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Kids Stay Home as Chicago Teachers Revolt

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Chicago’s public school system is run by whom?This week saw a power struggle among school officials/city officials, and the teachers union of the city. It left students and their families in the third largest school district in the country in disarray.

There are concerns over the COVID-19 omicron-based variant. the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) voted TuesdayTo abandon the traditional classroom for just a few more weeks to return to online learning. Chicago teachers were instructed by the union to remain home from January 18 through a memo. The problem is that this is not the CTU’s decision. The Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS), however, has the final say.

“The CTU makes no decisions on how our CPS works. It is the CEO who makes these decisions. Lori Lightfoot stated that he is the boss.

She said, “We’re committed to remaining at table with CTU leaders and negotiating fair agreements.” tweeted. We cannot take unilateral action that would shut down entire districts, denying hundreds of thousands students access to the schooling they require.

She filed an unfair labor practices lawsuit against CTU Wednesday. The CTU’s actions were called an “illegal striking.”

I will not let them take our children hostage. They cannot compromise the future of CPS students. Lightfoot stated that this is unlikely to occur.

CPS couldn’t help but cancel individual learning because so many teachers weren’t showing up. on WednesdayAnd again today.

Pedro Martinez, CPS CEO said that teachers who fail to show up on time will not get paid. Martinez stated that if someone wants to get paid, they must show up to work.

CPS released a statement Tuesday saying that they are looking for a better way to respond to COVID case on a school by school basis. Yesterday the district wrote to parents to inform them that many staff, including teachers, still turned up on Wednesday. “Some schools also have sufficient staff to report to work so they can return to in-person instruction by Friday,” CPS stated.

Teachers union members expressed frustration at the decision. They said they will continue working diligently as for months to urge the Mayor of Chicago and the CPS Leadership Team to finally commit to safety measures that are centered around the health and well-being our students and their families, and the wellbeing of our schools. Teachers are being callingProvision of masks of the highest quality and other safety-related changes to schools in order to increase COVID-19 test frequency.

At a press conference, Lightfoot emphasized the steps that had already been taken to make schools safer—including updated ventilation and filter systems and in-school masking—and talked about the damage to children from being out of the classroom for long stretches. Lightfoot stated that the worst thing we could do was to shut down the whole system.

According to her, there’s no evidence that closing down all Chicago public schools would be a good idea based on “the science and the data” or the common sense.

Allison Arwady, Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner tried to correct misinformationAbout COVID-19 in Chicago and Chicago children. Arwady stated, “I hear the worst misinformation that Chicago hospitals fill up with children. That many Chicago children are dying from COVID. It’s really frightening to be a Chicago child with COVID right now.” “And I want you to understand that…child COVID hospitalizations remain very rare. Across the whole city—approximately 550,000 children—we are averaging just seven COVID hospitalizations a day right now for children ages zero to 17.”

Arwady stated, “I just want to reassure you that, particularly if you have vaccinated your child, this is acting like the flu and we don’t close schools districts for extended periods of time due to the flu.”

FOLLOW-UP

Today is the first anniversary of pro-Trump forces’ January 6, 2017 Capitol Riot. A few notable things looking back…

• In the immediate aftermath of the riot, many Republicans condemned it and Trump for encouraging it. However, as time went by and election fraud allegations became a common rallying cry among the GOP base’s voters, more Republican leaders joined the party. Tim Dickinson suggests that Republicans are choosing to fealt Donald Trump rather than respect for democracy. Rolling Stone.

• While the appetite for punishing the Capitol rioters was high—and still is—prosecutors have at least shown SomeRestrained communication with the involved parties. There have been hundreds of people charged. However, the federal government isn’t seeking domestic terrorist charges. Instead, they are targeting milder misdemeanors and destruction of federal property. However, this is not to say some sentencing decisions have been too harsh or the usual tricks of the prosecutors.

• Public social media posts have provided the evidence for many of the charges. Notes: “Social media postings have led to over 80% of all the charges so far, regardless of whether they involve account holders or the individuals depicted in photos or videos posted by another rioter.” Courthouse News Service. They posted on Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook with confidence, posting to Youtube and Parler, making it a very easy task for FBI agents.

• Parler vindicated? In spite of the fact that the social media platform for right-learning was responsible for organizing the riot, and publishing about it across social media platforms, the blame fell heavily on the social media platform. ProPublica recently reported that Facebook had seen at least 650,000 attacks on Joe Biden’s victory, between Election Day and Jan. 6’s siege of Capitol. Some even called for executions. The Washington Post.It was discovered that Parler actually had warned the FBI of the attack before it happened.

FREE MINDS 

How can we empower censorship Right-leaning voices have been urging parents to be in control of what their kids are exposed to at school. Judd Legum’s newsletter notes that while empowering parents is a nice idea, many politicians have taken this mantra to heart and are trying to restrict academic freedom and ban textbooks. It’s not about parental involvement in the education of their children, but more about cultural conservatism in every area of public education. Sigh.

Legum points out Oklahoma’s newly introduced legislation that would ban certain books in public schools libraries. This bill, which is open to amendment, would ban “books that deal with sex and sexual preferences, sexual behavior, sexual activity or gender identity or any books that have content that would be considered sexually explicit or approved by a parent before their child’s exposure to them.”  Parents could sue schools and school employees if the books are not removed by 30 days after a parent request.

Recent book bancontroversies have been experienced in Georgia, Kansas and Texas.

FREE MARKETS

A report card is issued by the states on telemedicine.Reason Foundation has published a report on telehealth and the effects of the pandemic.

QUICK HITS

• A judge has dismissed a child pornography lawsuit against Nirvana filed by the man who as a baby appeared nude on the cover of the band’s album Nevermind.

• A bad ruling for third parties and political pluralism:

• A large new study looks at the effects of psilocybin on cognitive functioning. Researchers found “that 10 mg and 25 mg doses of psilocybin were generally well tolerated when given to up to six participants simultaneously and did not have any detrimental short- or long-term effects on cognitive functioning or emotional processing.”

• Biden’s antitrust enforcement won’t fix inflation, J.D. Tuccille writes.

• Texas massage parlors are now required to post signs about human trafficking.

• To-go cocktails in New York may be here to stay: