School Board to Approve Pay Raises for Brizard, Other Executives?

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jun 22, 2011 2:00PM

The Chicago School Board will meet today to vote for pay raises for Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard and four other school system executives. The vote comes a week after that same School Board voted to rescind a 4 percent pay raise promised to the Chicago Teachers Union for the 2012 school year.

School Board President David Vitale said the new salaries are based upon enhanced responsibilities, the compensation of previous employees and other factors. Government watchdogs such as Better Government Association Andy Shaw said that Brizard and his team should show some improvement with CPS before the School Board votes them raises.

“People who take over a struggling school system ought to implement some positive changes before they are paid higher salaries [than their predecessors]. You could argue previous salaries were too high because the performance level of the schools was dismal,’’ Shaw said.

“This will only further incense teachers.’’

The School Board enacted a "reasonable expectations" clause to rescind the pay raise to the Teachers Union and CTU President Karen Lewis filed a motion to open the rescinding to negotiations with Brizard, a step that could pave the way for a full renegotiation of CTU's contract with CPS and a possible strike.

Shouldn't the School Board apply those same reasonable expectations to Brizard and his top executives before giving them a pay raise? And doesn't this look as bad as Lewis's planned Hawaiian vacation? Like us, Edward McClelland at NBC Chicago's ward Room believes this brewing fight between the Teachers Union and CPS is Mayor Emanuel picking a fight.

Like his idol, Bill Clinton, Emanuel is trying to become a master of triangulation. The successful triangulator portrays himself as a moderate figure resisting the outrageous demands of a gang of radicals.

The difference between Emanuel and Clinton is that Clinton didn't have to go looking for enemies. Clinton had Newt Gingrich, who looked like a stuffed toad, acting as though he’d been elected president, and lost the public’s support when he shut down the government in 1995. Gingrich, who impeached Clinton for adultery while he was cheating on his own wife, was such an unsympathetic figure that Clinton was able to cruise to re-election in 1996 and add to the Democratic minority in Congress in 1998.

In politics, it’s important to choose your enemies wisely. And Emanuel has decided the enemy of Chicago’s children is an overpaid schoolteacher trying to make ends meet on less than $40,000 a year.