Rahm kept his “promise”

Regardless of what side of the equation you come down on when it comes to public school versus private school, there’s one thing we can say about Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

EMANUEL: Sending his kids to the South Side



He didn’t lie to us back during the campaign season.

EMANUEL TOOK CRITICISM last year when he said he and his wife, Amy Rule, were considering sending their three children to private schools in the city, rather than have them attend a school in the Chicago Public Schools system.

Now, it’s no longer being considered. It is fact. Both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times used their websites to report Thursday that the three Emanuel kids – who finished the old school year in Washington, D.C. – will transfer this fall to the Lab School that is affiliated with the University of Chicago.

Much is being made of the fact that the Lab School is the same school that Barack and Michelle Obama sent their daughters to, back before he got elected president and they moved to Washington.

But that school has been around and included so many more among its alumni (retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, former Paramount Studios head Sherry Lansing and presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett, just to name a few) that it has become an integral part of the city’s character.

I REALLY CAN’T say I’d blame Emanuel for wanting his children to attend that school.

But there are those who now want to lambast the mayor for not showing a sign of faith in the Chicago Public Schools by sending his children there.

I couldn’t help but notice the Sun-Times account included quotes from former mayoral opponent Gery Chico criticizing Emanuel, reminding us that this was a campaign issue.

Although I have to admit that hearing a repeat of his criticism, along with his reminder that he and his daughters attended schools in the Chicago Public Schools system, came across as sour grapes.

I’D HOPE THAT Chico isn’t still feeling this intense about the issue. If he did, it would say something more negative about Chico than it does about Emanuel.

Personally, I don’t think many people in Chicago are going to hold it against Rahm. Unless they’re the kind of people who for politically partisan reasons want to trash him. In which case, it wouldn’t have mattered where he sent his kids to school.

The fact is that for people who are determined to live in Chicago no matter what the circumstances, the whole “public” versus “private” debate is one they carry out in their own families.

In fact, a part of me has always wondered if the quintessential Chicago “experience” also has to include a stint in a private school – most likely one run by the Catholic Archdiocese in Chicago.

IT JUST SEEMS that, whether for religious reasons or other factors, a lot of people decide to pick educational alternatives for their children other than the Chicago Public Schools.

Which is a problem for the city. Because those schools can cost money, and not everybody is capable of affording the tuition. Many don’t even want to hear the word “tuition” until it is time to think of paying to send their children to some sort of college.

If anything, that is the reason why the suburban part of the Chicago area is twice as large as the city proper. Many parents wanted that public school option, and felt that it was only doable (and affordable) in a suburb.

It creates the phenomenon of parents desperately trying to move to select suburbs that happen to be included in school districts that are more respectable. Perhaps if the Chicago Public Schools were more respectable overall, we wouldn’t have so many young parents with four-year-olds deciding it is time to leave Chicago proper.

IT IS FOR that reason that Emanuel ought to be making a priority of trying to work with the Chicago Public Schools to improve their overall quality. That ultimately is what will keep more people in the city. I don’t necessarily see it as being hypocritical that Emanuel talks of wanting to improve public education, while sending his own children to private schools.

If anything, the Chicago experience is that mixture of people who were educated both “public” and “private.” There are advantages to each.

And while there are some interesting programs within the Chicago Public School system that offer students opportunities to learn, there simply aren’t enough quality slots for the large student body.

Which is what creates the masses of public school students who are sloughing along in mediocrity. And which is what needs to be addressed, and resolved.

IN FACT, THERE’S really only one issue I have with the idea of Emanuel’s kids attending the Hyde Park neighborhood school.

Personally, I welcome them to the South Side (even though one can argue that Hyde Park is really a world in-and-of itself). But if the Emanuel family plans to keep living in that Ravenswood neighborhood home that just recently became vacant (their renter finally left), that is going to be a long haul for those three kids every day.

Unless there will be some sort of mayoral driver with a city-owned car transporting those kids half-way across the city to get them to school. In which case, THAT would become the controversy.

  -30-

How important is 'public' vs. 'private'

I am a Chicago native and a graduate of the public schools, but I am not of the Chicago Public Schools.

CHICO: Public, and proud of it!


So this isn’t going to be a diatribe taking Rahm Emanuel down a notch or two because he won’t immediately commit to sending his three school-age children to a public school within the city limits.

BUT I DO believe that educational quality is important, and that a public school system is an important criteria in determining the overall quality of life within the city limits. There have been too many young couples who left Chicago because their young children were old enough for school, and they didn’t trust the neighborhood schools.

It creates the image of a city for either the elite or the losers of our society, with no one from in between being capable of living there.

I know in my own case, my parents left Chicago proper two months before I was scheduled to begin kindergarten – for that exact reason. My mother, a product of Chicago’s Catholic schools, didn’t want me enduring what used to pass for discipline in the parochial schools, but didn’t trust the city’s public school system either.

Which is why although I have lived my adult life continually moving into, and out of, the city (based on various jobs throughout the years) and consider myself a Chicago native, I claim South Holland-based Thornwood High (Class of ’83) as the alma mater.

A PART OF me wonders if this makes me a part of the problem facing our urban area. Perhaps if we thought more of our home city, we would have stayed and tried to cope and address the problems facing our neighborhoods – rather than fleeing.

EMANUEL: Private? Does it matter?



Mayoral hopeful (and former school board President) Gery Chico is trying to take advantage of people who might feel the same way, making an issue Wednesday against Emanuel – pointing out he and his own children went to public schools in the city.

By comparison, Emanuel told reporter-types that he has to talk with his wife first before deciding where their three kids would go to school, if he gets elected mayor. For the time being, they remain in a private school in the District of Columbia – which makes them just like many government officials who live a few years in Washington (including the Obamas).

I won’t be surprised if, in the end, Emanuel winds up deciding that some form of private school is best for his own kids. I’m not even sure I would hold it against him, even though I realize it would be a great show of faith in the city if he did send his kids to a public school.

BUT WOULD THAT be a real gesture, or just an attempt to use his kids as political pawns to bolster his own political credibility? Which means a part of me might be inclined to hold it against him if his kids do wind up in a public school.

In short, it’s not an easy issue to address, although I do realize that a mayor has to be concerned about public education. The problems of the public school system are those of the mayor just as much as those of the superintendent and the Board of Education.

But I also realize that being a product of a public school isn’t necessarily a quintessential part of being a Chicagoan (or does anyone think a place like Mount Carmel isn’t urban?). This is a place where the Catholic church is predominant and many people for their own religious reasons would never dream of letting their kids be “tainted” by the influence of a public education.

Personally, I think it is their loss. I think my own public school education exposed me to more people and forced me to cope with different situations than I would have encountered in any kind of private school environment.

BUT IT ALSO is their choice, and I’m not about to make an issue about one’s educational choice.

Not that I expect Emanuel (who is Jewish) to enroll his kids in a Catholic school – although the modern-day reality of Catholic schools in Chicago is that many of the students aren’t Catholic. I still remember once interviewing officials at DeLaSalle Institute (a quintessential Chicago high school if there ever was one) and having them tell me about students who were Muslim.

But I don’t see the difference between a school overseen by the Chicago Archdiocese or any other private group. They all are a part of the experience of being a Chicagoan.

So Chico may be “really committed” to Chicago and think that his own educational experience is evidence of that. But I’m not sure I want to take this particular issue and attach any real significance to it.

IN PART, BECAUSE I realize my own life experience would make me unfit to live by such a standard.

But also, because I’m not sure it matters all that much. Part of what makes life in Chicago interesting is that it is a mixture of people who have made various choices on how to live their lives, even though they’re living in proximity to each other.

If we really wanted a lifestyle where everybody lived alike, we’d have been among those who fled Chicago and never set foot within the city limits under any circumstance.

That would be boring.

  -30-

TRANSITION TIDBITS: Both sides’ hard-liners spew nonsense political talk

During the now-complete presidential campaign season, I lost count of the number of times that Republican partisans tried to link President-elect Barack Obama to leaders of foreign countries with interests hostile to those of the United States.

They took the fact that Obama said during a debate in Austin, Texas, that he’d be willing to meet with Cuba’s leadership in hopes of achieving a normalization of relations as evidence that he was naïve and would be duped by those foreign leaders.

EVENTUALLY, IT BECAME an “unholy trio” of leaders who allegedly would sucker a President Obama – Raul Castro of Cuba, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and the topper of the bunch, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.

But now, the tables appear to be turned. It seems that the hard-liners of Iran are fearful that their president is falling for Obamamania and could wind up getting suckered into some agreement by “the Great Satan” otherwise known as the United States of America.

Specifically, leaders of the parliament in Iran are upset that Ahmadinejad sent a letter last week to Obama, congratulating him on his electoral victory and urging him to be a “good president,” without specifying what constitutes “good.”

It turns out that no Iranian leader has made such a goodwill gesture to a U.S. leader literally since the days of the Shah back in the 1970s. The hard-liners of the Iranian government aren’t sure what to make of such a gesture, similar to how the hard-liners of the U.S. government want to somehow believe that trying to establish contact with foreign leaders is a suspicious concept in and of itself.

NOW I’M NOT trying to defend Ahmadinejad or his record in office. There definitely is reason for the two countries to remain suspicious of each other.

But this affair ought to be used as evidence of how ridiculous campaign rhetoric can be. Every single person (http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/10/Iranian_parliament_to_probe_Obama_letter/UPI-97261226335088/) who was spewing this line of “logic” was also touting the idea that Obama was a socialist. Is it possible that both arguments are ridiculous?

Besides, the recent history of both the United States and Iran contains incidents that make the other distrustful – “they” seized control of “our” embassy and took embassy employees hostage for nearly a year-and-a-half, while “we” threw our support behind Saddam Hussein when he decided to wage war against Iran.

What else is notable about the events of recent days as this country tries to prepare itself for a City Hall takeover of the District of Columbia?

PRIVATE SCHOOL FOLLIES: I’m waiting to see how long it takes for some conservative pundit to turn the Obamas’ choice of education for their two daughters into a reason to bash him.

While most of the attention at the White House was paid Monday to the president-elect meeting with President George Bush, what caught my attention was that he got to come back to Chicago Monday night while future first lady Michelle Obama (a.k.a., Renaissance) remained in the District of Columbia.

She plans to spend some time Tuesday touring schools to figure out just where Malia and Sasha will transfer to when the family Obama moves to Washington in January.

What makes it a conservative issue is the fact that she planned to look at private schools (just like every other presidential kid in recent years). How long until we hear that the Obamas are liberal hypocrites for not putting their kids in public schools? Just because the campaign’s over does not mean the trash talk ends. It is the responsibility of every person in this country to see such silliness for what it really is – and then ignore it.

SHE’S AT IT AGAIN: With Rahm Emanuel becoming the White House chief of staff, that creates an opening in the Illinois congressional delegation. And unlike the U.S. Senate vacancy to be filled by Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the House seat from Chicago’s Northwest Side will be filled by special election.

Various reports have as many as 10 people with delusions that they can move up to Congress – including the daughter of Alderman Dick Mell (and sister-in-law of the governor) who has yet to serve one day in the Illinois House seat she won in last week’s elections.

The name that caught my attention was that of Nancy Kaszak, a former state legislator and attorney for the Chicago Park District. She twice has run for the congressional seat – only to lose to Rod Blagojevich in 1996 and Emanuel in 2002.

I still remember how Kaszak’s ’02 campaign became the darling of the “good government” types who were disgusted that a political player like Emanuel would represent them. Could this year be THE YEAR that she finally gets to be the female equivalent of Mr. Smith?

WHAT DO SANTA CLAUS AND JOE BIDEN HAVE IN COMMON?: Philadelphia sports fans don’t like either one of them.

The incoming vice president from Delaware was at the Philadelphia Eagles/New York Giants game on Sunday, and when a video screen in the stadium showed Joe Biden among the crowd, the fans boo-ed. This (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/10/biden-booed-at-eagles-giants-game/) despite the fact that the Obama/Biden ticket took Pennsylvania’s Electoral College votes with strong support in Philadelphia.

Some observers noted that GOP VP dreamer Sarah Palin got similar treatment when she appeared at a Philadelphia Flyers hockey game during the campaign. But this is literally the city that once boo-ed (and threw snowballs at) a Santa Claus figure that rode his “sleigh” across the field in mid-game.

-30-