Parents, union to fight Chicago school closings

Associated Press/M. Spencer Green - Deviyea Dean, an eighth grader at Mahalia Jackson Elementary School in Chicago listens as Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis speaks outside the soon to be shuttered school, Thursday, March 21, 2013, about the planned closing of public schools. The city of Chicago began informing teachers, principals and local officials Thursday about which public schools it intends to close under a contentious plan that opponents say will disproportionately affect minority students in the nation's third largest school district. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago Public Schools officials ended months of speculation when they released the list of 54 schools the city plans to close, but the pushback against Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his schools chief is likely just starting to ramp up.

As word of the schools on the long-awaited closings list trickled out Thursday, parents, teachers and community members — some furious, some in tears — vowed to fight the closings. One group took a bus of people to protest in front of the homes of school board members, and some parents spoke of a lawsuit. The Chicago Teachers Union already had scheduled a mass protest march through downtown for next week.

"We are the City of Big Shoulders and so we intend to put up a fight," union President Karen Lewis said. "We don't know if we can win, but if you don't fight, you will never win at all."

Emanuel and schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett say the closures are necessary because too many Chicago Public School buildings are half-empty, with 403,000 students in a system that has seats for more than 500,000. But opponents say the closures will further erode troubled neighborhoods and endanger students who may have to cross gang boundaries to attend school. The schools slated for closure are all elementary schools and are overwhelmingly black and in low-income neighborhoods.

About 30,000 students will be affected by the plan, with about half that number moving into new schools.

CPS officials say money being spent to keep underused schools open could be better used to educate students elsewhere as the district deals with a $1 billion budget deficit. The district says it will invest money to improve schools that are welcoming new students. The funds will be used to add better technology, air conditioning, tutoring services, increased security and other services. CPS says it also will ensure every school has a library and that students no longer are learning in dilapidated buildings.

"We know this is going to be difficult, but we believe it's the right thing to do," said CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll. "I'm sure any parent would stand up and say they want a better education for their child. And in order for that to happen, we have to do this and move on."

Carroll said public hearings will be scheduled over the next two months, and CPS officials will meet one-on-one and in small groups with parents to make sure they understand what's happening.

Chicago officials have moved to close schools in the past, but never anywhere near the number designated at one time by the Emanuel administration. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration spread school closings over a number of years. CPS, the nation's third-largest school district, now has 681 schools.

Chicago is among several major U.S. cities, including Philadelphia, Washington and Detroit, to use mass school closures to reduce costs and offset declining enrollment. Detroit has closed more than 130 schools since 2005, including more than 40 in 2010 alone.

The issue has again pitted Emanuel against the Chicago Teachers Union, whose 26,000 members went on strike early in the school year, idling students for seven days. Chicago aldermen and other lawmakers also have blasted the plan.

Among the critics is Eular Hatchett, who lives in the violence-plagued neighborhood of North Lawndale and walks her 13-year-old nephew DaVontay Horace to school.

"Our parents know about this area," she said. "They don't know about those other areas. If they send him way north or way south, I'm not going to do that. It's too dangerous."

Because some schools have more than one building, a total of 61 structures will be closed. In addition to the closures, students at 11 other schools will be "co-located" with existing schools. Six schools have been targeted for academic interventions known as "turnaround."

The vast majority of the 54 schools are in overwhelmingly black neighborhoods that have lost residents in recent years. The city's black population dropped 17 percent in the last census as African-Americans moved out to the suburbs and elsewhere. The other few schools are majority Hispanic or mixed black and Hispanic. Overall, 91 percent of Chicago public school students are minorities.

CPS says the plan will save the district $560 million over 10 years in capital costs and an additional $43 million per year in operating costs.

District officials said they couldn't calculate how many teachers will be laid off as a result of the cuts because school leaders will make decisions about their own budgets.

Rosemary Maurello, a teacher at Lafayette Elementary, said she's worried about where her students will end up after that school closes. As a tenured teacher, the contract allows her to follow her students to their new school, but she wonders whether some of them will opt to go to other schools instead.

The district has plans for community organizations to help students get to their new locations safely, but Maurello wonders how long that will last.

"I truly believe that it's going to be chaos," she said.

Crisis in Cyprus threatens EU role and legitimacy

Banking crisis in tiny Cyprus threatens European Union legitimacy, solidarity

Associated Press -

BERLIN (AP) -- By rejecting an EU bailout and turning to Russia for help, Cyprus has exposed the growing frustration and dwindling solidarity within the European Union, a bloc meant to bring the continent closer together after World War II.

While talks about a Russian rescue appeared stalled Friday, experts noted that the idea of seeking Russian money alone raised doubts about the legitimacy of the European project — notably over perceived German dominance and threats to national sovereignty. The extraordinary spectacle of an EU member seeking salvation from the old Cold War enemy has raised deep questions about how farEurope can or will go to take care of its own.

"It will raise many issues about the legitimacy of the European Union," said Vassilis Monastiriotis, an expert on southeastern Europe at the London School of Economics. "(Other) countries may seek financial help from China or Arab states and this may disintegrate the European Union, making it less relevant as an institution."

Ever since the financial crisis five years ago put pressure on heavily indebted countries — from Greece to Portugal to Ireland — the bailouts have become as much a political as an economic issue, with wealthy Germany taking on the role of bogeyman because of its insistence on strict austerity measures as a condition for help.

The proposed bailout for Cyprus ratcheted up the potential pain by demanding for the first time that depositors help pay for the rescue with their own savings.

Senior European lawmakers raised the alarm Thursday at the possibility of letting Russia ride to the rescue of a nation that represents — with a mere 0.2 percent — a tiny part of the eurozone economy. Many Russians have business interests and hefty bank deposits on the island, and Moscow — flush with oil and gas rubles — could easily afford to extend a 2.5 billion euro loan that it gave Cyprus in 2011 and lower repayment rates.

In return for provide fresh cash or taking over one of the island's ailing banks, analysts have suggested that Russia might demand an interest in natural gas fields that Cyprus has discovered in the Mediterranean.

But Russia's finance minister, Anton Siluanov, told Russian news agencies that investors weren't interested and a Russian loan would push Cyprus over the debt limit demanded by the EU.

"We need a European solution to the Cyprus problem, not an external one," European Parliament lawmakers from across the political spectrum said in a statement.

The biggest hurdle to a quick deal is without doubt Germany.

Government officials from Chancellor Angela Merkel down know that it would be difficult to sell her countrymen on the idea of bailing out Cyprus, because unlike with Greece, Italy or Spain, there is little sympathy for a country seen as a haven for tax evasion and the ill-gotten gains of shady Russian oligarchs.

That leaves little room for Merkel to maneuver at home, especially as she is seeking re-election this year.

Germany's opposition Social Democrats, too, have insisted that Cyprus needs to change its business model but warned of the risk of letting the Cyprus problem drag on.

"The crisis is causing serious collateral damage," said Michael Roth, the party's spokesman on Europe. "There's a crisis of faith and solidarity in Europe and at a time when more solidarity would be necessary it's the bean counters who are calling the shots."

Roth said much of the problem lay in mistaken perceptions on both sides. Germans needed to be reminded that they have profited from the overall European economic crisis that has produced low interest rates; Greeks, Irish and Cypriots needed to accept that the bailout packages weren't all about austerity but contained a good deal of financial aid, too, he said.

In Cyprus, much of the fury arose over a proposal to tap the bank accounts of all savers, breaking a taboo in Europe where deposits of up to 100,000 euros ($129,000) are meant to be protected by law. The plan was backed by Cyprus itself before street protests prompted a U-turn in parliament Tuesday.

Some experts say resentment toward Cyprus has compounded the problem.

"I think patience with Cyprus was running out also on other issues, such as its intransigence over the (Turkish) north and its history of encouraging tax evasion," said Josef Janning, a political scientist at the German Council on Foreign Relations, an independent think tank in Berlin.

Cyprus has refused to budge in long-running negotiations to find a political solution for the breakaway Turkish north of the island, which Nicosia refuses to recognize.

Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, a conservative paper widely read in government and business circles, accused Cyprus on Thursday of trying to blackmail the European Union and warned that if it succeeded, other countries such as Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ireland might follow suit.

"If this strategy of blackmail in Cyprus works then there would indeed be a domino effect," the paper said in an op-ed. "The basis of the entire rescue policy, which can be summed up in the idea that solidarity entails (economic) solidity, would lose credibility."

In Spain, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy didn't mention Merkel or Germany but criticized the plan for Cyprus in comments to reporters, saying he was "opposed to people losing their savings, because they are not in any way responsible in this matter."

Experts said Spanish politicians are nervous about the impact of the Cyprus deal, but not in panic mode at this point.

"Due to the numerous economic differences between the two countries, we have not yet seen serious spillovers in Spain due to this deal. However, the fear is that this deal could lead to an overall loss of confidence in Spanish banks, which in turn could lead to future political problems," said Morten Olsen, an economics professor at the IESE Business School in Madrid.

Germany's Foreign Minister warned Friday that Cyprus was revealing Europe's inability to make decisions.

"We all need to work hard to overcome this challenge," he told ARD public television, before insisting, once again, that German money comes with strings attached. "We are ready to show solidarity but in return those countries that are asking for solidarity need to be prepared to do their homework. If that doesn't happen, then it (solidarity) can't be granted. "

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3 dead, including suspect, in Marine base shooting

Indians, police clash at Rio Indian museum

Indigenous people and their supporters hold a baby while shouting to police as they stay inside the old Indian Museum in Rio de Janeiro, Friday, March 22, 2013. Police have surrounded Rio's Indian Museum complex next to the legendary Maracana stadium in a bid to expel a group of indigenous people and their supporters. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Supporters of the indigenous people who have been occupying the old Indian Museum are grabbed by riot police as they blocked the road outside the museum in Rio de Janeiro, Friday, March 22, 2013. The clash Friday is a bid to expel the group, some of whom have been squatting in the crumbling complex for years. The Indian museum has been at the center of a drawn-out legal battle between the several dozen Indians who've been living there for years and state and local authorities. Officials initially wanted to raze the complex as part of renovations ahead of Brazil's 2014 World Cup. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)