any trouble on him.

He is already a leader of a private company that lives partially on public education funds Academy for Urban School Leadership. He is also in deep relationship with organizations that support the provably bad idea that is the Race to the Top Strategy http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/31/27harris.h29.html and the National Business Roundtable which is out to privatize schools as part of an effort to turn them into just another commodity and is no fan of any sort of union. http://watch.pair.com/charter7.html. &  http://watch.pair.com/charter7.html#nasdc.

IF this makes you wonder how open he will be to public solutions to the public schools issue it should. Let’s see what happens.

She comes from corporate America. In particular she was the Chief Financial Officer of Merisant Worldwide, Inc. What’s that you ask? Well, Merisant is a firm that is largely owned by the private equity firm Pegasus Capital Advisors and it went belly up a year after she left in 2009 http://www.financierworldwide.com/article_printable.php?id=3060 & http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/15/idUS253186+15-Jan-2008+BW20080115.  When it did it had $137.1m of debts and its Merisant Co unit had debt of $560.7m and assets of $331.1m, according to US bankruptcy court filings in Delaware.

Now the above events are not 100%  Ms. Ferguson’s fault. She is just one of those who could not fix the problem and is now bringing that same acumen to the financial mess that is our public school budget. The best part is the business community in Crain’s is already writing about her as if she will walk on water or part it and the people directly impacted by her are already worried http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1379&section=Article.

She has directed communications policy as part of the City's Housing and Planning and Development Departments and the Mayor's Press Office. Most notably she had to carry the water for the Cabrini Green/Near North Side Redevelopment Plan Task Force. To get some sense of the scale of lies and obfuscations she had to manufacture; or allow to be spun about the success of mixed income housing and relocation of residents you have to understand what an abject failure the entire CHA Plan for Transformation was and is.  None of this is Ms. Carroll’s fault but any media person who spent any of their time floating the idea that the Plan for Transformation or any aspect of it was for the public good  and has worked, or is working is capable of telling you anything and maybe even believing it.

She is an ardent believer that charter schools are simply more efficient and often better than public schools at delivering what students need. To her credit she has done some excellent work for students but the core idea, that charter schools are any better than public schools is not a sound one. Recently in Los Angeles, where she cut her charter school teeth, the LAUSD turned 4 out of 30 under performing schools to charter schools and 26 to teachers and the community to try and improve using techniques that are not going to make any private company rich.

He was probably picked to run CPS because he was “adored by the business community”, hated by unions and keen to unleash a flood of corporate funded/controlled, non-union, privatized, unaccountable, market-based charter schools on our city. I say this because it CAN’T be because of his stellar record in Rochester… He spent 3 ½ years running it into the dirt. Here are just some of the many things that earned him a 95% no-confidence vote from the Rochester Teachers Association: About half of the district’s schools filed to meet federal academic standards and half of those schools made the New York state’s “Worst of the Worst” school list. This is man who managed to so damage the Rochester school district that half of its schools flat out failed to meet federal standards in English language arts… effectively transforming ENGLISH into a second language.