Re: Web updates on Bush Chicago visit completed

[aburke5054@aol.com]

The reason none of the "constitutional rights law groups" took your 
case is that none of them could seriously argue that you have a First 
Ameendment right to publish the Chicago tests wholesale in your 
newspaper.  Your argument that you have such right was scathinlgly 
demolished by the Appeals Court.  You are not a victim of corporate 
oppression, you are a victim of your own folly.  Move on.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Csubstance@aol.com
To: ElsaHaas@si.rr.com; arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 1:13 am
Subject: [arn-l] Web updates on Bush Chicago visit completed

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

Csubstance@aol.com <BR><BR><BR>**************<BR>Start the year off 
right.
Easy ways to stay in shape.<BR>
http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aolcmp00300000002489</HTML>
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