Web updates on Bush Chicago visit completed

[Csubstance@aol.com]

January 12, 2008

Colleagues and friends:

We have finally completed all of our Web updates of President Bush's visit to 
Chicago on Monday to mark the sixth anniversary of the signing of No Child 
Left Behind.

This material is not at the top of our Home Page at

www.substancenews.net

Included in our "Web Special" are my original article on the visit; a 
verbatim transcript (provided by the White House) of what Bush said inside Greeley 
Elementary School; ten photographs (seven from Substance; three from the "press 
pool"); and a video that partly depicts my Michael Moore routine trying to get 
the Chicago Police to honor their own press credentials and let the Substance 
team inside Greeley while the President was declaiming and doing his media 
event.

This is as far as we are going with this exclusive "Web update" of Substance 
because of the seriousness of the event and the importance of getting out as 
much information as possible. We also think that this material, in context, can 
help expose how limited the corporate version of events, as portrayed in any 
of the other media, can be in the face of a news story this important. 

We printed and mailed the January 2008 copy of the print edition of Substance 
with this same information (minus the video) on January 10. This same 
information is now going to our print subscribers, many of whom do not have Web 
access.

We also hope you will take this opportunity to subscribe to Substance, print 
edition.

After you have seen our Web site, here is why:

Our policy is to delay the publication of print edition content on the 
Substance Web site until 60 days after print publication. 

Unlike most publications devoted to debate over public education, we are not 
subsidized by corporations, foundations, or other entities that might try to 
influence our coverage of the news. As a result, we have to depend completely 
on paid subscriptions to the print edition. It may be that we are the only 
publication in the debate over No Child Left Behind that can say this. As you 
know, Catalyst and Education Week depend on hundreds of thousands of dollars per 
year in corporate money to sustain their operations. Other publications -- 
including some devoted to "school reform" -- may be in a similar situation, but I 
haven't checked their financials lately. 

Independence that enables us to do what we did after hearing about the 
pending Bush Chicago visit comes at a terrible price sometimes. As many here know, 
we were sued for more than $1 million nine years ago by Mayor Daley's school 
board for publishing Chicago's ridiculous CASE tests (home grown monstrosities). 
That lawsuit cost us more than a quarter of a million dollars in legal fees 
to defend (none of the constitutional rights law groups would help us, so 
fearful they are of the Daley administration). Although we won on the damages 
question (the Chicago Board of Education withdrew their damages claim, stipulating 
that "zero" was their final demand after having spent three years claiming, in 
effect, that I had stolen a million dollars from the children of Chicago). 

Unfortunately, the right of the Chicago Board of Education to fire me from my 
teaching job was upheld by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (Posner) so 
ours was a mixed victory. I have since been blacklisted from public school 
teaching in both Chicago and the Chicago suburbs. This has happened after I spent 
28 years in the classroom, and despite my teaching record (which began with my 
degree from the University of Chicago and continued through several inner 
city high schools in Chicago long before most people cared how "highly qualified" 
we should have been). 

Substance needs your subscription (and donations) now.

Subscriptions are $16 per year, payable to Substance, and mailed to: 

Substance
5132 W. Berteau
Chicago, IL 60641.

We take checks and money orders, but do not presently have Visa or Master 
Card capabilities. 

Happy New Year.

George N. Schmidt
Editor, Substance

www.substancenews.net

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