Chicago Suburb Teachers Strike, As CTU Vote on Formally Settling Strike

From Mike Klonsky's blog, Test-based evals, 'merit" pay at issue in Evergreen Park strike

As Chicago teachers prepare to vote today on their new contract, teachers and support staff in the predominantly white, working-class Chicago suburb of Evergreen Park went on strike this morning. Negotiations have been dragging on since April. Highland Park and Crystal Lake teachers could follow suit later this month if they are still without a decent contract.

Among the things at issue are forced cuts in health care and retirement benefits. The board is also trying to force a new evaluation plan on teachers using "merit pay" based on students' standardized test scores. Seems to be a pattern here. Here's hoping the EP teachers get some real backing from IEA leaders who were conspicuously invisible during the Chicago teachers strike.

Chicago teachers are expected to vote overwhelming to accept their hard-won contract. A yes vote would also represent a strong show of support for the CTU leadership and Pres. Karen Lewis. Here are the details of the new contract.

I had to chuckle at yesterday's Sun-Times editorial telling Chicago teachers which way to vote today. As if anyone gives a crap what the S-T editors want. Likewise for the members of a tiny ultra-"left" sect who've been trying their best to get in front of T.V.cameras, calling the union leadership "sellouts" and telling teachers to vote no.
Posted by Mike Klonsky at 5:29 AM

Despite myths: Parents do support CTU strikers; School-day killings not up

UPDATE: Tuesday, Sep 18, 2012 | Updated 8:47 PM CDT from WMAQ NBC 5, Chicago
Hundreds of parents stood by the Chicago Board of Education to support teachers, as the announcement was made that the Chicago Teachers Union was ending its strike of the Chicago Public Schools. This should put to rest the media and politician's arguments that parents did not support the striking teachers.
* * *
As indicated at the blog Choosing Democracy, Chicago parents do support the strikers. This support is at higher levels in the African-American and Latino communities, communities representing 87 percent of Chicago's schoolchildren, and by more than 20 percentage points, the public blames [mayor] Rahm Emanuel and the school board more than they blame the Chicago Teachers Union for the strike.

Read the polls, or just the press accounts of parental support for the teachers, however, and you come away with an altogether different impression. A poll commissioned and released Thursday by Capitol Fax, an Illinois political report, of 1,344 registered Chicago voters found that fully 66 percent of parents with children in the public schools, and 55.5 percent of Chicagoans overall "approve the Chicago Teachers Union decision to go on strike." Among African Americans, strike support stood at 63 percent; among Latinos, 65 percent. (Roughly 80 percent of Chicago's schoolchildren are minority.)

So, who disapproved of the strike? A majority (52 percent) of parents with children in private schools, and a majority of whites (also 52 percent).

While most Chicagoans support the strike, a 48 percent plurality believes that a portion of a teacher's evaluation should be based on student performance on standardized tests. And when it comes to fingering who's responsible for the strike, 29 percent blame the Teachers Union while 34 percent blame the mayor and 19 percent the school board (meaning, 53 percent blame management). Among whites, the share blaming the union rises to 41 percent.

A caveat is in order before we subject these numbers to interpretation: Strikes that are three days old (which is when the poll was taken) are sure to have higher levels of support than strikes that have dragged on for three weeks or three months. That said, the racial gap in the polling, which overlaps the gap between parents with their kids in Chicago public schools and everyone else, is what leaps out.

Does the strike harm children, is it true that the “CTU strike is a clear and present danger”?
(See the full text of the Chicago city government's request for the injunction, Board of Education of the City of Chicago v. Chicago Teachers Union, as reported in the Chicago Tribune.) A law professor strongly doubts that the city can make the claim that the strike hurts children, as reported by Arturo Garcia, September 17, 2012, "Judge denies mayor’s injunction as Chicago teachers strike continues."

“There is the legal right to strike in Illinois,” said Andrea Kayne Kaufman, who teaches courses in human resources management and home, school and community relations at the university. “[To say] any strike harms children, I don’t think that’s going to be the theory that’s successful here.”

And when have the killings of the last been occurring? They do not represent killings among school age children who would otherwise have been in class. Rather, when looking at patterns that arise from Chicago killings chronicled daily at the blog What About Our Sons?, it appears that the killings are usually occurring outside of school hours and the vast majority of the killings are among people 18 to 29 years old.

And Emanuel's professed concern for public safety at the time of the strike is sort of inconsistent in contrast to his behavior in running off to Charlotte, North Carolina for the 2012 Democratic National Convention for a good part of the first week of September. Chicago's very high murder rate has been the top political story of the year, as Progress Illinois indicated late this summer in "What To Make Of The Chicago Murder Rate."

The homicide rate is probably the top political story in Chicago so far this year, with an approximately 30 percent citywide increase in murders between 2011 and 2012 and a succession of new pronouncements from Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy on how they are responding to the issue.

Unfortunately, the solution is complicated in terms of what local political leaders and also specific Chicago communities can do regarding a problem that stirs much emotion. The Chicago homicide rate has, in fact, gone down, significantly and continually, over the last 20 years. However, citywide numbers do not provide a complete picture because of the enormous fluctuations in homicides between neighborhoods.

Addressing the homicide problem looks to be an issue of addressing social and economic segregation as much as any change in law enforcement tactics.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Homicide Statistics

The daily coverage of homicides, for example stories on the number of city murders reported over a weekend or over a month, can elide the larger citywide trend. According to Chicago Police Department crime data, there were 308 murders at the end of July putting Chicago on pace to have 528 homicides by the end of 2012.

This is a higher per capita murder rate than New York City and Los Angeles, which have each seen declines in homicides this year. And it would exceed the 440 murders Chicago recorded in 2011.

TIME TO READ A CONTRACT
Community members supported teachers, citing their right to read a contract before signing it. As reported September 17 in the Chicago Sun-Times:

At noon Monday, an angry, pro-union group composed of community and labor leaders, parents, students and academics — with striking teachers and social workers mixed in — staged a noisy demonstration outside Emanuel’s office.

They denounced Emanuel for asking a judge to order teachers back to work before they had exercised their legitimate right to read the fine print.

Sarah Johnson, a senior at Roosevelt High School, held up a piece of paper with the handwritten words, “Full Proposal,” then ripped it in half to signify the summary distributed to the CTU’s House of Delegates.

“They only got half of this to read. Is that right?” Johnson said, as the crowd shouted, “No!”

“I’m only 17 years old and I know that I will not sign a contract that I have not fully read yet or I have not even fully received,” Johnson said.

RAVITCH ON DIANE REHM SHOW (NPR): THE STRIKE HELPS CHILDREN

"I think the union has a vision of a school system that has the kind of resources where children get what they actually need."

5 So-Called Liberal Pundits Who Are Attacking Teachers

Plusupdates from comments on Diane Ravitch's blog. Scroll to end of this post.

5 So-Called Liberal Pundits Who Are Attacking Teachers Chicago's teacher strike is shaping up to be one of the most important labor actions in a generation. So why are people who consider themselves progressives siding with the bosses? September 12, 2012 | By Sarah Jaffe

Chicago's teacher strike may turn out to be the most important one in a generation, as teachers stand up to a corporate-backed education reform regime that stresses testing and firing teachers as a form of “accountability” while continuing to refuse to invest real money in making educational opportunities equal for all students.

The so-called education reform movement wants high-stakes tests that students take yearly to be used to evaluate teachers and weed out the "bad" ones, and pushes money into charter schools that are privately owned and don't have union teachers. Under the guise of "accountability" for teachers and schools, reformers put taxpayer dollars into the hands of private investors despite the charter schools' negligible results when it comes to actually improving education. The movement has been particularly pernicious because it's crept inside the heart of the Democratic party and taken hold of politicians and commentators who profess to be on the side of working people, but end up bashing teachers' unions.

As Molly Ball at the Atlantic wrote last week ["How Michelle Rhee Is Taking Over the Democratic Party"], Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the chairman of the Democratic National Convention, spoke during the convention at a movie screening hosted by the face of the pro-charter-school movement, Michelle Rhee. “Another Democratic star, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, spoke at the cocktails-and-canapes reception afterward,” Ball noted. “Across the country, Democratic officials from governors like Colorado's John Hickenlooper to former President Clinton -- buoyed by the well-funded encouragement of the hedge-fund bigwigs behind much of the charter-school movement -- are shifting the party's consensus away from the union-dictated terms to which it has long been loyal.”

And of course, Chicago's teachers are facing down Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff for Barack Obama.

It's not just politicians falling for the rhetoric of the union-busters when it comes to teachers. Few would dare to demonize police or firefighters' unions the same way they have teachers, who are mostly women, working for decent middle-class wages but hardly getting rich, and in Chicago often working in horrific conditions ["The Daily Change: 5 Facts You Need To Know About The Terrible State Of Chicago Schools"], with huge classes and in some cases no air conditioning. Yet as the teachers hit the streets and Chicagoans declared support, supposedly liberal pundits echoed far-right talking points about teacher salaries and budget cuts, implied that teachers were hurting students by standing up for their rights and for better conditions in the schools, and argued that not supporting the union was evidence of their independent thought—not their susceptibility to a well-funded message machine or their general contempt for public school teachers.

Here's five of the most egregious examples of otherwise smart liberal pundits repeating the talking points of the corporate education reform movement.

1. Nicholas Kristof. The New York Times' columnist is celebrated for his trips into Global South countries to report heartwrenching stories of women; he's lauded as an activist and a human rights advocate. But when it comes to women and workers fighting for their rights closer to home, he seems to have a big blind spot. He tweeted:

Re the Chicago teacher strike, my take: teachers should have greater pay but more accountability & less job security.

Kristof doesn't seem to have a great grasp on the facts—arguing for “bottom-third” teachers not to have job protections, then suggesting that we should listen to teachers for ideas on how to weed out that bottom third. “In response to your questions, yes, 1 yr value added isn't adequate to judge a teacher. 3 yrs data better. Some subjects not measurable,” he admits, but continues to argue for high-stakes testing as “accountability.”

New York teacher Brian Jones pointed out ["Unions Are Striking Back, at Last"], in the Times as well, that the “carrot-and-stick” routine Kristof implicitly endorses here to try to make teachers perform won't work. "Any experienced classroom teacher will tell you that punishments and rewards at best encourage obedience, but will not promote creativity, intelligence or initiative." Instead, he noted, “By confronting the mayor and standing up for things teachers and students desperately need to actually improve our schools, the union is likely to do more to retain the best teachers, and to help more teachers to do their best, than any merit pay scheme ever could.”

Kristof's admission that teachers should be well-paid would be more welcome if it didn't come along with the call for more testing—as we know, high-stakes testing doesn't lead to better teaching, it leads to lousy learning and in some cases, cheating ["Michelle Rhee Can't Shake Cheating Scandal at D.C. Public Schools"].

Finally, Kristof wraps up with some concern-trolling intended to appease both sides, saying that the real losers are poor kids who attend Chicago's public schools. Of course, if Kristof had any interest in listening to activists, many of them women of color, he'd understand that that's why the teachers are striking in the first place.

2. Joe Nocera. Nocera, also at the Times, tries to soften his critique of the teachers' strike by throwing them a bone midway through his column. “As regular readers know, I have been somewhat skeptical of the reform movement. For those disadvantaged students who get into a good charter school or land in a program that can help them succeed, that’s wonderful. In the grand scheme of things, though, the number of students who get that kind of attention is small.”

Great, Joe. The reform movement is full of it. But where you got your next sentence is completely unclear. “On the other hand, the status quo, which is what the Chicago teachers want, is clearly unacceptable.”

Here's a deep-seated bit of ideology that's really worth unpacking for a second. This is the image of unions in the American psyche these days. Most people think of them as little-c conservative institutions holding on to a dead past, trying to protect what their members have against a sweeping tide of change.

It's wrong, and the CTU couldn't be a better example of just how wrong it is. Karen Lewis and her union are the ones actually fighting for reforms in the schools, starting with things we know work: smaller class sizes, well-rounded curriculum, support for teachers and school staff. They might legally only be allowed to strike over salary and benefits, but they've been out there at every turn arguing for change, not the status quo.

Nocera seems to brush off the points the teachers make about poverty, about the unfairness of statewide tests that hold teachers in schools where families are barely staying afloat to the same standard as white kids in suburban well-funded districts. Just lengthening the school day won't help if you have overfull classes stuffed with kids with empty stomachs and no air conditioning—those aren't conditions for learning.

Nocera might want to ask some people who would know what works. But those would be teachers, and no one seems to actually care what they think.

3. Dylan Matthews. Over at Wonkblog, founded and headed by liberal darling Ezra Klein, Dylan Matthews went two for two, first arguing that teachers' strikes hurt student achievement (measured, of course, by those magical test scores) and then churning out a charming little piece arguing over teachers' wages.

Doug Henwood at Left Business Observer provides an expansive response to Matthews' “attempted heart-tugging” over the damage being done to students. The studies Matthews quotes, Henwood points out, are from Canada and Belgium, and one of them was a six-month long work stoppage. He quotes Michèle Belot and Dinand Webbink, the authors of that study, who are far less interested in fearmongering than Matthews is:

Strikes do not occur randomly and are likely to be correlated with other factors affecting educational outcomes, thereby compromising the identification of a causal effect. A before–after comparison might be biased by other unobserved factors that changed after the strikes.

And then on to the money. He qualifies his eight paragraphs of numbers by admitting that none of his calculations have anything to do with whether teachers deserve to make $56,000 or $71,000 or any other possible rate of pay, he's essentially done the right's work for them: insisting that the teachers make the high end of a possible range of pay opens them up to the charge being flung around that they're greedy.

It also contributes to the myth that the strike is only about pay, when in fact, like most labor actions, it's about so much more than that, from class sizes to standardized tests to the lack of air conditioning in schools and the persistent, grinding poverty of so many of Chicago's public school students. But as Phil Cantor, a striking teacher, told Democracy Now!, due to neoliberal reforms pushed through by Emanuel and others, the teachers are only legally allowed to strike over pay and benefits, but they get blamed in the press for being concerned about their pay. It's almost like the politicians planned it that way to make teachers look greedy and selfish.

As Micah Uetricht notes at Jacobin, CTU president Karen Lewis was asked what the primary issues were that caused the union overwhelmingly to vote to strike. “She replied that all issues, from compensation to smaller class sizes to the increasing reliance upon standardized testing to understaffing of positions dealing with 'wraparound services,' like social workers and clinicians, were causing the impasse.”

By focusing solely on the numbers, Matthews contributes to the idea that a teachers' strike is all about the money, and by insisting repeatedly on the higher number, he contributes to the divide-and-conquer tactics the right has gotten so good at using to split the working class and attack unions.

4. Matt Yglesias. Yglesias' contribution, at Slate, to the teachers' union-busting is one of the most unintentionally ironic things I've ever seen. Just a year and a couple of months out from the biggest labor uprising in decades over the rights of public employees, Yglesias is actually arguing that teachers' unions suck because they are public employees.

Really. Check this out:

If CTU members get what they want, that's not coming out of the pocket of "the bosses" it's coming out of the pocket of the people who work at charter schools or the people who pay taxes in Chicago.

So if the teachers get a better pay rate, it's coming out of the pockets of...other teachers? It escapes Yglesias, of course, because he's firmly bought in to the myth that the teachers just want more money. But one of the things the CTU wants is fewer charter schools, and one of the reasons they want fewer charter schools is that the teachers in them don't have access to the protections of collective bargaining.

As for the idea that taxpayers should hate teachers because they pay their salaries, I don't even know where to begin. Yglesias is responding to a brief post by Doug Henwood ["Why do so many liberals hate teachers’ unions?"] in which Henwood compares teachers to blue-collar workers like autoworkers or janitors, and his argument is that people don't mind janitors striking because it doesn't come out of their bottom line. Except janitors are also employed by public entities sometimes, but whatever, liberal pundits don't want to get too close to those types of workers anyway. (In Chicago the janitors are refusing to cross the teachers' picket lines, standing in solidarity.)

Public workers, of course, were the target of lots of attacks last year, but by Republicans (mostly). The difference between Scott Walker and Rahm Emanuel on this issue is quite slim, actually. Part of the education reform plan is, as Nicholas Kristof points out above, to take away job security from the teachers deemed “bad” by the powers that be. Walker's attacks, like Emanuel's, disproportionately fell on a part of the workforce dominated by women and people of color. CTU president Karen Lewis attended Dartmouth, the only woman of color in her class, and has put race and gender at the center of her analysis.

Even when attacking public employee unions, Scott Walker and his ilk avoid fights with the police and firefighters. Only John Kasich in Ohio had the guts to go after cops and firefighters, and unsurprisingly his bill was defeated. (It's also worth noting that in Chicago, the police union is also standing with the teachers.) There is simply no comparable demonization of these public workers to what happens constantly with teachers. Coincidentally, there is no way for hedge funders to get rich pocketing tax dollars by creating charter police departments or fire departments. Though now that I've said it, maybe they'll start.

The main difference seems to be, on this question, that Emanuel is a Democrat and so belongs to a party that at least feels the need to pay lip service to teachers and their unions—though not long ago an Obama campaign manager bragged about the president's relationship with teachers unions being “anything but cozy.”

Oh, and that this is a strike, and apparently liberal pundits prefer it when unions lie down and wait for the abuses to come. Yet as Matthew Stoller pointed out last year, the lack of strikes has led most people to consider unions ineffective and useless, creating the same kind of thinking that Cohen displays here. “People might only like unions when they see strikes, otherwise all they hear about is backroom negotiations,” Stoller argued. “Perhaps effectively striking is actually the way to force people to ask questions about what kind of country they want to live in.”

If Yglesias is seriously worried about the taxpayers in Chicago getting screwed over by public school funding, perhaps he could start here: according to Bill Barclay at Dissent, “In revealing contrast, nine selective-enrollment high schools (charter and magnet) that make up 1 percent of the total number of schools got 24 percent of the money spent on school construction projects.”

That sounds like misallocation of taxpayer funds to me.

As Henwood replied, “The 'what about the taxpayers?' lament is straight out of the Reagan playbook—from which it’s clear that a lot of Democrats are taking instruction these days.”

5. Jacob Weisberg. It might be easier to understand Yglesias' position on striking teachers when you look at his boss's tweets on the subject. Weisberg, editor-in-chief at Slate, is the most gleeful yet:

Rooting for Rahm to make the Chicago Teachers' Union sorry for this inexcusable strike. Students in class fewest hours of any big city.

It's disconcerting to see such clear desire for punishment of working people (by a multimillionaire politician whose best friends are on Wall Street no less). But Weisberg should know, right? He's an alum of Chicago's schools—or rather, one of Chicago's illustrious private schools. The Francis W. Parker school's Web site stresses its “...small class size and interdisciplinary approach to teaching result in a challenging and meaningful educational experience.”

Now, of course it's possible for someone to have attended a private school and still have solidarity with striking workers, or to have ideas worth listening to about how schools should be run. But when your only answer to the questions raised by a teachers strike is:

Teachers, fire & police shouldn't have right to strike. It's blackmail power over essential services. They have many other protections.

At least Weisberg is consistent here in saying that teachers are just as essential as police and firefighters. But he then argues that none of them should have the right to strike. It's thinking like this that led to the assaults on public workers' collective bargaining rights that flared up last year but haven't really gone away. It's also the same thinking that leads to Republicans arguing that public sector jobs aren't real jobs, that they're simply government waste. Or that leads to a Democratic mayor [in Scranton, PA] cutting wages for all public workers (again, including police and firefighters) to minimum wage.

Striking is the strongest weapon that working people have to fight for their own rights. The bar in Chicago was raised to a height that politicians thought the union would never be able to scale, cutting back what the teachers were legally able to strike over and requiring a larger percentage of the union to vote than they thought possible. But they underestimated the solidarity and determination of the teachers' union, and now Democrats are making Republican-sounding arguments while insisting that they don't hate all unions or all teachers, it's just that this time is different.

“What about the children,” what Weisberg essentially asks here, is a question being used across the board against the unions. We are supposed to believe that wealthy charter school backers and Wall Street Democrats, along with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, the architects of No Child Left Behind, and so many other conservatives, really have the best interests of children at heart instead of the people who willingly take on a thankless career in the nation's poorest schools.

As economist Dean Baker pointed out, “The main determinants of childrens' performance continues to be the socioeconomic conditions of their parents. Those unwilling to take the steps necessary to address the latter (e.g. promote full employment) are the ones who do not care about our children.”

Sarah Jaffe is an associate editor at AlterNet, a rabblerouser and frequent Twitterer. You can follow her at @sarahljaffe.

And these recommendations from a commenter at Diane Ravitch's blog:

reality-based educator
September 15, 2012 at 9:59 am
Add NY Times columnist Tom Friedman and former Tribune editor/current Daily Beast contributor James Warren to the list.

Friedman has been wrong about almost everything he has every written about – from the wonders of global free trade to the wonders of the Iraq war.

Matt Taibbi has done the best take downs of Friedman. Here’s the most famous of those:

http://nypress.com/flat-n-all-that/

Glenn Greenwald points out how Friedman is emblematic of our imperial press corps – shilling for the corporate state, but wrong about everything:

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/25/the_value_of_tom_friedman/

Somehow Friedman, despite being wrong about pretty much everything, gets to continue to pontificate about the horrors of teachers unions and the wonders of standardized test scores in China (not realizing, of course, that only a small segment of children in China take those tests and thus are counted in the scores.)

If there were a value-added score for Tom Friedman, it would be in the negative.

Read something he’s written and you lose brain cells.

As for Warren, he attacked teachers for whining about air conditioning in the Daily Beast earlier this week.

Warren doesn’t seem to care that some Chicago schools are actually in session in July and August and some teachers have to work in classrooms with 40+ students when it’s a 100 degrees.

Warren also called Karen Lewis a “bumbler,” though it seems Warren’s old newspaper thinks Emanuel was the one who bumbled into – and then through – this strike by being tin-eared and sticking to his “Demonize the Unions” strategy he’s been using since NAFTA:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-teachers-strike-emanuel-0916-20120915,0,3383662.story?page=2

As the son of stockbroker, I guess I can see why Warren would side with Emanuel and the Hyatt heiress over the students and teachers of Chicago.

Historic Karen Lewis Announcement of CTU Strike, 9/9/12 Press Conference

[Scroll to end for more on need for air conditioners.]

Click on the video at right for the complete Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis press conference announcement 10 PM Sunday night, September 9, 2012, of the strike of the Chicago Public Schools, to begin on Monday, September 10. Video is from NBC, WMAQ, Channel 5, uploaded at WBEZ Chicago.
NYC Eye's Full corrected press conference transcript:

"Negotiations have been intense but productive, however we have failed to reach an agreement that will prevent a labor strike. This is a difficult decision and one we hoped we could have avoided. Throughout these negotiations have I remained hopeful but determined. We must do things differently in this city if we are to provide our students with the education they so rightfully deserve.

“Talks have been productive in many areas. We have successfully won concessions for nursing mothers and have put more than 500 of our members back to work. We have restored some of the art, music, world language, technology and physical education classes to many of our students. The Board also agreed that we will now have textbooks on the first day of school rather than have our students and teachers wait up to six weeks before receiving instructional materials.

“Recognizing the Board’s fiscal woes, we are not far apart on compensation. However, we are apart on benefits. We want to maintain the existing health benefits.

“Another concern is our evaluation procedures. After the initial phase-in of this new evaluation system it could result almost 6,000 teachers (or nearly 30 percent of our members) being discharged within one or two years. This is unacceptable and leads to instability for our students. We are also concerned that too much of the new evaluations will be based on students’ standardized test scores. This is no way to measure teacher effectiveness at all.

Further, there are too many factors beyond our control which will impact how well some students perform on those standardized tests. Those factors include poverty which no one wants to talk about, exposure to violence which over this past summer we all know has increased exponentially, homelessness, hunger and other social issues beyond our control. Evaluate us on what we do, not the lives of our children that we do not control.

“We have talked seriously about job security. Job security is stability for our students. Despite a new curriculum and new, stringent evaluation system, CPS proposes no increase (or even a possible decreases) in teacher training. This is notable because our Union through our Quest Center is at the forefront teacher professional development in Illinois. We have been lauded by the District already and our colleagues across the country for our extensive teacher training programs that help emerging teachers strengthen their craft and increased the number of nationally board certified educators.

“We are demanding a reasonable timetable for the installation of air-conditioning in student classrooms--a sweltering, 98-degree classroom is not a productive learning environment for children. This type of environment is unacceptable for our members and all school personnel. A lack of climate control is unacceptable to our parents.

“As we continue to bargain in good faith, we stand in solidarity with parents, clergy and community-based organizations who are advocating for smaller class sizes, a better school day and an elected school board. Class size matters. It matters to parents. In the third largest school district in Illinois there are only 370 social workers -—putting their caseloads at over 1,000 students each. We join them in their call for more social workers, counselors, audio/visual and hearing technicians and school nurses. Our children are exposed to unprecedented levels of neighborhood violence and other social issues, so the fight for wrap-around services is critically important to all of us. Our members will continue to support this groundswell of parent activism and grassroots engagement on these issues. And we hope the Board will not shut these voices out.

“And while new Illinois law prohibits us from striking over the recall of laid-off teachers and compensation for a longer school year, we do not intend to sign an agreement until of the matters of our contract are addressed.

“Again, we are committed to staying at the table until a contract is place. However, in the morning no CTU member will be inside our schools. We will walk the picket lines. We will talk to parents. We will talk to clergy. We demand a fair contract today, we demand a fair contract now. And, until there is one in place that our members will accept, we will be on the line.

“We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters throughout the state and the country who are currently bargaining for their own fair contracts. Most people don't understand, it is not just Chicago it is file intent to strike. Let's be clear --in Illinois we have at least five AFT locals and twelve IEA locals.

“This announcement is made now so our parents and community are empowered with this knowledge and will know that schools --real schools-- will not open tomorrow. Please seek alternative care for your children. And, we ask all of you to join us in our education justice fight—for a fair contract—and call on the mayor and CEO Brizard to settle this matter now. Thank you.”



And for the need for air conditioners for the students and their teachers --remember, everything is being measured: From the New York Times:

Unfortunately, studies by Shin-ichi Tanabe, a professor of architecture at Waseda University in Tokyo who has long been interested in “thermal comfort,” found that while workers tolerated dimmer light just fine, every degree rise in temperature above 25 Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) resulted in a 2 percent drop in productivity. Over the course of the day that meant they accomplished 30 minutes less work, he said.

Other studies have found that with office temperatures between 82 and 86 degrees, symptoms like headache, drowsiness and difficulty concentrating increase, which may explain the drop in performance.

Worse still, perhaps, Mr. Tanabe calculated that the suffering was all for naught: When offices were kept above about 82 degrees, so many people were using inefficient fans at their desks that the total electricity consumption could be higher than if the building had been better cooled. “That’s just stupid,” he said.

Valerie Strauss: Why Rahm Emanuel and The New York Times are Wrong about Teacher Evaluation

Posted at 12:53 PM ET, 09/12/2012 at the Washington Post
Why Rahm Emanuel and The New York Times are wrong about teacher evaluation
By Valerie Strauss, The Answer Sheet column

You know things are going very badly for public school teachers when The New York Times editorial board calls a bad teacher evaluation system a “sensible policy change.”

The Times ran an editorial on Wednesday that smacked Chicago teachers for striking against a school reform package pushed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a former chief of staff of President Obama. It says in part:

Teachers’ strikes, because they hurt children and their families, are never a good idea. The strike that has roiled the civic climate in Chicago— and left 350,000 children without classes — seems particularly senseless because it is partly a product of a personality clash between the blunt mayor, Rahm Emanuel, and the tough Chicago Teachers Union president, Karen Lewis. Beyond that, the strike is based on union discontent with sensible policy changes — including the teacher evaluation system required by Illinois law — that are increasingly popular across the country and are unlikely to be rolled back, no matter how long the union stays out. The Washington Post editorial board has also supported test-based teacher evaluation, including in this piece on the strike.

The Post editorial says that “the system developed by Chicago officials, on which they offered to work with the union, is careful to measure student growth. That means teachers aren’t blamed if their students start out behind but instead are evaluated on their ability to make progress during the year they have responsibility.” Well, a single test is hardly the way to tell whether a child has made progress. How many of you have had a headache or been sick or emotionally upset and bombed a test? There are ways to measure how students are achieving without a standardized test.

Think what you want about the Chicago teachers strike. But that doesn’t change this:

The Times can say that using standardized test scores to evaluate teachers is a sensible policy and Obama can say it and Education Secretary Arne Duncan can say it and Emanuel can say it and so can Bill Gates (who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to develop it) and governors and mayor from both parties, and heck, anybody can go ahead and shout it out as loud as they can.

It doesn’t make it true.

Can all these very smart people be wrong? Yes, according to many experts on assessment who have done extensive research on the subject.

These experts have said over and over and over that the method by which test scores are factored into an evaluation of how effective a teacher is are dramatically unreliable and unfair. Some say it will destroy the teaching profession because it will identify effective teachers as ineffective and ineffective teachers as effective. Some bad teachers will be fired but some good ones will too. Others will leave in disgust.

That’s what happened, for example, in New York City when Carolyn Abbott, who teaches mathematics to seventh- and eighth-graders at the Anderson School, a citywide gifted-and-talented school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, learned that her “value-added” score made her the worst eighth grade teacher in the entire city. The score of course didn’t reflect that her students already scored near 100 percent proficiency and were doing advanced math — but the formula didn’t care.

The value-added formulas actually compare how students are predicted to perform on the state ELA and math tests, based on their prior year’s performance, with their actual performance, as Teachers College Professor Aaron Pallas wrote here. Teachers whose students do better than predicted are said to have “added value”; those whose students do worse than predicted are “subtracting value.” By definition, he wrote, about half of all teachers will add value, and the other half will not.

No, Abbott’s case wasn’t an aberration. Lots of scores are wrong. Yet state after state insists on foisting this on teachers and even principals.

This isn’t just about the adults. Kids suffer when good teachers are said to be bad and bad teachers are said to be good, and especially when standardized tests have such high stakes that teachers feel forced to tailor their teaching to the test.

And think about this: If teachers are evaluated on test scores, there has to be standardized test for every class. What happens when tests have such high stakes? Kids learn how to pass tests rather than how to solve problems and think creatively.

Even the former education commissioner of Texas, Republican Robert Scott, recognized this and said earlier this year that all of this testing is a “perversion” of what a quality education should be.

Of course teachers should be evaluated — and evaluated better than they have been in most places for decades. Yes, bad teachers should be removed from the classroom, sooner rather than later. There are ways to do this that is fair, and it is already being done in places such as the high-achieving Montgomery County Public School system in Maryland.

In fact, The New York Times’ own columnist Michael Winerip wrote about that evaluation system last year in this story, which noted that then-Superintendent Jerry Weast had rejected $12 million in Race to the Top money because it required districts to use test scores to evaluate teachers. Weast was quoted as saying: “We don’t believe the tests are reliable. You don’t want to turn your system into a test factory.” Most Washington D.C.-area superintendents still think it’s a bad idea, including Weast’s successor, Joshua Starr. (Unfortunately Winerip doesn’t write about education anymore for The Times.)

In a Q & A with area superintendents, I quoted Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Edgar Hatrick as saying, “It is troubling that we will now take tests we’re not sure are good measures of student performance and extrapolate teacher performance from student scores.”

The Illinois law calls for an evaluation system in which at least 20 percent is based on student standardized test scores. Emanuel wants fully half of the evaluation to be based on the test scores.

(Incidentally, former Washington D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee instituted a teacher evaluation system a few years ago that had 50 percent of individual assessments linked to student test scores — in courses where standardized tests were given — but her successor, Kaya Henderson, just dropped it down to 35 percent because of problems with the system.)

Read this from a letter that scores of researchers from 16 universities throughout the Chicago metropolitan area sent to Emanuel warning against the “value-added” system of teacher involvement, which uses complicated formulas to factor test scores into an evaluation:

As university professors and researchers who specialize in educational research, we recognize that change is an essential component of school improvement. We are very concerned, however, at a continuing pattern of changes imposed rapidly without high-quality evidentiary support.
The new evaluation system for teachers and principals centers on misconceptions about student growth, with potentially negative impact on the education of Chicago’s children. We believe it is our ethical obligation to raise awareness about how the proposed changes not only lack a sound research basis, but in some instances, have already proven to be harmful.

Professors in Georgia sent a letter to their governor against value-added evaluations. More than 1,500 New York principals and more than 5,400 teachers, parents, professors, administrators and citizens have signed an open letter blasting that state’s value-added evaluation system, the letter which can be found here.

The National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academies, which include the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine, issued a major report last year on this issue that said:

The standardized test scores that have been trumpeted to show improvement in the schools provide limited information about the causes of improvements or variability in student performance.This would be true, presumably, for any school system that use standardized tests as a measure of achievement.

Mathematicians have said that value-added models are hardly ready for prime time as teacher evaluation tools, and that includes John Ewing, president of Math for America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving mathematics education in U.S. public high schools. In this post he said:

The most common misuse of mathematics is simpler, more pervasive, and (alas) more insidious: mathematics employed as a rhetorical weapon—an intellectual credential to convince the public that an idea or a process is “objective” and hence better than other competing ideas or processes. This is mathematical intimidation. It is especially persuasive because so many people are awed by mathematics and yet do not understand it—a dangerous combination.

The latest instance of the phenomenon is valued-added modeling (VAM), used to interpret test data. Value-added modeling pops up everywhere today, from newspapers to television to political campaigns. VAM is heavily promoted with unbridled and uncritical enthusiasm by the press, by politicians, and even by (some) educational experts, and it is touted as the modern, “scientific” way to measure educational success in everything from charter schools to individual teachers.

Yet most of those promoting value-added modeling are ill-equipped to judge either its effectiveness or its limitations. Some of those who are equipped make extravagant claims without much detail, reassuring us that someone has checked into our concerns and we shouldn’t worry. Value-added modeling is promoted because it has the right pedigree — because it is based on “sophisticated mathematics.” As a consequence, mathematics that ought to be used to illuminate ends up being used to intimidate.

That’s what value-added is doing: Intimidating teachers, and many of them believe that it will be the end of the teaching profession. Who would want to go into a profession where a big part of the evaluation system is faulty?

Follow The Answer Sheet every day by bookmarking www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet.

By Valerie Strauss | 12:53 PM ET, 09/12/2012, the Answer Sheet column at the Washington Post

BREAKING: STRIKE IS ON!: Live Blogging the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) Strike

UPDATE: CTU PRESIDENT OUTLINES THE ISSUES THAT THE CPS REFUSES TO COOPERATE ON, ISSUES DEALING WITH THE SCHOOLS THAT CHICAGO'S SCHOOLCHILDREN DESERVE -
READ RUSH TRANSCRIPT BELOW -
CPS PRES. DAVID VITALE TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS -
GLORIA STEINEM TO WEAR RED IN SOLIDARITY WITH CHICAGO TEACHERS -
FULL CTU PRESS RELEASE ANNOUNCING CPS' FAILURE TO PREVENT STRIKE

The eyes of the world (doubt it?, just check with the UK Guardian of Manchester, which again said this today) are on Chicago, to see if the Chicago Teachers Union strikes.

Tune into Chicago radio stations at 10:00 PM (CDT) / 8:00 (PDT) / 9:00 (MDT) / 11:00 PM (EDT) to hear news conference of Karen Lewis, president of Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).

YOU CAN PICK UP CHICAGO STATIONS ON CLEAR CHANNEL STATIONS:
Clear channel (not to be confused with the commercial network) radio stations, accessible over the air far from Chicago (This is useful for the greater Midwest. Listeners in the Northeast will have to get a live stream online):
WSCR - 670 - Sports (CBS affiliate, Fox Sports, Yahoo sports)
WGN - 720 - News/Talk/Sports (Tribune, also owners of the Chicago newspaper)
WBBM - 780 - 24 hour News (CBS affiliate)
WLS - 890 - News/Talk (ABC affiliate)
WMVP - 1000 - Sports (Disney, ESPN Radio)

You can pick up a live stream from WBBM, Chicago's CBS news radio station. 780 AM and 105.9 FM.

NYC Eye's full corrected transcript of President Lewis' press conference:

"Negotiations have been intense but productive, however we have failed to reach an agreement that will prevent a labor strike. This is a difficult decision and one we hoped we could have avoided. Throughout these negotiations have I remained hopeful but determined. We must do things differently in this city if we are to provide our students with the education they so rightfully deserve.

“Talks have been productive in many areas. We have successfully won concessions for nursing mothers and have put more than 500 of our members back to work. We have restored some of the art, music, world language, technology and physical education classes to many of our students. The Board also agreed that we will now have textbooks on the first day of school rather than have our students and teachers wait up to six weeks before receiving instructional materials.

“Recognizing the Board’s fiscal woes, we are not far apart on compensation. However, we are apart on benefits. We want to maintain the existing health benefits.

“Another concern is our evaluation procedures. After the initial phase-in of this new evaluation system it could result almost 6,000 teachers (or nearly 30 percent of our members) being discharged within one or two years. This is unacceptable and leads to instability for our students. We are also concerned that too much of the new evaluations will be based on students’ standardized test scores. This is no way to measure teacher effectiveness at all.

Further, there are too many factors beyond our control which will impact how well some students perform on those standardized tests. Those factors include poverty which no one wants to talk about, exposure to violence which over this past summer we all know has increased exponentially, homelessness, hunger and other social issues beyond our control. Evaluate us on what we do, not the lives of our children that we do not control.

“We have talked seriously about job security. Job security is stability for our students. Despite a new curriculum and new, stringent evaluation system, CPS proposes no increase (or even a possible decreases) in teacher training. This is notable because our Union through our Quest Center is at the forefront teacher professional development in Illinois. We have been lauded by the District already and our colleagues across the country for our extensive teacher training programs that help emerging teachers strengthen their craft and increased the number of nationally board certified educators.

“We are demanding a reasonable timetable for the installation of air-conditioning in student classrooms--a sweltering, 98-degree classroom is not a productive learning environment for children. This type of environment is unacceptable for our members and all school personnel. A lack of climate control is unacceptable to our parents.

“As we continue to bargain in good faith, we stand in solidarity with parents, clergy and community-based organizations who are advocating for smaller class sizes, a better school day and an elected school board. Class size matters. It matters to parents. In the third largest school district in Illinois there are only 370 social workers -—putting their caseloads at over 1,000 students each. We join them in their call for more social workers, counselors, audio/visual and hearing technicians and school nurses. Our children are exposed to unprecedented levels of neighborhood violence and other social issues, so the fight for wrap-around services is critically important to all of us. Our members will continue to support this groundswell of parent activism and grassroots engagement on these issues. And we hope the Board will not shut these voices out.

“And while new Illinois law prohibits us from striking over the recall of laid-off teachers and compensation for a longer school year, we do not intend to sign an agreement until of the matters of our contract are addressed.

“Again, we are committed to staying at the table until a contract is place. However, in the morning no CTU member will be inside our schools. We will walk the picket lines. We will talk to parents. We will talk to clergy. We demand a fair contract today, we demand a fair contract now. And, until there is one in place that our members will accept, we will be on the line.

“We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters throughout the state and the country who are currently bargaining for their own fair contracts. Most people don't understand, it is not just Chicago it is file intent to strike. Let's be clear --in Illinois we have at least five AFT locals and twelve IEA locals.

“This announcement is made now so our parents and community are empowered with this knowledge and will know that schools --real schools-- will not open tomorrow. Please seek alternative care for your children. And, we ask all of you to join us in our education justice fight—for a fair contract—and call on the mayor and CEO Brizard to settle this matter now. Thank you.”

CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey then took questions.

David Vitale, just on WBBM, says impasse continues. Says that CPS has offered all that city can offer, pending budget constraints. Says latest, best offer, 3 % in year one (COLA + increase). On merit pay, city not proposing merit pay.
Have retained the steps that will give more pay to experienced teachers.
Have retained lanes. (????)
Will continue 7 % employee pension contribution.
Health care: rates for singles, couples, unchanged; CPS proposing more equity between singles, couples. Have taken wellness program off the table.
Sick days. Employees will retain sick day banks. Offering free disability program.
On layoff and recall area, and regarding school consolidations, teachers will follow students to the new positions.
Teachers will have the right to recall positions.
Teachers losing positions in school closing will go to a reassigned teacher pool. Will have to apply for jobs. Will get preference. Principals will have to explain if they reject applicants.
Will go to a single calendar, replacing the two calendar; proposing CTU contribute.
On teacher evaluation, will not use high-stakes tests. Will only be used to evaluate, to improve teachers.
Full proposal on the table is online at CPS site.

CTU website reports that writer, publisher Gloria Steinem will wear red in solidarity with striking Chicago Teacher Union members.

Gloria Steinem, Co-Founder of the Women’s Media Center, released the following statement this evening:

“Tonight, I proudly wear a red t-shirt in support of the Chicago Teachers Union strike. They have been forced to strike – for the first time in 25 years – by the false economy of firing and penalizing the experienced teachers most needed by the students and by new teachers; by lengthening the school day as warehousing without educational services, healthy school buildings, and paid teachers; by what they have the knowledge to call the “apartheid-like system” of differential discipline policies; and by what seems to be a national tactic of demonizing teachers in order to turn public schools into corporate profit centers.

“For instance, three years ago, a Stanford Study found that ‘students in charter schools are not faring as well as students in traditional public school.’ I’m glad to see that in a recent poll, twice as many Chicagoans trusted the Chicago Teachers Union, not the Mayor, when it comes to public education.

“As an 87% female workforce, and one that is nearly half African American and Latino, the Chicago Teachers Union know what their students need. This is why this country needs unions, collective bargaining, and mayors who recognize, honor and fairly pay the people our children know – and who know our children.” Steinem continued, "I join my colleagues at The Women's Media Center, in calling on the media to ensure that women are part of this story — as teachers, parents, union members, and as journalists.”

The CTU website also published a detailed statement echoing president Lewis' press conference statement.

Press Release: CPS Fails To Negotiate Fair Contract To Prevent First Strike In 25 Years
09/09/2012

More than 29,000 teachers and education professionals will not report to work today 9/10

CHICAGO— After hours of intense negotiations, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) have failed to reach an agreement that will prevent the first teachers strike in 25 years. Pickets are expected to begin Monday at 675 schools and the Board of Education as early as 6:30 a.m. Teachers, paraprofessionals and school clinicians have been without a labor agreement since June of this year.

Union leaders expressed disappointment in the District’s refusal to concede on issues involving compensation, job security and resources for their students. CTU President Karen Lewis said, “Negotiations have been intense but productive, however we have failed to reach an agreement that will prevent a labor strike. This is a difficult decision and one we hoped we could avoid. Throughout these negotiations have I remained hopeful but determined. We must do things differently in this city if we are to provide our students with the education they so rightfully deserve.

“Talks have been productive in many areas. We have successfully won concessions for nursing mothers and have put more than 500 of our members back to work. We have restored some of the art, music, world language, technology and physical education classes to many of our students. The Board also agreed that we will now have textbooks on the first day of school rather than have our students and teachers wait up to six weeks before receiving instructional materials.

“Recognizing the Board’s fiscal woes, we are not far apart on compensation. However, we are apart on benefits. We want to maintain the existing health benefits.

“Another concern is evaluation procedures. After the initial phase-in of the new evaluation system it could result in 6,000 teachers (or nearly 30 percent of our members) being discharged within one or two years. This is unacceptable. We are also concerned that too much of the new evaluations will be based on students’ standardized test scores. This is no way to measure the effectiveness of an educator. Further there are too many factors beyond our control which impact how well some students perform on standardized tests such as poverty, exposure to violence, homelessness, hunger and other social issues beyond our control.

“We want job security. Despite a new curriculum and new, stringent evaluation system, CPS proposes no increase (or even decreases) in teacher training. This is notable because our Union through our Quest Center is at the forefront teacher professional development in Illinois. We have been lauded by the District and our colleagues across the country for our extensive teacher training programs that helped emerging teachers strengthen their craft and increased the number of nationally board certified educators.

“We are demanding a reasonable timetable for the installation of air-conditioning in student classrooms--a sweltering, 98-degree classroom is not a productive learning environment for children. This type of environment is unacceptable for our members and all school personnel. A lack of climate control is unacceptable to our parents.

“As we continue to bargain in good faith, we stand in solidarity with parents, clergy and community-based organizations who are advocating for smaller class sizes, a better school day and an elected school board. Class size matters. It matters to parents. In the third largest school district in Illinois there are only 350 social workers—putting their caseloads at nearly 1,000 students each. We join them in their call for more social workers, counselors, audio/visual and hearing technicians and school nurses. Our children are exposed to unprecedented levels of neighborhood violence and other social issues, so the fight for wraparound services is critically important to all of us. Our members will continue to support this ground swell of parent activism and grassroots engagement on these issues. And we hope the Board will not shut these voices out.

“While new Illinois law prohibits us from striking over the recall of laid-off teachers and compensation for a longer school year, we do not intend to sign an agreement until these matters are addressed.

“Again, we are committed to staying at the table until a contract is place. However, in the morning no CTU member will be inside our schools. We will walk the picket lines. We will talk to parents. We will talk to clergy. We will talk to the community. We will talk to anyone who will listen—we demand a fair contract today, we demand a fair contract now. And, until there is one in place that our members accept, we will on the line.

“We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters throughout the state and country who are currently bargaining for their own fair contracts. We stand with those who have already declared they too are prepared to strike, in the best interests of their students.”

“This announcement is made now so our parents and community are empowered with this knowledge and will know that schools will not open on tomorrow. Please seek alternative care for your children. And, we ask all of you to join us in our education justice fight—for a fair contract—and call on the mayor and CEO Brizard to settle this matter now. Thank you.”

###
The union is not on strike over matters governed exclusively by IELRA Section 4.5 and 12(b).

The Chicago Teachers Union represents 30,000 teachers and educational support personnel working in the Chicago Public Schools, and by extension, the more than 400,000 students and families they serve. The CTU is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers and is the third largest teachers local in the United States and the largest local union in Illinois. For more information please visit CTU’s website at www.ctunet.com

[WBBM initially reported at 9:28 PM (CDT) that there would be no strike tomorrow because it would require house of delegates meeting and they were not convening then.]

Click to my previous blogpost for the Sun-Times' publishing of Chicago Public Schools' advice guide to replacement workers / scabs.

Chicago Sun-Times Publishes Scab's Guide to Schools - Teacher Recounts What's at Stake

LATEST, posted 12:52 PM, Sat. September 8, 2012, by Chicago Sun-Times: Talks resume as teachers strike deadline looms. At last night's news conference after eight hours of contract negotiations, Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis said that she was "very disappointed."

WMAQ (NBC) TV: "CTU Opens Strike Headquarters as Contract Talks Continue"

Est. 12:15 AM, Sun. September 9, 2012: The Chicago Tribune said that contracts are still not progressing, despite the entry of Chicago School Board president David Vitale, who helped usher in previous recent contracts. The Tribune also reported that Service Employees International Union janitors are required by law to work through a teachers' strike, but the SEIU local president says that janitors will wear red handkerchiefs out of solidarity with striking teachers.

The Chicago Sun-Times has published a guide to scabbing for "replacement workers" who will actual teachers at special "holding schools." (Many teachers have been calling "scab schools." CTU president Lewis has called the contingency plans "a train wreck" waiting to happen.)

Here are the highlights from the guide, via Mike Klonsky's blog. The subtext/translation follows the "CPS’s How To Guide for workers at strike contingency school" tips for the principals, assistant principals, office staff and whomever the Chicago Public Schools manages to scrounge up to staff 144 “Children First’’scab sites when the CTU officially goes on strike on Monday, September 10, 2012, less than 48 hours from now.

• “Wear a watch — your room may not have a functioning clock.’’
Poor school funding: "teachers' working conditions are our students learning conditions." Hellooo
• Dress comfortably as “many schools are NOT air-conditioned.’’
Ditto
• “You will need to bring your own breakfast and lunch. Please note that you cannot rely on access to refrigerators or microwaves.’’
No faculty cafeteria, or if there is, the staff could be CTU and out on strike
• “Keep personal items to a minimum.’’
Beware of theft
• Sessions for kids run from 8:30 to 12:30 but “you should arrive as early as possible” and be prepared to stay late.
Be prepared to babysit between 12:30 until 3:00 or so, or whenever the schoolday normally ends, and parents come pick up Johnny
• Bring 30 sharpened pencils, 30 pens and a personal pencil sharpener.
The students aren't prepared
• Bring “stickers or other small inexpensive incentive items.’’
Narrowing of curriculum has alienated the students; bribes supposedly overcome this
• Bring old magazines and newspapers, puzzles and games.
Real teaching won't happen when real teachers are away

Klonsky adds:
There's one other tip the guide could have included: Don't drink too much coffee or water before school and be prepared to hold it in because there won't be anyone to relieve you (pun intended).

I can't imagine these poor suits from Clark Street still favoring a longer school day after this experience. But maybe they will gain a little respect for teachers once this is over.

A panicky [Schools CEO Jean-Claude] Brizard sent Lewis a letter Friday, asking the union to voluntarily forgo picketing the 144 “Children First’’scab sites. He claims that he has “deep concerns’’ about forcing “impressionable” kids to “walk through a picket line with their parents.’’ He's also going to have to find a way to slip his forced-labor principals and A.P.s in through the back door to keep them from crossing picket lines. Remember, at some point they will have to go back and work with their teachers again and try to rebuild the trust that Rahm has shattered.

And then there's Klonsky's other post in which he reprinted one teacher's contribution to an eclectic Chicago blog about the meaning of teaching:

What's At Stake for Chicago Public Educators?"
By David Stieber

You have undoubtedly heard the news reports, radio attack ads, CPS representatives, the "CEO" of Chicago Public Schools, and the Mayor saying how teachers are walking out on the students if we strike. Parents, students, residents of this city, as a teacher let me tell you, comments like that rip teachers to our core. As cliché as it sounds teaching is a calling. It's not as if one day we just said, "I guess I'll just be a teacher." It takes skill and dedication to stand in front of 30 (sometimes more) young people in a classroom and truly care and be able to teach every one of them. It is not possible to just be mediocre when it comes to teaching students. A young person is the first to let you know if you aren't doing a good job at teaching the lesson, not getting graded work passed back quickly enough, heck, they will even let you know if you look bad that day.

Teachers just can't punch in, start thinking about kids then punch out and stop. Teachers are always trying to improve our lesson plans, grade, figure out ways to reach the students who are withdrawn, quiet, confrontational or disrupting class. We just can't shut our students out of our lives when the bell rings.

Unless you are a teacher you have no idea the pain, frustration and intrinsic anger we feel when some paid radio ad claims, that "teachers are walking out on students." Some days after teaching, I honestly wish I could walk out on my students and never come back. But no matter how frustrating our day may have been, it is the kids that always bring us back. Teachers spend our lunch periods, before and after school helping, coaching, and listening to our students.

After days of teaching, we spend nights in grad school, trying to make ourselves better teachers. We raise children and think about how we want our own child to be like __(insert name here)__ who we taught a few years back.

There is nothing about our careers, our schools, and our students that we take lightly.

So please understand, teachers are trying to teach you that our careers and professions are under attack. Please understand we are trying to teach you about how your child's education is under attack.

You may find this dramatic, but education is at a crossroads in our country and our neighborhood, our city is right at the intersection of these crossroads. There is an attempt to make schooling privatized, charter-ized, and more inequitable than it already is. There is an attempt to get rid of experienced teachers who have built relationships with families, who truly know how to teach and replace them with less expensive, inexperienced teachers who likely will only be at the school for two years.

There is an attempt to teach through testing, to make your child so bored in school from over-standardized testing that students aren't excited for school anymore. There is an attempt to further cut librarians, counselors, nurses, PE, World Language, Art and now classroom teachers, in order to "save" money. A budget is a political document, not a financial one, it's about priorities. Some priorities obviously need to be re-evaluated.

Teachers in no way shape or form want to strike, we want to be working with and educating your children. The CTU, which represents and is elected by 26,000 educators across this city has had over 50 negotiation meetings with CPS since November 2011. In all of that time "CEO" Brizard has attended zero of those meetings, which means there was no one from CPS at the bargaining table with any educational experience.

So I ask, how do you bargain on what is best for students with people who have never taught students?

At stake is way more than pay. At stake for us is doing what is right for our community, our city, and yes our students, because as teachers it is always about the kids.

David Stieber is a CPS teacher, and is currently completing a Masters degree in Urban Education Policy Studies.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Giddy in Charlotte as Strike Nears

Chicago Rahm Emanuel first was reported as cutting his visit in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the Democratic National Convention. He was to be there just the first night, and then was to race back to Chicago, as both powerful local politicians were asking for him to return to Chicago. Yet he stayed at least one more day.

From Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: "Rahm giddy in Charlotte as strike nears"

Rahm giddy in Charlotte as strike nears

As the strike deadline draws near, I'm taken with image of Rahm Emanuel, last night, still in Charlotte, giggling like a little boy in front of the TV cameras and clapping wildly as his patron Clinton lectures the eager crowd.. For a moment I thought he was going to pee himself.

Meanwhile back home, the CTU was not impressed. The union upped the ante yesterday, filing a charge with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board accusing CPS, among other things, of unfairly denying CTU members “step” increases for additional years of experience. CTU officials contended the board must honor the step increases in the current contract until a new contract replaces it.

In response to the charges and feeling the stress of mounting public pressure and possible damage to the Obama campaign, CPS made a concession. While they refused to move off of their measly 2% pay increase offer, the board did move away from its "merit pay" demand -- a major concession. Previously, CPS had proposed that CTU members would get a tiny fourth-year raise only if they had agreed to a “differentiated compensation plan’’ that year.

Back home, CPS' attack dog, Becky Carroll continues to jeopardize the negotiations with her anti-union outbursts. Here's Sun-Times reporters account:

Asked for comment, CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said by email, “It is unfortunate that the union continues to mischaracterize the proposals made during negotiations. Their insistence on regularly misleading the public and their own membership is appalling and does a disservice to students.’’ Carroll did not immediately explain how the union had mischaracterized talks.

Someone over there at Clark St. should yank on her leash.

Best headline comes from The Chicagoist:

Rahm Applauds Unions As He Tries To Bust One At Home
Emanuel, his voice cracking like Peter Brady entering puberty, listed the achievements of Obama's first term and, notably, spoke of the importance of listening to labor unions in bailing out the auto industry, the highest of ironies given how he's trying to bust the Chicago Teachers Union at home. "Unions are great, as long as they aren't teaching your kids."

Charles Pierce at Esquire had this to say about Rahm in Charlotte:

So to hell with all of you squalling hippies. Rahm was in the room, beeyotches. He was there when the president "made the right choice" on the auto industry, so forget Rattner's book where he's quoted as saying, "F--- the UAW." (Rahm says "f---" a lot. He likes to make waitresses cry.)

Posted by Mike Klonsky at 5:39 PM

The Chicago Teachers Union is set to strike at Chicago Public Schools on September 10, 2012, noted at "STRIKE! Largest Chicago Teachers Union House of Delegates meeting of the century votes unanimously to strike Chicago's public schools beginning September 10" at Substance News and "Chicago Teachers Strike Still On, Union Files Unfair Labor Grievance" at Huffington Post.

BREAKING: Chicago Teachers Union Strike to Come: To File 10-Day Notice

BREAKING NEWS: Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) to file 10-day strike notice.
This will potentially set the strike to begin on the second week of school, occupying a difficult part on the news cycle, coming right on the heels of the Democratic National Convention, scheduled for the first week in September.

Chicago Teachers Union to file 10-day strike notice
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter rrossi@suntimes.com August 29, 2012 10:10AM

Updated: August 29, 2012 1:03PM

The Chicago Teachers Union plans to file a 10-day notice of intent to strike Wednesday, thrusting teachers closer to a walkout that could start as early as the second week of school, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Another step before a strike could disrupt classes in the nation’s third-largest school system would be the setting of a strike date by the union’s House of Delegates, a topic the body is likely to take up at its meeting on Thursday.

Delegates could set an exact date or give union leaders some leeway.

The union plans a news conference later Wednesday.

The planned filing Wednesday of a 10-day notice of intent to strike comes after CTU President Karen Lewis said late Tuesday that the two sides remain “very far apart” and have only recently resolved small issues, such as “ privacy for nursing mothers and workplace bullying.’’

“We are literally talking about crossing Ts and dotting Is,’’ Lewis said.

Any notice — which allows a strike anytime after 10 days — also would follow contentions by Lewis that an 11th-hour deal for a longer school day has been done “haphazardly” and “ridiculously” — an accusation that took some Chicago school officials by surprise. Under the interim agreement, kids still got the longer day promised by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, but teachers’ work day was not substantially lengthened.

Chicago schools chief Jean-Claude Brizard said Wednesday that if union leaders choose to file notice to strike, “We’ll be ready.”

The two sidea have been talking since November about a new contract. Teachers’ old contract expired in June.

Chicago School Board members last week OKed spending up to $25 million to keep students occupied, sheltered and fed in the event of a strike, an authorization that would be triggered upon notice of an intent to strike.

Asked whether a 10-day notice would put added pressure to resolve teacher contract talks that have lingered since November, Brizard said, “We’ve been very serious about negotiations” but a 10-day notice would “put pressure” on kids and parents.

Brizard spoke after meeting with principals at year-round schools, which started classes earlier this month. The principals raved about the extra time and recess that have come with the longer school day.

Several said the possibility of a strike hasn’t disrupted instruction so far.

“No one’s come to me and said they are down,” said Brunson Principal Carol Wilson. “I don’t see it impacting the instructional day.”

BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter rrossi@suntimes.com August 29, 2012

Mayor Emanuel to ‘ratchet up’ his role in preventing teachers strike - Chicago Sun-Times

Mayor Emanuel to ‘ratchet up’ his role in preventing teachers strike - Chicago Sun-Times,

{And, Mike Klonsky on the question of whether Rahm Emanuel is an honest broker.}

{Scroll to end for Chicagoist posting, as linked by the official CTU blog.}

From the Sun-Times:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is preparing to “ratchet up” negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union to seal a deal needed to guarantee an on-time Sept. 4 opening of Chicago Public Schools and preserve his signature plan for a longer school day and year, City Hall sources said Thursday.

He owns this anyway, and he’s gonna need to ratchet it up to close it,” said a mayoral confidant, who asked to remain anonymous.

Emanuel is already visiting several schools a day to drive home the point that 140,000 kids have already started school and cannot be left in the lurch by a teachers strike.

Early next week, sources said the mayor plans to step it up a notch by having a “second level of negotiations with more senior people” away from the same cast of characters currently at the bargaining table.

The second tier of negotiations is likely to include Beth Swanson, Emanuel’s point person on education, and “someone from Washington, D.C., who is a more moderate, outside senior level” expert capable of “driving this home,” sources said.

“People who’ve been in those meetings for weeks have war wounds. It’s hard to break through that,” the Emanuel confidant said.

Community groups and Emanuel’s education “surrogates” are also expected to turn up the heat by orchestrating a series of news conferences, protest marches and rallies warning both sides not to “do this to our kids.”

And, if and when the talks appear to be nearing the goal line, sources said Emanuel is prepared to do what his predecessor would not: summon the two sides into the mayor’s office to personally broker the final chapter of bargaining.

Former Mayor Richard M. Daley never got personally involved in labor negotiations, unlike his father.

Instead, Daley delegated the responsibility to negotiators, remained at arm’s length and inevitably ended up agreeing to contracts taxpayers could not afford to maintain labor peace.

Daley was timid and notoriously risk-averse when it came to labor negotiations.

Emanuel has no such compunction. He brokered many a difficult deal — including the auto industry bailout — during his days as White House chief-of-staff under President Barack Obama.

He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty — but that should not be confused with weakness.

“If we come to the end, and it’s a choice between a ridiculous settlement and a strike, we would take a strike,” the mayoral confidant said.

“People went into negotiations with Daley knowing he was allergic to strikes. He wound up giving a ton in the end. This mayor can’t cave. It’s what he ran on. The kids will have a longer day, and he’s not gonna bankrupt the system to get it. The only way to do that is to have a more sane contract. He sees this deal as fundamental to that.”

Asked Thursday whether he was prepared to personally intervene in the teacher talks, Emanuel kept the spotlight on his negotiating team.

“The parties [who] need to work on this are at the table. ... And I expect the parties to stay at the table and get this done on behalf of the children of Chicago and on behalf of the taxpayers. ... That’s their responsibility. That’s how we’re all held accountable. And I expect them to do it, since the parties are there,” he said.

Emanuel would probably be inclined to jump into the talks sooner if he had a rapport with CTU President Karen Lewis.

But, their relationship is non-existent. Lewis even went so far as to accuse the mayor of using the f-word during one of their earliest private meetings.

“He and Karen have not had productive meetings in his office,” a mayoral confidant said. “You hold that as a final card.”

Last month, the two sides appeared to have taken a giant step toward averting Chicago’s first teachers strike in 25 years.

It called for hiring 477 teachers to staff the longer school day — at a cost of up to $50 million — so elementary school teachers don’t have to work a minute longer, and rearranging the high school day so teachers there have to work only 14 extra minutes.

Since then, progress appears to have slowed to a crawl. The union complained this week that the teacher hiring deal is not being honored and that the longer school day in schools that started earlier this month has been a flop.

On Thursday, City Hall sources identified teacher hire-backs and pay raises that reward teachers for education and seniority as the two biggest roadblocks standing in the way of an agreement.

The so-called “step-and-lane” increases that Emanuel wants to eliminate are likely to be preserved in some form but could be offered every other year, sources said. They also might be “different for new teachers,” the sources said.

Emanuel has cleared his calendar for Labor Day weekend to be available to broker eleventh-hour teacher talks.

He’s even prepared to cancel his trip to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. — and a coveted speech to delegates — if that’s what it takes to nail down a deal.

The mayor would also skip the convention in the event of a strike. He’s not about to leave town while working parents are scrambling to make alternative plans for their kids.

That’s even though his handpicked school board has authorized $25 million in spending to keep kids occupied, supervised and fed at libraries, Park District fieldhouses, charter schools and churches during a walkout.

From Chicagoist:
Negotiations between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union on a new labor deal will continue without the threat of a strike on Sept. 4. CTU president Karen Lewis said she has no intention of filing a 10-day strike notice by Saturday, which is the deadline to do so for a strike to coincide with the beginning of the school year for most of the schools.
Lewis made her announcement during a leafleting at the 95th Street Red Line station this morning. It’s been clear for a while Lewis would use the 10-day strike notice as a hammer in an attempt to spur negotiations between the union and CPS. Lewis has said repeatedly that talks on a new contract have been unproductive, while CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard disputed Lewis’s take, saying progress has been made. Both CPS and CTU are arguing over how the new longer school day has been implemented at Track E schools so far. Brizard released a statement saying the longer day was working and a strike would undo all of the benefits. Lewis said the longer school day isn’t working and “and if we just leave it up to these guys, it will never be a better school day.” We tend to believe Lewis at this point, especially after Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that he intends to take a more hands-on approach to avoid the first teachers strike in a quarter century. A mayoral confidant told the Sun-Times the mayor plans to “ratchet up” negotiations with the union. The source said Emanuel plans to meet with a “second level of negotiations” involving people who aren’t currently at the bargaining table, and organizing a series of rallies, protest marches and news conferences with community groups to try to steer the message back to “don’t do this to the kids.”
Emanuel’s more aggressive approach may be a case of too little too late, especially for a man who has seemingly been itching for a showdown with the teachers union almost from the moment he was sworn in as mayor. Lewis, at the leafleting, said it won’t matter. “Ultimately, (Emanuel) is going to tell the board what to do anyway.” If a teachers strike occurs the contingency plan the Chicago School Board was asked to authorize Wednesday, which would authorize vendors to provide food, shelter and other “non-instructional services” to students displaced by a strike, could cost up to $25 million. The contingency plan will be executed only if the union issues a 10-day strike notice.
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By Chuck Sudo in News on August 24, 2012 9:35 AM