Chicago's "class warfare"

Meanwhile, back here in the homeland, Greg Palast exposes the reality behind the rhetoric:

CHICAGO -- In a public school with some of the poorest kids in Chicago, one English teacher who had been cemented into the school system for more than a decade and wouldn't do a damn thing to lift test scores had an annual salary of nearly $70,000 a year. Under Chicago's new rules, which holds teachers accountable and allows charter schools to compete, this seniority-bloated teacher was finally fired by her principal.

In a nearby neighborhood, a charter school had complete freedom to hire. No teachers' union interference. The school was able to bring in an innovative English teacher with advanced degrees and a national reputation in her field -- for $29,000 a year less than was paid to the teacher fired by the public school.

You've guessed it by now: It was the same teacher.

It's back-to-school time! Time for the editorialists and the Tea Party, the GOP and Barack Obama's Education Secretary Arne Duncan to rip into the people who dare teach in public schools.

Also, here's a Chicago teacher who I think summarizes the issue much better than I did the other day.

This is about remaking the 3rd largest school district in the nation as a scalable market for Rupert Murdoch's and Apple's benefit. This is about hedge fund managers placing their bets on these companies getting huge contracts in the largest school districts — that is why they have flooded Chicago with tv and radio ads demonizing teachers.

And this is about Democrats raising billions of dollars in campaign funding.

Solidarity.