Chicago MMXII

mayor is pissed

also acc to lutton union leaders are taking a stand on
* recent neighboring states attacks on collective bargaining
* evaluation being tied to test scores
* their position on wide reaching philosophical issues that a group can only protest through collective bargaining

can you tell i am working on ways to teach summarizing?!

from a teacher friend via fb:

t is official; Chicago Teachers Union is on strike. There is plenty of rhetoric supporting both the teachers and the board. I have been asked how I can do this to the kids. I want to turn around and ask how can I not! What I am fighting for is a better education for all students.
• I fight for smaller class sizes for students, as studies continue to show have a positive effect on student learning.
• I fight for wraparound services that will help students to focus on their education because their basic needs are finally being met.
• I fight for more professionals in the special education department. Currently about 15% of the students at the school at which I work receive special education services, with that number increasing daily and they deserve the services and professionals to help them learn.
• I fight for a way to fairly evaluate teachers on more than just test scores.
• I fight for students to receive equal opportunities whether they live on the north side, south side, west side, or anywhere in between.
• I fight for social services to help students cope with the realities of tragedies that many are going through daily.
• I fight against CPS giving up on schools and giving tax dollars to charter schools that only keep the strongest students and kick out the weaker struggling students and still don’t show consistent better data than CPS schools.
• I fight for enrichment programs like art, music, and physical education so our students can be well rounded critical thinkers ready to take on the challenges of a changing world. Being able to fill in bubbles on a test does not measure skills like that, nor does it teach them.
• I fight to help my students identify their strengths and skills and lay out a path that can help them follow those to a life after high school that incorporates those gifts that they possess.
• I fight for a fair wage based upon my education, the need for me to keep attending classes to keep up to date on current studies so I can best meet the needs of my students, and to keep the educational certificate I have earned.
Do I like being in this situation, no I don’t; but I would rather miss a couple of days of school now to ensure a better education than to passively sit by while students are shortchanged in their education for a four year contract that the board is proposing. I am an educator and I fight to be able to actually educate students in a meaningful way. Why do I feel this way? Because I was lucky enough to have parents and quality teachers who challenged me and shaped me into who I am. I say thank you to the educators who came before me, solidarity to those around me now, I fight for you, educators who will come next, and most of all, I fight for students; past, present, and future!
-C@r0lyn L@tsh@w
Proud CPS Educator

The smaller class size thing isn't so much about teachers, but it's about students. Yes, the budget is in shambles but students (and ESPECIALLY students in cruddy neighborhoods (that are cruddy due to municipal decisions dating back to Daley Sr.'s reign)) should not bear the burden of it.

what it sounds like to me, outside of the physical plant issues (climate control, leaky roof, etc) is that no one believes that teachers know best about how to educate students.
this is what it takes for them to have their opinion considered seriously.
depressing that this is true, but i support using whatever voice people will listen to.

^^^ otm

Schools should not be a lab for testing out free market solutions or political ideologies or a place to cut corners because we're talking about educating human beings that are going to grow up and take over when I'm too old and weak to stop them from killing me with their stupid, uneducated decisions so please, for the love of Pete, let's funnel some serious money into these institutions, listen to teachers, and put students first.

gonna steal that line carl fyi

Help yourself!

I think spending is the solution to many problems. People are often so focused on cutting - cutting programs, cutting budgets, cutting staff - that they forget that actually investing - in schools, in newspapers, in infrastructure - is a legit strategy that benefits/behooves everyone. But the question really is where the money will come from, no? Virtually everything the teachers are asking for entails a considerable budget expenditure, and I wish there were a way to find the money. But my understanding is that the city budget, like the state budget, is teetering in a really precarious place as it is, and there's really no reason to believe Rahm is lying about it; if anything, budget problems are probably worse than most of us realize. So what is the solution? All teacher demands can be perfectly reasonable and equally unimplementable barring major compromises on both sides. Which seems tough, given the total lack of goodwill on both sides.

teachers be strikin outside my window

been seeing a lot of pics w/ signs decrying TIFs as part of the problem, fundingwise

right -- alderman's ofc is across the street

I can't speak to city budgets, but I will say this about state budgets: since our current governor took office, he has created six management level positions in the high 5, low 6 figure salary range that did not exist in the 20 years prior. So generously that's nearly half a million dollars of additional spending in this agency alone in unnecessary jobs in the last three years. The people filling these jobs come from the campaigns and offices of other well-known, powerful state politicians, and not because they are particularly skilled at these jobs.

Again, this is state government. Under Daley I would have said that is exactly what is happening in city govt, and while I don't know that Rahm is up to the same shenanigans, I am confident there are legacy situations going on similar to this.

So as for where the money is coming from, you can rest assured that some of it could easily come from dismantling the insanely expensive patronage system going on in state and local government.

And don't even get me started on union employees' state pensions. Just trust me that they took a closer look at the pension systems for governmental appointees and made the same changes there that they have made to union employees' pensions, we'd be in much better shape.

HUGE group of protesters outside my window screaming hey hey ho ho rahm emanuel's got to go

xpost All that makes perfect sense, but it doesn't sound terribly different from unfair criticisms levied again "underperforming" teachers or schools. It just seems weird to complain about allegedly superfluous legacy government employees that cost too much and could be let go when one of the major concerns of the teacher's union is retaining the power to basically prevent the government from firing teachers it considers superfluous and closing schools it thinks are unnecessary. No one wants to be fired, no one wants pensions cut, no one wants their benefits curtailed. But everyone wants more money.

they're gone now btw

Where did they go?

not sure -- there are only three left
i'm talking about the large group of protesters that was outside my window screaming at the top of their lungs

iirc official picketing of individual schools ends around 10:30 so that everyone can go to the loop for the big rally

ahhhhh
nice logistics, folks!

plz don't quote me on that, I can't even find the source (but I think it was on fb, got 3 different teacher friends, one of them is a 'strike captain' and I think he posted it)

Power in numbers.

btw same dude posted he was making lesson plans last night at like 10PM, tell that to any jerks who say teachers don't work outside of normal hours

Nah all teachers are fat and lazy non-contributers that do nothing but sit on their ass all summer and bitch about life not being fair.

NB - this is not my opinion, but a paraphrasing of the blowhard I was unfortunate enough to be within earshot of the other night.

Teachers work very hard, and long hours, with little reward and little support. But they do have pretty good benefits, by and large. And OK pay. It's a tough negotiating position, from a public perspective, to strike for more when they already have more than many, however hard the job. For example, one of the sticking points I guess is the ability to rehire ("recall") fired teachers from closed schools whenever new positions open up. I like the sound of that, but it's also a pretty sweet deal, if not perpetual job security than certainly a big help.

I think one of the problems here are the number of handshake deals and good-faith compromises that went down over the past few years in lieu of formal negotiations and contracts. Now the arguments are over amorphous agreements, which will be tough to settle, let alone to roll into new contracts that also incorporate new demands.

It just seems weird to complain about allegedly superfluous legacy government employees that cost too much and could be let go when one of the major concerns of the teacher's union is retaining the power to basically prevent the government from firing teachers it considers superfluous and closing schools it thinks are unnecessary.

Apples and oranges. Legacy gov't employees are 1) non-union and 2) in positions created specifically for them as a political payback/gift and 3) the same people who want to fire underperforming teachers will not fire patronage bozos.

Also the government does not define "unnecessary" the same way neighborhoods and teachers and parents do, which is part of the problem. "This school is underperforming and lacks attendance and is therefore unnecessary" says the government, when in reality, the school's getting no money for books or AC and the class sizes are huge and it's dangerous so of course it's underperforming and of course nobody wants to go there.

Being able to terminate poor performers is hard to argue with, especially since I have (to be fair) seen first hand how frustrating it is to need to fire somebody who just totally sucks at their job and life but face numerous obstacles to do so, so I get it. BUT 1) don't tie performance into standardized test scores; and 2) there are ways to fire shitty employees under union contracts, but it takes longer and it requires management to proactively do their jobs with reprimands and writeups and counseling.

Teacher pay is not that great and the "amazing benefits for public employees" is a thing of the past thanks to budget cuts and previous union concessions.

I think one of the problems here are the number of handshake deals and good-faith compromises that went down over the past few years in lieu of formal negotiations and contracts.

Labor agreements are in writing, either in the actual CBA or in memos of understanding or supplemental agreements, or based on past practice, which if it meets specific criteria is as binding as written provisions. So handshake deals, if put into practice, equal contract provisions.

Is the reported number wrong that the average Chicago teacher salary is $70K?

I thought I read 76 somewhere.

I have seen the 70k number repeated a lot

I think that's reasonable, but I'm a firm believer that a rising tide lifts all ships. Also that teachers should be compensated as professional-level workers.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/06/12/how-much-do-chicago-public-school-teachers-make/#.UE34kYFchsE.facebook

I wonder how that averages out, though, with seniority, etc.

One of our clients got a new job at a CPS (not a teacher). She went through her orientation last week and today would have been her first day of real work, but instead it was off to the picket line.

She actually stepped away from the picket for a moment to call us about her lawsuit against the school she used to work for. Lol. She's like a right winger's perfect enemy.

70k?

70k?

are you fucking kidding me?

on what planet is that?

Planet Chicago.

And hey, that's the average, apparently.

I had thought it was lower, because a friend of mine who's a CPS teacher was making more like 40K--but then I remembered that that might've been when she was teaching at a Catholic school before switching jobs.

anyway what that 70k number means is that there are some some teachers with 30 year seniority who are pulling 100+

josh in chicago back to math class

"70k average" means if you go into a school and grab a teacher by the arm and say "hey how much do you make?" they say "why 70k of course" and if you ask 50 teachers most of them will tell you that.

in the last school district i worked in in california, the average was 81k, which meant there were a handful of people who had phds and 20+ years and were making 125k - which if you think about it, getting 125k for working 20 years with a phd in silicon valley is kinda peanuts - and a whole lot of people

i want to know the median and mode teacher pay, if you will

anyway is salary at the top of list of demands or at the bottom?

Can't go to math class, teachers on strike.

Supposedly, salary is not even an issue in this strike, which is what's so weird and/or dubious.

isn't the standardized testing stuff related to teacher evaluations which is what the whole 'shutting down schools and opening non-union charter' tactic hinges on? seemed like that was a big bone of contention to me.

― DX Dx DX (dan m), Monday, September 10, 2012 7:39 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bingo.

That's one. And then there's the issue of schools being able to rehire back fired teachers if spaces open up. Those are to two big sticking points. But I've seen a litany of demands, from A/C units to more social workers to, yes, better pay, to account for rising health insurance costs.

also AFAICT rahm asked teachers to spend several extra hours (was it 130 min?) PER DAY at school without essentially paying them for those extra hours. so the token "raise" the city is offering is, if you factor in 100s of additional hours, actually a huge wage cut. rahm hired an independent fact-finder who (oops!) sided with the union on this issue, and then rahm dismissed the fact-finder.

this is a fight over the direction of "public" education not just over wages+benefits though, even though most news reports make it sound like the latter because the other stuff is complicated.