The Windy City has long been a laboratory for free market fundamentalism. But the election of Mayor Brandon Johnson and a landmark number of left-wing City Council members indicates the emergence of a new Chicago school.
The Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators was formed in 2008 when a group of educators and union members came together to transform the Chicago Teachers Union. What they would build would end up changing the city and country forever.
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How a TikTok video helped these college students collect over 200,000 products to help fight period poverty
By Anjali Hyunh and Saba Hamedy, CNN
Updated 1:05 AM ET, Sun April 11, 2021
Alexa Mohsenzadeh, co-founder of Her Drive, holds up donated bras for the group s first Chicago-based drive in July of 2020. (CNN)When Alexa Mohsenzadeh and Jenica Baron posted a video of bras on a fence to TikTok last July, they didn t expect to go viral.
The 19-year-olds from Barrington, Illinois, were promoting a collection drive for bras and hygiene products in the Chicago area, advertising free shipping labels for anyone who donated.
Speaking at the 2014 Labor Notes Conference in Chicago, Karen Lewis drove home the importance of building a militant, bottom-up labor movement. The speech is characteristically funny, engaging, and powerful. Watch it here. Photo: Jim West/jimwestphoto.com
Karen Lewis, the Chicago Teachers Union president who led the landmark 2012 strike, died February 7. Her generosity, charisma, and indomitable strength of purpose were gifts to labor organizers across the country who watched, learned, listened, and stepped up themselves.
She inspired a whole host of educators who had been looking for a way forward in the midst of orchestrated attacks on public schools and educators. Around the country teachers were facing weaponized high-stakes testing, defunding, charter schools, and privatization.