Tue Oct 7, 2008 at 12:20 AMBy: George N. Schmidt Monday Morning News, Part 1 What outrages me about the explosion at Foreman High School is that the whole thing is predictable, every year, and that every year each of these "incidents" is reported by our colleagues in the media out of context and with as much insight as we get from sports roundups from another state. With our media having been stripped of decent reporters who know a little about the schools and the city, we're as big a joke as that last season of "The Wire" (where the tragedies of the schools and the imbecility of corporate media interact with political ambition to create something truly sad, and fatal to many people too powerless to get out of the way).

Bot these news reports are silly, or worse. Downright misleading.

The score card is limited to number of arrests, a couple of quotes (usually from CPS and police, with a gag order on the people from the local school).

Everyone knows (and I've written here earlier this school year) that the general high schools -- thanks primarily to Renaissance 2010 -- are under enormous and increasing pressure to take in the "worst" kids from across the city, while the charter schools, Turnaround schools, and "Renaissance" schools are allowed to limit both input and control output (i.e., kicking out the kids who are likely to cause trouble).

The cause of half the discipline and security problems across the northwest side is Arne Duncan's privatization programs. This year, the dumping came from Orr, which kicked out kids who wouldn't sign "contracts" so that AUSL could have better scores next Spring. The northwest side has been under pressure every year -- since 2004! -- since Arne Duncan was allowed to close Austin High School, and to this day the high school age students in the Austin community do not have a general high school they can attend.

Also a major factor are the gangs that the Daley administration has allowed to run amock across half the wards in Chicago, while our mayor was either State's Attorney or Mayor. If, as the Sun-Times reports, ten of those arrested "at Foreman" were "adults", it would be important to know which gang those "adults" belonged to -- and how many of them were students at Foreman High School.

From the days when I used to try and deal with these gangs things while at Amundsen (as LSC member and union delegate) and then more directly at Bowen (as union delegate and gang security coordinator) all the way through my years as Director of Security and Safety at the CTU, it's been an open secret which gangs are vying to control (or do control) which high schools. The fact that "People" control Amundsen, for example, into the third decade (Latin Kings; Black Stones; Gaylords -- but not MLDs or Disciples of any kind) should be an open scandal in CPS and for Chicago. Instead, it's business as usual.

And I also hear that CPS officials have been helping the mayor's minions cover up that gun inside Washington High School last Spring. Washington is about 20 miles from Foreman, but the political dynamics are the same: cover up the gang problems and blame the teachers and the school for all of the turmoil.

When I moved out of my office at the Chicago Teachers Union, we had developed a system for identifying (accurately and in a timely manner) which gangs were vying for hegemony at which schools (there are elementary schools where these problems are even greater than the high schools, because security is less in the elementary schools and middle schools).

Marilyn Stewart destroyed all that. And those services to the teachers and other union members haven't been revived, despite the fact that (according to my sources, which improve with each passing day) the gang problems are more dangerous within Chicago's general high schools (and about a hundred elementary schools) than ever before in history.

As long as CTU is allied with the Daley coverup of these massive gang problems, this will continue. Anyone who wants to see just how wide and deep the gangs are involved in Chicago should be involved in precinct work between now and 7:00 p.m. on November 4 in just about any inner city ward. That experience would give people greater insight into how Chicago really works than all the "Olympics 2016" videos and plannings.