On Labor Day, Karen Lewis addressed 20,000 teachers about their struggle with Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Do you know how hard it is to get 20,000 people to turn out for anything?
When Karen Lewis met with Rahm Emanuel after his election, he told her that 25% of the children in Chicago would never amount to anything. She was outraged.
Karen Lewis is a plain-spoken yet articulate leader of the teachers. She was elected because teachers were sick of the compromises and wanted someone who would speak up for them and for the children they teach. She has done that.
Rahm sends his own children to the University of Chicago Lab School, which is his right as a parent. But he doesn’t think that the children in the public schools deserve equal opportunities to the education he requires for his children.
The public schools may not be the Lab School, but shouldn’t he be rallying the business community to make every school in Chicago a great school with a great curriculum, reasonable class size, and excellent facilities? Instead, the board he appointed recently voted to close more public schools and hand them over to private management.
The fight between CTU and Rahm Emanuel is not helpful to President Obama.
The mayor should sit down with Karen Lewis and figure out how to resolve this impasse so he doesn’t have a strike on his hands. And he should figure out how to put himself on the side of public education and the children in the public schools.
I am hopeful that this may be a turning point and President Obama may actually get the message.
NYC UFT and DOE would do well to pay attention.
Perhaps if NYC didn’t give in to Klein’s demands, the rest of the country wouldn’t be suffering. Obama will never get the message.
I voted for him. I believed in him. I don’t think he really cares…he believes this doesn’t affect him personally or politically. He may very well lose because other past supporters may not vote at all. I think he blew it.
hahahahahaha…thanks for the laughs!!
And Rahm is going to the convention as a speaker!
I listened to it twice. I read all the signs. Why don’t they have the support of the IEA or the AFT? Were any elected officials there to support them? Did Obama forget about
Chicago? If he loses, it will be because he abandoned his base.
I kept track of a few of Karen’s statements. She should lead the union nationally.
Here they are:
Our children are not a campaign promise.
Our children are not numbers on a spreadsheet
When you come after our children, you come after us and we will protect them.
We want what our students need.
We did not start this fight, but enough is enough.
Valid points, Linda,
Where was everyone else? What is going on???
The President is anti-teacher.
FIRE DUNCAN! Hire Ravitch!
Karen Lewis is exceptional, a labor leader worth listening to who is also in touch with the rank-and-file. Mayor R may provoke a showdown so as to liquidate the teachers’ union once and for all. He’s known as a hard-liner. This makes our national support for Lewis and the CTU all the more impt b/c the billionaires will be funneling cash to Chicago to defeat the teachers just as they funneled $60mil to Wisconsin to defeat the recal lhere. We’re at a moment of very high stakes and some places like Chicago may shape up as the Gettysburg of this horrendous conflict. We need to deliver to CTU all the material and political support we can muster.
President Obama should listen to Karen Lewis. If he had you, Diane, and Karen running the USDOE we would have a real chance to stop corporatization of public education and returning to the goal of equal accesss for all children to excellent public schools. With you and Karen inspiring us, we are all motivated to fight that much harder. Thank you both.
Thank you. Karen Lewis is an inspiring leader.
I wish President Obama would speak out forcefully against privatization.
More important, I wish he would repudiate Race to the Top, which encourages privatization.
Obama has sold us out and Rahmbo never had our backs in the first place. Andrew Cuomo tried to keep 4 of NY’s top labor leaders from attending the convention and they were instructed to call him and grovel if they wanted to be reinstated. As I have observed elsewhere Cuomo is Rahm Emanuel with a New York crust and he is just as hostile to unions and would be worse if he knew he could get away with it, They do not deserve our vote. Cuomo should be sending Carl Paladino thank yous on a daily basis as that’s the only reason I voted for him but next time I’ll write in someone.
Where was the media coverage? I see nothing on the internet main pages? Nothing on TV? Am I missing something?????
You can find local news reports and news videos….Chicago channels. This is the local CBS:
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/09/03/teachers-to-rally-at-daley-plaza-to-call-for-new-contract/
Took a very, very long time before the Wisconsin fight ever hit the mainstream media. Occupy Wall Street the same thing.
the mainstream media doesn’t cover education unless there is a scandal.
I tried to tell you that these people think they know better than parents and teachers. This is why they have to run education. You guys have NO idea what you are doing and cannot be trusted. I hope one day teachers wake up to this reality.
All you have to do is sit in on hearings regarding education and you will see for yourself.
Uh, MOM, teachers are not as stupid and clueless as you seem to think they are. They are standing up for themselves in Chicago, just cheer them on. Teachers, most of the people who comment here and Diane, above all, who hosts this website, are as awake and as aware as a million lightning bolts. You don’t get any more awake or than that.
Thanks for the comment, Joe. Mine wasn’t going to be as gracious. That’s why I didn’t comment.
Are you sure MOM wasn’t speaking from the perspective of the educrats? That’s how I read it.
Momwthasmallbrain:
That was ugly! With that kind of example for your children,, I feel sorry for their teachers.
This is another good article on this potential strike.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/03/all-eyes-on-chicago-teachers/
Parents and teachers are not at odds in this debate. One can simply deduce that the working conditions and requirements of teachers impact the learning environment of the children they teach. Three weeks in a Chicago track E school and I have already administered two exams that rate student and teacher performance. I don’t fear performance, I loathe the implications that testing can determine student success and the worth of human capital. It is our responsibility (collectively teacher voice) to inform parents and generate the dialogue that helps expel the spin that the CTU fight is about monetary gain. Just this morning, a local news anchor tried to connect teacher pay benefits in Chicago to graduation rates… this is our media source. Shame.
Be careful. You are using corporate speak. “Human capital?!” It sneaks in through the cracks in the walls. CTU is inspiring.