Basket of deplorable Chicago Democrats get their just desserts.
The Chicago Teachers Union is in charge.
Allison Arwady
It’s not like nobody knew that a vote for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was a vote for putting the Chicago Teacher’s Union in charge of the struggling once-great city.
The most recent and obvious proof is Johnson’s firing of Public Health commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady. Done on a Friday, which is when most people announce something bad so it won’t get as much press attention. Johnson didn’t do it himself; had an underling called her. She wasn’t allowed to say good by to her staff.
Not that it was just cowardly and rude. Dr. Arwady had drawn the ire of the Chicago Teachers Union because she advocated opening the schools earlier than what the union wanted. What the union wanted turned out to be what should not have happened. Everyday it seems another study shows up concluding that the caged-at-home students suffered greatly.
As usual, that mattered not to the greedy, self-absorbed union. Despite the difficulty that some dedicated teachers had with remote learning, it was the union membership that benefited.
Putting teachers and staff first is the union’s ethos. There have been eleven Chicago teachers strikes since 1969. The 1969 strike was the longest, lasting more than 19 days and blackjacking the school system to surrender a two-year, eight-percent raise.
Chicago voters (well at least the ones who know whom they’re voting for) knew that Johnson was a CTU handmaiden. He worked for the union as an organizer. He was a nobody, a complete unknown. But the union had to do something because the other mayoral candidate was the no-nonsense, straight-arrow and smart Paul Vallas. His record as the head of the Chicago school system and his talent for rescuing broken schools, like the one in Karina hurricane-devastated New Orleans, promised that he would put the city back on the right track. He had decades of public administration jobs; Johnson had none.
That, the union could not abide.
The CTU and the state teachers union plowed almost $2 million into the campaign. That and old-style, door-to-door campaigning conducted by the organization crafted the most startling come-from-behind win I’ve ever witnessed.
Johnson had promised during the campaign to replace Arwady because she had opposed the union’s prolonged advocacy of unwise and lengthy school closings. Despite pleas that came from many corners to keep her, everyone knows she was dead meat from the day Johnson was elected.
The mayor threw up a smokescreen to justify the firing. As the Chicago Tribune noted,
Awady became a household name during the pandemic, providing regulator updates on cases numbers and restrictions, rolling out vaccination efforts and explaining how people could best protect themselves from infection. But she was criticized in some circles for being too hasty in loosening pandemic restrictions, especially in reopening public schools and went against activists demands regarding environment permitting mental health services.
In addition to her leader ship on COVID-19, Arwady pushed to expand mental health services citywide and the “Family Connects” program providing in-home nursing visits for newborns and was a driving force behind an executive order on environmental justice that Lightfoot issued at the end of her term. Arwady also worked to ensure equitable vaccine access for vulnerable Black and brown residents when the vaccine became available. [My emphasis,]
Johnson was in favor of reopening mental health clinics. I’m for that. But as a campaign difference between the two...well, as I said, it’s a smokescreen, concocted to hide the real reason for her firing.
The many Chicagoans who supported Vallas don’t deserve this. One can only take cover now for the next CTU directive handed down to Johnson.