The education issue moved to center stage in the wake of Rudy’s defeat. Neighbors had been overwhelming in support of the teacher’s strike. I was able to add some teachers to my growing email list. They won the strike. But our mayor can get vindictive. Almost 50 schools were closed. It was then that we saw large mass meetings, marches, and rallies. At the same time charter school operators were encouraged to open up new locations.
In my neighborhood of McKinley Park, we learned that a new math and science K-8 was proposed for a vacant factory building. I arranged for a steward from the Chicago Teachers Union to give an overview of the situation at a meeting of the McKinley Park Civic Association. He explained that this new school is controlled by a right-wing Turkish religious cult. He said that they had bragged about having a thousand signatures from the neighborhood. Shock was the response. It was time to bring it up with the alderman.
Fifteen people came out for the city councilman’s open door night. Though Alderman George Cardenas was not present, we arranged for follow up. The next day I spoke to George by phone. I told him what we know about the Gulen Movement, the force behind this proposed charter. “They are an Islamic religious cult which is not Jihadist. Instead, they are very wealthy and vying for power in Turkish national politics. They have 136 schools in the US and many, many more worldwide. They have staffed their schools with Turkish nationals who immigrate with fraudulent H1-B visas. They favor contractors who also belong to their sect.”
He was unmoved even when I said his support for the school had the “appearance of impropriety”. I took it up a notch, “George, you and I both know that xenophobia and Islamophobia are wrong. But what do you think the voters will say when they find out you brought in all these Turkish teachers? And our own college graduates can’t get jobs? And right after the Boston Marathon bombing?”
At that point George said, “All right we will hold a community meeting. It will be tonight!” Had I won or had I lost? If I had said, “No, we need more time”, he could have claimed that we had turned down a meeting. If we could mobilize a crowd by five pm, we could win. I said “Ok. I will get the word out.”
Walking over to the meeting I was nervous. I got there early and the only folks were Cardenas staffers and two busloads of charter school students from a Gulen campus on the far north side of town. I bumped into my old precinct adversary, Frank. Sure enough, there was a bunch of young male Turkish teachers to hand out tee shirts and carry in boxes of pizza.
As the meeting got underway, our side was in the minority. There were long speeches by the alderman and the representative of the State Charter Commission. By the time they opened up for the audience to submit questions, more and more community members had started milling in. It got explosive as teachers repeatedly questioned the alderman’s motives. “How much are they paying you?” When it was over, it was clear that we had won the battle for public opinion. But the next day, we lost the war. Cardenas shepherded through a motion to allow for a zoning change for the new school.
In the 70’s we had tried to develop “line” by listening to what people were talking about – how they responded to what we were proposing. If the line was right and the time was right, we could expect minor victories. Here I felt like I was doing it again but with the experience and hind sight that I now possess. I have been living in this neighborhood for 25 years. I learned a skill and made a career. I own my own home. I put two kids through college. I can sprinkle in higher vocabulary if I want to. I can get along with people in the McKinley Park Civic Association. Most of them are of my demographic.
More importantly, organizers from the Chicago Teachers Union were able to deftly suggest the possibility of scam and impropriety. We let the action flow due to that old slogan, “faith in the masses”. And unlike my work in Milwaukee in the ‘70s, I did not feel that I had to engage in personal heroics or put out the program of any left wing organization.
I reflected on the basketball watchword, “Let the game come to you.” Our communities are waging defensive battles. We are in it to win it – though that is not always the result. Each battle can and should, at least, result in enhanced capacity for the good guys. In the old days, inevitably we would have been somewhat hampered by our semi-open association with a revolutionary party.