Latest news with #RahmEmanuel
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Opinion - On education reform, Rahm Emanuel talks a big game but is unlikely to deliver
San Francisco's public high schools recently tried to implement a massive change to their grading system— part of a 'grading for equity' program under which students can pass with scores as low as 41 percent. Moreover, homework, attendance and classroom participation would no longer factor into students' grades, which would instead depend mainly on a final exam — which, of course, they could retake multiple times if needed. Understandably, parents were outraged, in particular because this absurd system has been adopted by other cities and has failed to improve performance. After receiving 'significant backlash,' the plan was canceled. What a shock. Our public schools are in trouble, and even Democrats are noticing. Politico reports that Rahm Emanuel, former congressman, chief of staff to President Obama, Chicago mayor and ambassador to Japan, wants to run for president in 2028 on a platform of education reform. Emanuel has reportedly been 'road testing the outlines of a stump speech,' and it's a good one. He recently said in an interview, 'I am done with the discussion of locker rooms, I am done with the discussion of bathrooms and we better start having a conversation about the classroom.' Later, Emanuel told Bill Maher, 'We literally are a superpower, we're facing off against China with 1.4 billion people and two-thirds of our children can't read eighth grade level.' The feisty former mayor is stealing a powerful issue from the Republican playbook. It's a gutsy move. Attacking our education establishment, and especially calling out the teachers' unions, has long been the third rail of Democratic politics. The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are, to lefty politicians, the most sacred of sacred cows. Not only do those two organizations claim enormous membership rolls — the NEA has 3 million members and the AFT has 1.8 million — that can help get out the vote and mobilize the public, they also spend tens of millions of dollars for political candidates, with more than 90 percent going to Democrats. For proof, look at the 2023 mayoral race in Chicago, during which both the disgraceful shortcomings of the city's schools and rampant crime were on the ballot. Paul Vallas, a tough-on-crime Democrat known as an accomplished school reformer, faced off against another Democrat, Brandon Johnson, a former teacher and labor organizer who was the favorite of the Chicago Teachers Union and its nearly 30,000 members. The race should not have been close. Vallas had a track record of success and the backing of the police. But he lost to Johnson anyway, who received over $5 million from CTU and other teachers' unions. From 2011 to 2019, Emanuel served as mayor of the Windy City. During those years he attempted school reform and took on the teachers' unions. The sparring resulted in the strike of 2012, which unions today celebrate because they won significant concessions, such as higher pay and reduced accountability. That strike also squashed the budding reform movement that had led to some school closings and efforts to set higher standards. It is credited with paving the way for similar walkouts in Los Angeles, Oakland, and Denver in the years that followed. The CTU calls the 2012 work stoppage 'The strike that brought teachers unions back from the dead.' All of this makes Emanuel a peculiar person to talk up school reform. That's not to say he isn't right in calling out the failures of our public education. In his home city, testing from last year showed that fewer than one in three students could read and fewer than one in five could do math at their elementary grade level. Among Chicago's 11th graders, only 22.4 percent could read at grade level in 2024, and only 18.6 percent performed math proficiently. This is unacceptable. Nationally, the news is grim as well. The most recent assessments from the Program for International Student Assessment tests 15-year-olds in over 65 countries; the U.S. places 18th overall, with an overall score of 1468, well below leader Singapore's 1679 and runner-up China's 1605. In math, the U.S. comes in 26th. The Chamber of Commerce Foundation reports that students in Singapore 'scored 110 points more than their American peers [in math] — five staggering academic years ahead of U.S. students.' As they point out, 'These results have huge implications for the United States' global competitiveness and national security.' Our country's education system is not short of money; U.S. public schools are spending over $17,000 per student on K-12 education. In 2019, our outlays per pupil were 38 percent above the level of other OECD countries. Something is wrong with this picture, and America's parents know it. We should care not only about national security and U.S. competitiveness, of course; we should also care about the kids — mostly non-white kids — who fall through the cracks of our broken schools every year and whose fates are often sealed by that failure. Recent state exams reveal that in 40 percent of Baltimore's high schools, not a single student was proficient in math. In Chicago, there are 22 schools where not a single student can read at grade level. How can local politicians — nearly all Democrats, who routinely ask for minority votes — accept that? Tackling the teachers' unions, imposing high standards, discipline and innovation — like using AI and other new technologies to augment in-class teaching — is part of the answer. Pushing school choice, which introduces competition into our sclerotic and underachieving system, is essential. President Trump and Republicans are on the right side of these issues, and must prioritize reforms. Emanuel is right to challenge the teachers' unions, and our failing schools. But his record shows he's not the guy to get the job done. Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim and Company. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
On education reform, Rahm Emanuel talks a big game but is unlikely to deliver
San Francisco's public high schools recently tried to implement a massive change to their grading system— part of a 'grading for equity' program under which students can pass with scores as low as 41 percent. Moreover, homework, attendance and classroom participation would no longer factor into students' grades, which would instead depend mainly on a final exam — which, of course, they could retake multiple times if needed. Understandably, parents were outraged, in particular because this absurd system has been adopted by other cities and has failed to improve performance. After receiving 'significant backlash,' the plan was canceled. What a shock. Our public schools are in trouble, and even Democrats are noticing. Politico reports that Rahm Emanuel, former congressman, chief of staff to President Obama, Chicago mayor and ambassador to Japan, wants to run for president in 2028 on a platform of education reform. Emanuel has reportedly been 'road testing the outlines of a stump speech,' and it's a good one. He recently said in an interview, 'I am done with the discussion of locker rooms, I am done with the discussion of bathrooms and we better start having a conversation about the classroom.' Later, Emanuel told Bill Maher, 'We literally are a superpower, we're facing off against China with 1.4 billion people and two-thirds of our children can't read eighth grade level.' The feisty former mayor is stealing a powerful issue from the Republican playbook. It's a gutsy move. Attacking our education establishment, and especially calling out the teachers' unions, has long been the third rail of Democratic politics. The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are, to lefty politicians, the most sacred of sacred cows. Not only do those two organizations claim enormous membership rolls — the NEA has 3 million members and the AFT has 1.8 million — that can help get out the vote and mobilize the public, they also spend tens of millions of dollars for political candidates, with more than 90 percent going to Democrats. For proof, look at the 2023 mayoral race in Chicago, during which both the disgraceful shortcomings of the city's schools and rampant crime were on the ballot. Paul Vallas, a tough-on-crime Democrat known as an accomplished school reformer, faced off against another Democrat, Brandon Johnson, a former teacher and labor organizer who was the favorite of the Chicago Teachers Union and its nearly 30,000 members. The race should not have been close. Vallas had a track record of success and the backing of the police. But he lost to Johnson anyway, who received over $5 million from CTU and other teachers' unions. From 2011 to 2019, Emanuel served as mayor of the Windy City. During those years he attempted school reform and took on the teachers' unions. The sparring resulted in the strike of 2012, which unions today celebrate because they won significant concessions, such as higher pay and reduced accountability. That strike also squashed the budding reform movement that had led to some school closings and efforts to set higher standards. It is credited with paving the way for similar walkouts in Los Angeles, Oakland, and Denver in the years that followed. The CTU calls the 2012 work stoppage 'The strike that brought teachers unions back from the dead.' All of this makes Emanuel a peculiar person to talk up school reform. That's not to say he isn't right in calling out the failures of our public education. In his home city, testing from last year showed that fewer than one in three students could read and fewer than one in five could do math at their elementary grade level. Among Chicago's 11th graders, only 22.4 percent could read at grade level in 2024, and only 18.6 percent performed math proficiently. This is unacceptable. Nationally, the news is grim as well. The most recent assessments from the Program for International Student Assessment tests 15-year-olds in over 65 countries; the U.S. places 18th overall, with an overall score of 1468, well below leader Singapore's 1679 and runner-up China's 1605. In math, the U.S. comes in 26th. The Chamber of Commerce Foundation reports that students in Singapore 'scored 110 points more than their American peers [in math] — five staggering academic years ahead of U.S. students.' As they point out, 'These results have huge implications for the United States' global competitiveness and national security.' Our country's education system is not short of money; U.S. public schools are spending over $17,000 per student on K-12 education. In 2019, our outlays per pupil were 38 percent above the level of other OECD countries. Something is wrong with this picture, and America's parents know it. We should care not only about national security and U.S. competitiveness, of course; we should also care about the kids — mostly non-white kids — who fall through the cracks of our broken schools every year and whose fates are often sealed by that failure. Recent state exams reveal that in 40 percent of Baltimore's high schools, not a single student was proficient in math. In Chicago, there are 22 schools where not a single student can read at grade level. How can local politicians — nearly all Democrats, who routinely ask for minority votes — accept that? Tackling the teachers' unions, imposing high standards, discipline and innovation — like using AI and other new technologies to augment in-class teaching — is part of the answer. Pushing school choice, which introduces competition into our sclerotic and underachieving system, is essential. President Trump and Republicans are on the right side of these issues, and must prioritize reforms. Emanuel is right to challenge the teachers' unions, and our failing schools. But his record shows he's not the guy to get the job done. Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim and Company.
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
How Hollywood hotshot was real whistleblower in Biden coverup...as his 'Rahm-bo' brother teases White House run
Rahm Emanuel is positioning himself as the future of the Democratic Party. President Barack Obama 's former chief of staff, who was also Joe Biden 's ambassador to Japan, and the mayor of Chicago, has been teasing a presidential bid as of late, while blasting his party as 'woke and weak.' The 65-year-old plans to head to Iowa - traditionally the first state that votes - in September for a fish fry and sat down for an interview this week with The Wall Street Journal. But it was a different Emanuel brother who shouted warnings to party elders during the last election cycle. In Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's blockbuster new book, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, it is revealed that Rahm's hotshot Hollywood super-agent brother Ari Emanuel screamed at former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain over Biden's condition. It was late September 2023, five months after Biden announced he would run for reelection, and Ari Emanuel had invited members of the president's team to his annual 'Power Players' retreat. 'For months now, Ari Emanuel - CEO of Endeavor, a talent and entertainment company, and a major Democratic donor - hadn't been able to believe what he was watching,' the authors wrote. 'President Joe Biden was quite obviously deteriorating before the nation's eyes, and Democrats seemed to be in complete denial about it,' they continued. 'Emanuel would call governors and encourage them to run. He would talk to his brother, Rahm, a former Obama chief of staff and then an ambassador to Japan. He would with anyone who would listen,' Tapper and Thompson added. Ari Emanuel turned up the volume at the Power Players retreat - yelling his concerns at Klain from the back of the room. 'Joe Biden cannot run for reelection! He needs to drop out! He can't win! What's the plan B?' Tapper and Thompson described. 'Emanuel was flat-out yelling at Klain.' Klain pushed back telling Ari Emanuel that there 'was no plan B' and that Biden, as the sitting president of the United States, got to decide. He added that Biden had already beaten former President Donald Trump, the far-and-away-frontrunner on the GOP side, once. Ari Emanuel was 'incensed,' the authors wrote. 'What the f*** are we doing?' the Hollywood super-agent was described as saying. 'The first party to put a younger candidate before the voters, if we give him enough time, we can win.' He also knew Trump well, having served as the now-president's agent for almost a decade. 'It was wild,' attendee Michael Kives told Tapper and Thompson. 'A public yelling match between them.' Kives recalled that the event was typically a 'civilized affair,' in the years before. 'Eventually, Emanuel came to believe they were all lying about Biden's health. "We're seeing it!" he would shout. "It's called age! It happens!"' the book continued. 'Everyone around the president - worst of all, Jill - was lying, Emanuel would say.' 'Jill and Hunter and Jeffrey Katzenberg and Ron f***ing Klain. And the president had lied, too, when he said he would be a bridge,' Emanuel's gripes continued. In an interview with Red Letter's Tara Palmeri last month, Rahm Emanuel said he warned Democrats about Biden's chances of success in a reelection fight but was cagey on details. 'I can't give you the hour and the day that I said it, but I expressed myself,' he said. 'A year in, two years in, was not the timeframe. I don't have the exact date and I'm not going to sit here and guess it but I expressed myself to individuals that were important.' 'I let people know that could have an an influence on that decision,' he continued, refusing to divulge much more. 'I don't try to expose private conversations.' In his Wall Street Journal this week, Rahm Emanuel positioned himself as a Democrat who could take the wheel of the party next. 'I'm tired of sitting in the back seat when somebody's gunning it at 90 miles an hour for a cliff,' he said. He criticized his longtime party as being 'toxic' as well as ' woke and weak.' 'If you want the country to give you the keys to the car, somebody's got to be articulating an agenda that's fighting for America, not just fighting Trump,' he continued. 'The American dream has become unaffordable. It's inaccessible. And that has to be unacceptable to us.'
New York Post
6 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Rahm Emanuel says ‘toxic' Democratic Party needs rebrand as he appears to tease 2028 presidential bid
Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel appears to be teasing a 2028 presidential run, urging reforms to a Democratic Party he described as 'weak and woke' in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Emanuel blasted the current Democratic platform as 'toxic,' arguing party leaders need to get back to basics rather than getting dragged into unpopular cultural debates. Advertisement Emanuel is one of many names in Democratic circles who have been floated as a potential 2028 candidate, alongside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. 'If you want the country to give you the keys to the car, somebody's got to be articulating an agenda that's fighting for America, not just fighting Trump,' Emanuel said. 'The American dream has become unaffordable. It's inaccessible. And that has to be unacceptable to us.' Emanuel recently returned to the U.S. after serving as U.S. ambassador to Japan under President Joe Biden's administration. In addition to serving as Chicago mayor, Emanuel also worked as President Barack Obama's White House chief of staff and served in Congress representing Illinois. Advertisement 3 Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel appears to be teasing a 2028 presidential run, urging reforms to a Democratic Party he described as 'weak and woke' in a recent interview. AP The longtime Democratic insider also argued that U.S. education needs to be more focused on meeting high standards than proliferating social doctrine. 'I'm empathetic and sympathetic to a child trying to figure out their pronoun, but it doesn't trump the fact that the rest of the class doesn't know what a pronoun is,' he said. So far, no Democrats have openly declared their intentions to run for president in 2028, though several have toyed with the idea. Walz told reporters that he would do 'whatever it takes' to run if he is 'asked to serve.' Advertisement 3 Emanuel is one of many names in Democratic circles who have been floated as a potential 2028 candidate, alongside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (left). AP 3 Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has also played coy about his all but certain intentions to run, telling Fox News after a town hall appearance in Iowa that, 'Right now I'm not running for anything.' AP Similarly, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has said he 'would consider' a White House bid. Advertisement Buttigieg has also played coy about his all but certain intentions to run, telling Fox News after a town hall appearance in Iowa that, 'Right now I'm not running for anything.' Other likely 2028 Democratic candidates include California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
Fox News
6 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
Rahm Emanuel calls Democrat's party brand 'weak,' appearing to weigh White House run
Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel appears to be teasing a 2028 presidential run, urging reforms to a Democratic Party he described as "weak and woke" in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Emanuel blasted the current Democratic platform as "toxic," arguing party leaders need to get back to basics rather than getting dragged into unpopular cultural debates. Emanuel is one of many names in Democratic circles who has been floated as a potential 2028 candidate, alongside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and former Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg. "If you want the country to give you the keys to the car, somebody's got to be articulating an agenda that's fighting for America, not just fighting Trump," Emanuel said. "The American dream has become unaffordable. It's inaccessible. And that has to be unacceptable to us." Emanuel recently returned to the U.S. after serving as U.S. ambassador to Japan under President Joe Biden's administration. In addition to serving as Chicago mayor, Emanuel also worked as President Barack Obama's White House chief of staff and served in Congress representing Illinois. The longtime Democratic insider also argued that U.S. education needs to be more focused on meeting high standards than proliferating social doctrine. "I'm empathetic and sympathetic to a child trying to figure out their pronoun, but it doesn't trump the fact that the rest of the class doesn't know what a pronoun is," he said. So far, no Democrats have openly declared their intentions to run for president in 2028, though several have toyed with the idea. Walz told reporters that he would do "whatever it takes" to run if he is "asked to serve." Similarly, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has said he "would consider" a White House bid. Buttigieg has also played coy about his all but certain intentions to run, telling Fox News after a town hall appearance in Iowa that, "Right now I'm not running for anything." Other likely 2028 Democratic candidates include California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
