A few days ago, the Chicago Teachers Union voted overwhelmingly to strike.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Just a year ago, Jonah Edelman of Stand for Children boasted at the Aspen Ideas Festival how he had outsmarted the teachers’ union. He described how he had shaped legislation not only to cut back teachers’ job protections but to prevent the Chicago union from ever striking. He told the nation’s elite, ‘if it could happen in Illinois, it could happen anywhere.” Stand for Children was once a grassroots group but has now become one of the active leaders in the corporate reform campaign to advance privatization and bring teachers to heel.
Speaking to a gathering of the nation’s elite at Aspen, Edelman offered a template to beat back public employees in other states. Armed with millions of dollars supplied by wealthy financiers, he hired the top lobbyists in Illinois and won favor with the top politicians. He shaped legislation to use test scores for evaluating teachers, to strip due process rights from teachers, and to assure that teachers lost whatever job protections they had. In his clever and quiet campaign behind the scenes, he even managed to split the state teachers’ unions.
His biggest victory consisted of isolating the Chicago Teachers Union and imposing arequirement that it could not strike without the approval of 75% of its members. Edelman gleefully told the assorted corporate reformers, charter sponsors, and equity investors in his audience how he had skillfully outfoxed the teachers, leaving them powerless. He was certain that the CTU would never be able to get a vote of 75% of its members. It would never be possible.
Guess what? Jonah Edelman was wrong. Nearly 90% of the members of CTU voted to authorize a strike to protest Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s policies of more work for no more pay, privatization of public education, and increased class sizes. To be exact, 89,73% of the CTU voted to authorize a strike, 1.82% voted “no,” and 91.55% of members cast a vote.
Sorry, Jonah. You don’t know what mass action means. You have no idea what happens when working people organize and mobilize and stand together against the powerful financiers and politicians that you now represent.
Karen Lewis showed that the teachers of Chicago stand together against mayoral authoritarianism. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has demanded that they teach longer hours without additional pay; he has allowed class sizes to rise; he has dealt contemptuously with teachers; he has made clear his preference for privatization.
There’s more of this story yet to unfold, and we will keep watch. But for now,the important lesson is that the teachers of Chicago showed Jonah Edelman that the money gathered from hedge fund managers and other equity financiers can’t buy them.
Now the only remaining mystery is how the son of a legendary civil rights leader, Marian Wright Edelman, became an acorn that fell so very far from the tree.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Karen Lewis and the CTU are the new leaders of the labor movement. Time for us to follow in their footsteps, rather than more pointless and counter-productive engagement with “reformers” and their absurd notions.
I’m feeling Bipolar over here in Maryland, Diane! Your last post, “The Question of the Day,” created so much despair in my vision for the profession (and our children, public education and nation), while this one, gives me hope on a large scale, that type of David and Goliath hope!
This is a David-and-Goliath moment in our history as a nation. Will public education survive the massive and well-funded effort to privatize it and reduce the status of the education profession? The question is still open. Still time to push back. We are many, they are few.
Thank you, Diane, for your blog. It keeps me informed and inspired.
Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Teachers Association (affiliated with NEA) has negotiated an accord with Stand for Children. The union agreed to weaken seniority rights significantly in exchange for Stand for Children not putting an even worse measure on the November. Polls indicated the measure was likely to pass if put to a vote. The other major teachers union in Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers (AFT/AFL-CIO) is not on board with the MTA-Stand for Children accord, but Governor Deval Patrick has praised it (http://articles.boston.com/2012-06-12/metro/32172072_1_teachers-association-new-teacher-evaluation-system-largest-teachers-union). Patrick is quoted in this Boston Globe story as saying, “It’s about how we make sure we get the very best and highest-performing teachers in front of the kids who need them.” Sigh.
At some point, those leading this campaign will be held accountable. The constant attacks on teachers–disguised as concern for “teacher quality”–take their toll on teacher quality. Someday, with more perspective, we may figure out why the elites declared open season on teachers.
“Reduce the status of the education profession?”
Who wont’s to be teacher today? Don Quijote is not riding and, in reality, never did.
We are hearing overwhelming parent and community support here in Chicago. On May 23, I marched with thousands of Chicago teachers proudly wearing union red, and people on the streets were giving us waves, smiles, and thumbs up while shouting “we love you”! Parents support us despite the robo-calls that went out and radio ads sponsered by groups like Education Refrom Now, Democrats for Education Reform, and of course Stand for Children. This 90% victory is nothing short of amazing and it is thanks to the fighting leadership of the CTU!
As we move forward in the movement, it will certainly be a battle for the hearts of the public. While no doubt enormous sums will be dumped into the propaganda machine, I am still hopeful. Last night I attended a Local School Council Meeting at my neighborhood public school. Due to Rahm’s unfunded longer day, the school will be losing 2 teaching positions and displacing up to 6 or 7 more veteran teachers (due to necessary changes in the schedule.) Class sizes will rise, some classes will be forced to become spilts (two grades in one classroom), and some of the most active and loved teachers will be lost. During the meeting, a number of distraught parents spoke and cried and expressed their anger, sadness, and frustration. So many parents and their chidlren showed up to the meeting that it had to be moved into the auditorium and the meeting lasted for nearly 5 hours. Absolutely unheard of. And this doesn’t even take into consideration the forced implementation of the Common Core next year or things like teacher compensation issues. Meanwhile, while schools are screaming that they simply don’t have the resources to implement all these new madates, Rahm and Brizard are rolling out their plan to open 60 new charter schools in the next five years. Unbelievable. As the unintended(?) consequences of Rahm’s careless, corporate plan become more apparent, I believe more and more parents and community members will begin speaking out.
Stay tuned 🙂
In talking briefly with K. Lewis the most important thing that she stressed was getting the parents involved, after all it is their children’s education and their schools that are being attacked in this blitzkrieg by the privatizing education deformers. As Diane wrote, “we have the numbers” and there can be power in the numbers if correctly utilized. Parental involvement should be one of our number one concerns (yes, we ought to have more than one number one concern-ha ha) when fighting for the children’s education along with our profession.
My response from Common Dreams on this most important development:
Great job Karen Lewis! Got to talk with her a bit at a Missouri SOS meeting earlier in the year. She’s a pretty down to earth type person, certainly didn’t seem full of herself as many in a position such as hers. Teacher for like 20 years and fed up with the bs that was going down, especially with the powers that were in the CTA and did something about it.
Another poster asked: “If Emanuel is really opposed to public schools, might he not simply fire them all and privatize the schools?”
My response:
That’s an interesting question. Not sure of the particulars in both cases but the teachers all have signed contracts for at least next year by now. So that puts it off for at least a year unless Emanuel the Traitor decides to pull an Uncle Ronnie by firing them when they go on strike but boy would that be a boondoggle. The CTA has been working hard to get the parents involved and they’ll hopefully have EtheT’s head on a pike.
The number of air traffic controllers (ATCs) in this country is 27,000 for 2010 according to the BLS. The number of teachers in CPS (using 400,000 students divided by ratio of 1 teacher per 20 students) is roughly 20,000 teachers.
When Uncle Ronnie fired those ATCs there were plenty in the pipeline coming mainly from the military, already trained. Whereas EtheT has no similarly trained back up crew-teachers-in the waiting. Unless he decides to make all the CPS rotc (or is that rotten) schools and bring in the military. Huah!!
As far as privatizing the schools, I doubt that that would be constitutionally permitted.
One more interesting tidbit from a CPS teacher: Of the teachers who voted 98% of voters were in favor of the strike. Non-voting members were counted as voting against the strike.
Consider the many ways in which a strike could go completely sideways and this isn’t, I don’t think, quite the triumph you’re describing it to be. If there’s one mayor in the US who seems willing to fight to the death with public employee unions or anyone else who takes him on, it’s Rahm. To put it mildly, the guy doesn’t scare easily.
None of this is to say that this dispute won’t be resolved in the union’s favor, but that’s far from certain. Consider this scenario: The teachers strike, they get replaced with TFA teachers lacking any much-ballyhooed seniority, and test scores either go up or don’t go down by nearly enough to justify continuing to play ball with the union and accept the claims that seniority equals talent.
If the striking teachers are successfully replaced, that will wipe out willingness of other teachers’ unions to strike ever. This is a bold move, yes, but it’s wildly, wildly, wildly preemptive to call it anything remotely resembling a triumph.
The strike–if there is one–could go badly, that’s true. Could Mayor Rahm replace 25,000 striking teachers with TFA? No, there are not enough TFA minted every year to do that. Could he replace them with teachers laid off across America in past year? That’s a large pool but would they be willing to come to Chicago and work for him and scab? Don’t know. The teachers might lose, but they have stood up for themselves. They have asserted their dignity. Sometimes people must do that even if they have a small chance of “winning.”
We just had three school districts in Oregon go on strike. Your comment is similar to what was published in local papers. The teachers stuck to their guns and went out. One strike lasted only an hour or so, the second was four days, and I think the third was eight days. A fourth district managed to avert a strike by getting a strike vote and settling the day before they were to go out. Public support by parents and community businesses really helped the strikes to be settled. In the end standing up for ourselves made all the difference and I’m proud of Chicago teachers for being willing to do it too.
Rahm’s base has withered to the top levels of the Plutocracy, and he is afraid to go out in public in any situation that he does not control completely. Were he to re-appear at a White Sox game, for example, as he did after he thought he had a star turn following NATO, he would be booed. That’s where the working class issues its judgements on guys like that.
During the last two weeks, as his myrmidons and minions pushed as hard as they could for a “NO” vote, Rahm retreated into his gilded Fueherbunker, surrounded by public relations and propaganda flacks who ensure that his every appearance is carefully scripted so he doesn’t hear the boos. I once counted a dozen of them (CPS and City Hall) at a small event at the “Disney II” elementary school that I covered. There were more PR and propaganda staff there than teachers (not surprising). I was covering the event as a reporter (substancenews.net), and outside I got a story from the parents (from Raise Your Hand and 6.5 to Thrive) who were forced to remain outside while Rahm and his myrmidon Jean-Claude Brizard prattled from the usual scripts inside. The parents outside were told they would be arrested if they dared do inside.
Since the May 23 mass rallies and march (10,000 is the numer; the largest teacher march in Chicago history), Rahm has retreated into his comfort zones. He has given graduation speeches behind a wall of security to the Pritzker School of Medicine, two or three charter schools, a parochial school, and one real public school. He’s constantly nervous outside of the phalanx of security he huddles behind.
And remember, the majority of cops in Chicago dislike him, too. He has attacked the police union almost as viciously as he has attacked the teachers union, but the police can’t ever strike. He reduced the actual number of cops on the streets. He has preached the kind of “efficiency” that means he tries to replace humans with gimmicks (speed cameras and blue lights for example; see the opening scenes of The Wire for all the commentary anybody needs about that privatization craziness) and technology at every opportunity (providing lucrative contracts to his buddies, while letting the streets become less safe).
Rahm Emanuel is a coward and, as people put it on the streets, a punk. Back in the day when I taught high school here (before being fired and blacklisted; that’s another story), I taught a novel called “The 13th Valley,” the best of the Vietnam fiction (but considered “too long” by most high school teachers). The first lesson included a memo to parents, including a page of dialogue. Parents had to give permission for their senior children to read the book, because it was an authentic fictional rendition of the complex horrors and realities of men in combat, which also gave a realistic rendition of the Vietnamese. Most parents gave permission for their children to read the book.
The first day or two, we talked about the language of young men in combat, and how the “F” word was really an indicator of immaturity and fear of violence. As John DelVecchio depicted in “The 13th Valley,” the soldiers who used the “F” word most were the FNGs who were still too new to understand the horrors, and the REMFs like Rahm who would always utilize their powers and privileges to assign others to do their fighting for them.
Rahm specializes in the ludicrous dispatch — proudly — of his “F bombs.” To the trained ear, that shows, as much as anything else, what a punk and coward he really is. My father served with the 44th Infantry Division across Europe from 1944 – 1945, while my mother was serving as a nurse in the Pacific (ending on Okinawa). One of the things they taught me during the 1950s was never having to use the “F” word. It was a sign, they said, of immaturity or worse, and it didn’t prove how tough a guy was, but only how silly.
Rahm has already been reduced to tears because he can no longer bully his way across the big screen in Chicago, no matter how many propaganda hacks and flacks he surrounds himself with.
Rahm’s script has been upended. His show is over, no matter how many times he repeats childishness like the “F__k you Lewis…” he blurted at Karen Lewis almost a year ago. That was when Karen tried to tell him that his “Longer School Day” campaign was not going anywhere without teacher support, union input, and some true funding to make it more than babysitting. For a year, at great expense, he has surrounded himself with mercenaries. These ranged from the Rent a Preachers I reported on last August at Sox Park to the Rent a Protesters they got caught sending out in January to support Rahm’s vicious school closings. They continued all year to the “Vote No” trolls and flacks (most notably, a couple of local bloggers here in Chicago, one of whom blogs about Chicago from Brooklyn) and the highly financed national corporate “reform” groups that tried, at great expense, to stop us from rallying, marching and voting to do whatever it will take to begin the long process of saving the public schools, here, then elsewhere, from the clutches of the “one percent” and their avatars such as Rahm Emanuel.
The narrative is now in the hands of adults who will sacrifice, as my family and I did when we outed the CASE tests and fought back, for democracy, public education, and our rights to protect our jobs, professions, and families with unions.
This is an important development to be noted given what happened in the recent
recall election in Wisconsin. Apparently “the powers that be” believe that if you
take way the workers right to collectively bargain, that the service provided in public education improve, this quite the opposition. Teachers need to be empowered in effort
to address the needs of the students. When you assist teachers in their job, you are putting students first.
It’s nice to stop back at this blog to discuss Chicago.
I was part of every Chicago teachers strike from 1971 on (except for 1973, when I was working organizing against the Vietnam War with the “G.I. Movement” through CAMP News). It is now 25 years since the last Chicago teachers strike, and during those years, the attacks on both the union and on public education have been most pronounced in Chicago, compared with any place in the USA (New Orleans is a special case; Detroit and Philadelphia are still unfolding).
The Chicago attack on public schools has consisted of several thrusts, all of them reported in Diane’s book. Privatization through charter schools has been the most extensive. Today, Chicago’s charter schools (more than 100 schools and so-called “campuses” now operating in Chicago) are now constituting the second largest “public” school system in Illinois. They have more than 40,000 students, more or less. The Chicago charter numbers are always dubious, and there is no transparency, only lies and rhetoric about it.
Rahm Emanuel’s school board (called the “seven dwarfs” by many of us; the “Chicago Board of Privatization” by others) will certainly try and keep the city’s real public schools open during the upcoming strike. Whether or not Emanuel can replace 25,000 classroom teachers during our strike is not even a question. Now that Emanuel has been checkmated by the union with the 90 percent authorization vote, his minions and myrmidons are beginning to drumbeat their talking points and bits of historical nonsense for the next phase of all this. Immediately after the strike authorization vote was announced, Rahm’s public schools Ministry of Propaganda chief, Becky Carroll (at CPS) leaked to the public the notion that the teachers would be “starving” kids if we went on strike.
After all, thanks to the current economic situation in Chicago, while Rahm gives away tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks to major corporations, tens of thousands of children are still getting their main meals in public schools.
But the Big Lie came out in the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday, June 18, 2012. Gossip columnist to the stars and sycophant to the rich and powerful Michael Sneed reported that Rahm might pull a “Ron” (Ronald Reagan) by firing all striking teachers and replacing our brothers and sisters with scabs, like Ronald Reagan did with PACTO in 1981. (That nonsense was expected; a month earlier, in the May 2012 issue of Substance, I had reviewed Joseph McCartin’s recent PATCO book — “Collision Course” — and explained the differences to our readers. The PATCO myth has been a lurid story used against the working class for more than 20 years!).
So, the Sun-Times, our tabloid daily newspaper, is now preaching the PATCO nonsense. They were purchased by a group of Rahm’s buddies a few months ago, and are more reactionary in their editorial views than anything in New York City (and I am aware of the New York Post).
Here is what will happen over the summer, and what will happen if any TFA or other scab tries to teach while our brothers and sisters are on strike.
First, Chicago teachers are working all summer to solidify our work with parents and students. The demands of the CTU, including reduced class size and an end to the obscene “prohibited” and “permissive” bargaining topics, are becoming more and more known to parents. Additionally, parents who are CTU members (my wife and I have two sons in the public schools) are working all summer on this.
Second, when school opens, and our picket lines go up, every child who is asked to go into a classroom will know what a scab is and how to deal with scabs.
This has happened before in the history of the union movement in the USA.
I’m actually looking forward to watching the videos the children will make as they demand to know why the “teacher” who is taking the job of their real teacher is being a scab.
By noon of the first day of the strike, should Rahm and TFA team up to try and bring in scabs, we will have a book full of delightful narratives about how pickets, parents, and children in Chicago deal with scabs.
The TFAers are not all stupid, nor are they all scabs.
TFA will not surprise us if they provide scabs for Rahm Emanuel, but it will be a long-term disaster for TFA. Were I TFA, and Wendy Kopp, I would immediately denounce the repeated claims that TFA will be providing Rahm with scabs. If that song — TFA will replace Chicago’s real teachers — is sung all summer without TFA speaking out against it, by the next time we are working alongside TFA people in Chicago’s public schools, they will not be treated as politely as they have been during the past few years.
TFAers have been in Chicago’s schools for more than a decade. Not all of them are distinguished by their arrogant superiority and sense of privilege. Their general FNG arrogance has been widespread. One of them actually provided Chicago with his blog based wisdom for the past year; a light reading but insightful for those of us who bothered to read his arrogant blatherings. Next year he is going to work for the city’s most dishonest charter schools grouplet (Noble Network).
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