I’ve been around Chicago long enough to realize that if you want an accurate account of how our government works, you shouldn’t pick up any campaign literature during election season.
In the flyer, Mitchell uses a Q&A format to claim to be a leader in the movement for an elected school board: “Question: Who represents us on our school board?
Not surprisingly, the current board ends up acting as a wholly owned subsidiary of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. It routinely approves whatever budget cuts, school closings, and charter handouts he proposes—and it does so with indifference to the crying and cajoling of the parents, students, and teachers most affected by the mayor’s cruel policies.
The mayor’s lobbyists worked against it. And house speaker Michael Madigan made sure it never got out of the house rules committee—which, like its City Council counterpart, serves as a graveyard for proposals the power brokers don’t favor.
“Yes, he did.”
In this case, Travis and KOCO were early and impassioned fighters against school closings and for an elected school board.
