I gotta give a shout-out to Ron Huberman for a masterful performance at his June 28 press conference.
But as I reported in April, hundreds of central office salaries, including Huberman’s own, have been hiked in the last year. And he’s continuing to hire new employees for the central office—he recently posted three positions in the office of Academic Enhancement, each of which pays up to $136,000 a year. And the Board of Education hiked its own allowance to cover travel, seminars, subscriptions, and other expenses.
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And (you knew this was coming) Huberman and the board continue to look the other way as Mayor Daley diverts up to $250 million in property tax dollars from the schools to the tax increment financing program.
I can’t say for certain what Mayor Daley told Huberman after all those parents left City Hall. But any savvy politician will tell you there’s nothing more daunting than a chorus of riled-up moms and dads rallying around their children’s education. And Daley’s a very savvy politician.
Rangel’s attitude toward patronage and government was perhaps best expressed in an op-ed he wrote for the Tribune in 2006 in defense of the Hispanic Democratic Organization, Mayor Daley’s chief get-out-the-vote operation, which is manned by city and county workers. “This is not to argue that HDO be free of criticism or even a direct challenge,” Rangel wrote as HDO leaders faced federal corruption charges. “But these can hardly be arguments against building power through patronage. Quite the contrary, the success of HDO and its predecessors should be a defense of this brand of political empowerment in its purest form.”
The charter teachers’ salaries aren’t listed on the site because technically they’re not CPS employees—they’re private contractors. So if Rangel says he’s freezing their wages, we’ll have to take his word for it. Not that I really doubt it. Actually, I’m more curious about the salaries of UNO’s top administrators—like Rangel.
