With, and thanks to hay market brewery for having us here and for the talents 23r joining us and everyone for coming. Its exciting to see this interest and resistance bubbling up. Ill read from the introduction and introduce the panel and talk and have time for questions and comments. This is the introduction starting on march 4, 2012, a little after a year ron was elected mayor. March 4th, 2012, chicagos 175 birthday, and the city celebrated with the Chicago Party of the public history museum. The event promised actors of famous of those when chicago, an advocate for children, imgrants, and factory works. Little did they know, the show would be stolen by a woman, more renowned, accomplished, but willing to raise a voice and speak up for the weak and vulnerable. The chicago childrens choir sang a lively version of happy birthday, reason to smile. Ten months earlier, he was inaugurated as leader of the nations third most popular city taking the reigns, and while his term had not been a cake walk, so far, things were going well, inheriting a budget deficit. The labor yiewn youses resisted, but he was able to strike deals and come out on top. Meanwhile, he was moving forward with his plans to institute a longer school day, a promise that had gained him positive attention nationwide. He was already assuming daily as the green mayor, and in february, announced the citys coal fire power plants would close. He snatched two Important International gathering for chicago. The nato summit to be held concurrently in may of 2012. The first time boast would be hosted in the same u. S. City. There was sitins and protests by Community Groups and unions related to the stunt, School Closings, and other issue, but he showedded a knack for avoiding and ignoring them and didnt seem to have suffered too much political fallout. As he watched the swinging and clapping singers at the birthday party, he didnt notice a crinkled orange paper banner bobbing in the crowd of rebellers that said history judges the mayor 1 mcfor closing Mental Health clinics. He got that early on in tenure. As wall street inspired protests swept the nation, it was a fit, and brief highly lucrative career as an investment banker. A staffer for the maw your or museum noticed and told the man holding it to put it away. It lowered into the crowd, and they shook hands and well wishers near the birthday cake. A voice cut through the clatter, causing heads to turn and the banner raised again. Mayor, i wish i could do the voice burned into peoples memories, but im not going to try. The mayor, please, dont close our clinics, were going to die. Theres nowhere else to go. Mayor, please, red hair peaking out, and dark circles under her eyes giving her the most girlish vulnerable expossession. Television a chicago woman who struggled all her life with Mental Illness but was a local advocate for herself and others suffering from disabilities and Mental Illness. For the past 15 years, he she wa regular at the citys Mental Health clinic in the morgan parks neighborhood, working in the middle class area. He said it made perfect economic sense. It would save 3 million and patients could move to the remaining clinics, but they pleaded they didnt understand the role of the specific clinics played in the lives and difficulty they have traveling to other locations. His eyes fixed unblinking lill to the mayor calling out in the ragged, pleading voice, her gaze, intent and focused. All eyes on her other than those of the mayor who shook a few more hands and pivoted quickly and disappeared through the door ignoring them the entire time. Mayor, she cried and, please stay here, mayor. The abruptness was exit, cake untouched, lack of clothing, and crowd Milling Around gave the impression the event was cut shorter than planned. With the mayor gone, fellow activists stepped up on the stage and left the banner behind the cake. Centering in front of them to face the remaining crowd earnestly, people are dying. They are not going to have nowhere to go. Critics and admirerrer described him as a strategist and fundraiser who knows how to leverage the personality to get wealthy donors to open the wallet and win races. He was a prominent fundraiser and made 18 million in Investment Banking in just two years, played central roles in two white houses and ork nateed a dramatic takeover at the house of representatives in the six years of congress. He clearly nowings how politicking works, but being marrieds different, or it should be. Theres prelim adversaries, fair game for manipulation or intimidation. In congress, they represented the constituents, but there was more to do with machinations than maneuvers running a city directed to run and serve people and listen to them is supposed to be a different story, but he treated chicago like washington. Perhaps thats why even in the brief tenure of mayor, he found it easy to ignore, parents, teachers, students, pastors, and others carrying out protests outside his office in city hall. They note they had not been particularly accessible, simp sympathetic in the approach, but met with people, acknowledged them, made officers to listen to the proposals and act on the concern. He cant seem to find the time for members of the public, they complain, even as he says the wants their input. Students, parents, and grandmothers, the community organization, for example, camped out in city hall for four days trying to deliver a former plan that Community Members droppled in conjunction can efforts to protect the local school from closing and create resources in the surrounding low income neighborhood. The response was to ignore us. We had our problems, but he surrounded himself with neighborhood people and was a nabbed person. They are robbing outs of the things our parents fought for. I want to introduce the panelists at the forefront of, well, even before the mayor, but struggles have taken center stage. A teacher, organizer with us and Community Activist with the Chicago Teachers Union. [cheers and applause] with the takeback chicago movement. An ben is with the chicago reader, one of the mayors favorite people. [applause] well hear first from rick. Well, thank you, kary, for your intellect and bravery around the topic. Let me say this because the mayor of chicago is always looking for opportunities to run commercial, and when julie introduced the book, she said the mayor wanted it, and you fought it. If youre in a commercial cheering, you did it here tonight. Be careful next time you applaud when a 1 mayor is introduced. Let me also just say its an honor to be a Public School teach ergs and the [applause] and the conspiracy, and the attack on Public Education, we can find attack on Public Education at the very inception of the country, and so i would be remiss if i did not at least acknowledge all my brothers and sisters of the Chicago Teachers Union here tonight so thank you, brothers and sisters, appreciate you. [applause] this fight for Public Education is collective. Lets put it into context. The mayor remits all that is bad when it comes to Public Education and just privatization as a whole, and so if we think about the history of the country where education black people for people was illegal. Fast tbrd through the civil war, it was permitted, but they begin to burn down schools that attempted to educate black people and poor people. Now fast forward to to 20 13, they close schools, 50 schools in i chicago where the mayor pushed for that. School closings in philadelphia, the attack on Public Education is real, and its carried out by democrats and republicans. This is a bipartisan decision to roll back everything built in the country, and so when we think about what has happened here in chicago, when the mayor, fist of all, i think its interesting before he was the mayor of chicago and there was some fliering of him running, the president of the United States said he would make a great mayor. Little did we know he was only speaking for the 1 , and i think that we have to be extremely critical of both political entities that are dead set on destroying Public Education, and when you look at the narrative around this country, and you see republican governors, democratic mayors, that are all committed to the interest of private corporations that want to shape education in their image, lets be clear these are the same corporate Interest Groups that have found their foothold here in chicago that are also looking to turn a profit off of Public Education. Here in chicago, the budget for Public Schools is 6 billion. Its a lot of money of the corporate Interest Groups want to ensure they have mapped on, and so we have to be very clear like we introduced here in chicago what a fight could look like around the country that the group that says they are in favor of our children,ment to provide choice and opportunity for our parent, they are not telling the truth. They are being extremely disingenuous, and today, through the leadership, were going to expose that, and so [applause] if we could just try to rush through the strike, which i think is unfair because it was the most exciting time it has as a future. [applause] foregoing our pi checks to . Er children in chicago receive a positive education ising . That not only teachers are browed of, because it was the most important strife in our country, and thank rahm for that. [applause] one of the things we were very clear about, we were not just simply fighting to fend off those who wish to destroy Public Schools. We actually had a plan that wrorked. One of the things we made very clear in the strike that you cannot separate the cfertionz of education from poverty. Poverty matters. We began a diagnose not its tick test, if you will, 166 schools in chicago did not have public libraries. Let that sink in. Church went to School Without access to a library or librarian, class sizes outs of control, 3540 kids in a classroom or, worse, some students did not have a regular assigned teacher. No proper ventilation or airconditioning or books. This is a city that launched the first african black president , but we cant get books for students. Theres something wrong with a country that will pride itself adds this great incollusive situation that denied dpowr people the opportunity to learn. The mayor was pushing a longer day, even though he was not beginning to result in better learning outcomes. Not only did we dispose the fact that we 4 no proper ventlation or airconditioning or class sizes oh out of control, where they did not have art and music, talking about very basic fundamentals for children to learn and flourish that did not do which was poverty, and so when they made the conscious decision to forego our paycheck to ensure that at least the conversation is raised, its a day or days that well never forget, but where are we now . We are clear that after the strike the mayor of chicago was determineed to destroy the ctu. He moved an agenda to not only close down schools, but to close down the plarnlgest number of schools in our nations history. Connect is with community leaders, pastors, connected with their School Leaders to say with a resounding voice that we do not want school the closed. Closing schools does more to harm students than actually help them. After thousands of patients came up from all over the city to say we dont want schools closed, the mayor stood at a press conference and said, this is what parents want. This gross negotiation is arrogant, cause the tremendous turmoil in the city. Think about what the first day of school looked like in chicago. Were talking 50 years from the march on washington, and our children were escorted to schools with police officers. Helicopters, firefighters, this looked like something straight autoof alabama. This is the city of chicago, america, and poor children are forced to walk through territories not only not safe, but once they got to the schools, all the things the mayor promised, he did not deliver. School budgets were drastically reduced, 515 teachers losing their job because of this mayors policy to defund Public Education. You can want have a conversation without having a conversation about race. [applause] the schools closed were in black and brown communities, seeing this across the country. In chicago, it is mind blowing because this is personal. Im raising two boys in chicago, black as well, attractive young boys, by the way, but my oldest son in kindergarten, im a parent, proud one, but our Neighborhood School was closed. No one asked me whether or not my school should be closed, and so now my sons growing up with do not have access to Neighborhood Schools, and not only did they overwhelmingly affect black students, but it affected black teachers. Over half the teachers that lost their jobs were black. Weve seen this gradual decline that was actually implemented other started when the mayor of chicago took complete control of the Public School system and had this idea to put paul in charge of the system, and if you look at the record, hes the grandfather of privatization and corporate takeover and tools so hes gone to chicago, new orleans, schools destroyed, philadelphia, schools destroyed, and when he got to keeks, they said, well, we know what you are about and sent them backing to illinois so that we got to figure out somewhere for him to go, but the move of the mayor to continue to close schools and at the same time calling for charters is something thats not only going to exacerbate the loss of the black teachers, but stratifies the School System with intensity poor black children in a concentrated school with limited resources and very people whose black children tend to look towards for some sort of guidance and hope, that group is denied. Last point here is that in chicago with the first black president in the white house, those moved by duncan are destructive. Public education at the estate, after all, is a black idea. We cannot allow the black idea to be destroyed when the first black president is zitting in the white house. Thank you. [cheers and applause] ill talk on what bran ton touched on and a few things ben touches on. Im with grassroots collaborative, a Community Labor coalition made up of organizations working on racial justice. Like many big city mayors, not all big city may mayors push a fiscally conservative procorporate agenda that benefits you at the expense of many. I think kari does a really important job laying out the ways thats true of the mayor. What that looks like is an attack on teachers and public spector, and it is about Union Busting, Union Busting in particular because of the power, the political power and that power unions have in the city; right . Breaking the unions to closing down schools breaks the Union Breaking the political power of chicago teaches to fight against the public agenda. Theres a clear thing happening here on multiple levels of what the attack looks like. Hes also since hes been in office, eliminated the corporate head tax. This is a tax in place on corporations of more than 50 employees to basically pay for some of the infrastructure excepts and to acknowledge the profits that they make by being based in chicago. That was eliminated. Now, at the same time, that happened at the same time he passed the budget to cut Mental Health clippics by 50 . Clear connection of who is benefits and who is not from the policies moving forward under this administration. This question starts with our current mayor; right . We had a few years of mayor daily before hand where we move forward, but hes continued the prodowntown development, and in particular, around what tax commit financing has done and what it looks like her in the city. I think ben called himself a shadow budget; right . Its 500 million every year thats syverred from property taxes that instead of going to schools, parks, and libraries, at this point, goes to downtown development, developers in the central part of the city, goes to things like the depaul universitys basketball stadium. At the same time, like, within weeks of the destruction of the 50 Public Schools in the black community, was the announcement, 50 million, up to 90 million now used on this private university stadium. Thats just one example of several Different Things coming under in terms of projects. One of the things the collaborative spent a bunch of time fighting gwen was 29. 5 Million Dollars to point plaza. Its a downtown building due to be constructed, and that money was used to create a park. What they call a green space is trees for spokers, no offense for smokers on the smoke break to have a pretty place to look at while they have a corporate highrise. There is a counsel fighting to rehab the park only needed a couple million to make it a safe park space. The city consistently says theres no money, theres no money. They find the money, and found 30 million quickly to get to wealthy developers with plenty of money to construct the pilling in the first place. Theres a pretty high vacancy right now in Downtown Chicago so what happens when a downtown billing a traded with tip money, it means you move residents from one building not other, subsidizing profit from the new development, duh not creating new rouserses, right, to go intake into the community. Privatization, again, continues the line of privatization here in the city. A few things we continue to live with. Th