NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Stephanie Gadlin
June 26, 2014 312/329-6250
EMANUEL CONTINUES ASSAULT ON CITY’S TEACHERS
CHICAGO—Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) President Karen Lewis released the following statement regarding today’s announcement of 1,150 teacher and school support staff layoffs by Chicago Public Schools (CPS):
“The decision by the mayor and his handpicked Board of Education to lay off 1,150 teachers and school support staff today in yet another brutal attack on public education in Chicago is bitterly disappointing and an example of the continued destruction and decimation of neighborhood schools. In a little over a year, CPS student-based budgeting has led to the removal of close to 5,000 teachers, teacher assistants, librarians, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel (PSRPs), technology coordinators and instructional aides from classrooms as severe cuts cause principals to make the difficult decisions that the district cannot. This loss of teachers and staff will directly impact the quality of instruction offered in our schools, and is unnecessary and shameful for a district that claims to provide a high-quality education for its students.
“With this latest round of layoffs— the fourth time in the past five years in which we have seen summer layoffs in excess of 1,000—and the hundreds of positions lost at the three schools slated for turnaround this year, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his Board continue their war on our educators by doing nothing to salvage school budgets other than forcing principals to terminate valued teachers and staff.
“Of the 1,150 layoffs announced today, 550 are teachers and 600 are Educational Support Personnel (ESP). Approximately 250 of these ESPs are Chicago Teachers Union PSRPs. The layoffs stem from the low level of per-pupil funding which CPS Central Office set for schools, meaning that all over the city, principals are being forced, for example, to choose between keeping a veteran teacher and keeping a program library. Current budgets are so low that schools can’t keep both.
“While the district claims that most of the cuts are due to drops in enrollment, there are an ever-increasing number of charter schools siphoning students out of public schools and contributing to a system of dysfunction and instability that leads parents to seek other options for their children. The situation serves to underscore the unacceptably low level of funding that Chicago’s neighborhood schools receive, as every time teachers and other staff are cut, it is harder for schools to serve communities, and the teachers who remain have to shoulder more and more of the burden.
“This decision further demonstrates the disdain for public education and the lack of leadership and vision for the city from our mayor and his handpicked Board. Do we want “Star Wars” museums or public, neighborhood schools? Do we want presidential libraries or librarians for every child?”
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He’s trying to turn Chicago into New Orleans, isn’t he? A complete charter district… smh
Add Newark to the list.
All the while try to gentrify the city. Why would anyone want to move to a city with a weak public school system? Charters are not the answer to fixing what problems exist in the Chicago school system. Maybe actually allowing people to elect a school board that represents their best interests and not just the political/business elite (who’s kids don’t go to public or charter schools). Just a thought….
Exactly. Once the schools are all charter, with their computer-based learning with 50 kids to a class and one tech, with their no excuses discipline policies, and no services for special ed and ELL kids, what family from the suburbs is going to want to move in and gentrify? What upwardly mobile city dweller (if there are any anymore) is going to want to stay once they have kids if they can get out?
The profiteers don’t think long term. This should be evident by their rabid destruction of the environment. They ‘take the money and run’. Any and all leftover gentrified properties will be bought up by banksters. Their goal is to cause as much destruction as possible as quickly as they can.
As a resident of the area, I can tell you that neither one of them–Emanuel and Lewis– couldn’t care less for the education of the city’s children. He just wants to maintain his power, and she just wants to get the teachers more money, regardless of how well the teachers do. Her second-in-command teaches at Marxist conferences. None of that translates into good choices for Chicago parents.
Matt, if Lewis’s goal is to get teachers more money, she is a complete failure. Laying off hordes of teachers year after year is a death sentence for the union as well as economic destruction for individual teachers and Chicago’s economy..But that is the goal of the billionaires whom Rahm serves. Lewis is no match for him. Chicago needs some damn good and honest attorneys to fight them in court. Since this war is first and foremost against African Americans, I dare say, “southern poverty law center, where are you?”
A death sentence for the union? Hooray. The union has no concern for the students or the parents who pay its members. By definition it is only concerned for the benefits of its members. It will trample on whomever, students included, to get its way. And it tramples on African-Americans the most. You are 100% right. Throwing more money at it hasn’t worked so far and will continue the death sentence if that’s the only solution that’s relied upon. We need people who will be innovative to improve education, not just continue this “put-the-kids-in-a- box-and-throw-information-at-them” method. We need to encourage private concerns, individuals and groups, to try what they think will work with students, because what we are doing isn’t working. This means we have to take away the near monopoly the government has on education. And yes, that means taking away the influence and effect the union has on education and elections. As a teacher, I would love to see the union disappear.
“And yes, that means taking away the influence and effect the union has on education and elections. As a teacher, I would love to see the union disappear.”
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Matt,
Can you think of a time in history where the destruction or absence of unions has led to workers having better pay, working conditions, and a long, productive and satisfying career?
Now, let’s just look geographically… in the U.S., the states with strongest teacher unions, and the strongest due process rights have the highest academic achievement, while the states where there are no unions—only associations with no right to collectively bargain, or strike, or threaten a strike, where turnover is sky-high with entire teaching staffs replaced in two, three years, tops… those states are ROCK BOTTOM in academic achievement.
If what you say is accurate, wouldn’t the opposite be true?
What it comes down to is teachers perform better when they are treated and respected as professionals, and belong to an organization that fights for their rights to be treated well and respected.
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“Throwing more money at it hasn’t worked so far and will continue the death sentence if that’s the only solution that’s relied upon.”
First of all, it’s not the “only” solution, but it’s a good start. It has to be spent right… lower class size, make sure there’s a full, robust curriculum which includes the arts, P.E., libraries, etc.
Jonathan Kozol has written very eloquently about this. Often you hear the same people whose whose wealthy neighborhood tax base allow their own children to have $30,000/per pupil funding, or who pay private schools that cost $30,000/per pupil—and whose kids have high academic achievement as a result—will then proclaim that the $10,000/pupil (or less) that middle and working class kids have to make do with is plenty.
“Giving them more money-per-pupil will not help them.”
“Really? It sure works for YOUR kids.”
You would have to show me how what the union did explicitly led to higher achievement by students, not just its presence. It doesn’t bargain for better methods, or retention of just the best teachers. The school districts I know of can’t use class size as a bargaining chip. Let’s be honest, if teachers were paid by the number of students, they’d find a way to get as many students in there as possible and to teach them effectively. It should make no difference if there is a union as to whether they are treated professionally. In fact, I hear too many teachers complain that they are already being treated unprofessionally and they have a union. As a kid growing up in Chicago all the union did is cause the school year to start late or end early. That did not raise the opinion of the professionalism of Chicago teachers. Chicago, where this much-praised Karen Lewis is from, and where a corrupt president is from.
Sure, there are some who send their kids to rich private schools, Rahm and his former boss come to mind, but they have a choice. That’s why we have to increase choice for parents, not contribute to what is a broken institution of public education.
Matt, you are way off base. Public Educationis not broken, except in districts like Chicago where the mayor and cronies want to break it, strip it of resources so they can give public funds to charters
Yes, Ms. Ravitch, it’s broken only in districts like Chicago, or LA, where they spend millions of dollars on technology they don’t use, New York, where they spend money paying teachers to stay in rubber rooms because the union won’t let them be fired, or Philadelphia where the mayor says it’s not the black kids’ fault for not going to school and getting an education, or Las Vegas, where the population is so transient a teacher can’t plan out a week’s lessons because he doesn’t know what students he’ll have by the end of the week. Only in these districts, the biggest in the country, that serve millions of kids, millions of minorities who have no choice but to go to the government/union monopoly. And this is all only the mayors’ fault. Yes, Dienne, (from elsewhere) there is plenty of blame to go around. I guess it’s off base to care that public education is broken only for the students in districts like these.
Matt, teachers in NYC were in rubber rooms because the administration wanted them there. They were accused but had no hearing. In America, you are innocent until proven guilty. I knew some of those in the rubber room who were innocent of all charges but months for a hearing , at discretion of administration.
Ah, yes, the “both sides are equally guilty” fallacy. How ridiculous. Are you aware that Lewis spent 20 years of her life teaching chemistry at CPS? Was she just in it to get rich?
As far as your “Marxist” slur, first, you clearly don’t know what Marxism is, and second, this country would be in a lot better shape if more people did.
If calling someone a Marxist is a slur, why do you think the country would be in better shape if more people knew it?
Tell him, Dienne! Can he be any more ignorant and stuck?
That’s right, Robert, avoid the issue and attack the person. The president has taught you well.
Look at the origins of the per pupil funding idea and ask yourself why it’s happening in Chicago. This tells you everything you need to know about Rahm and his appointed board of miseducation. This is a pseudo voucher funding system being used to degrade public schools with funding instability and the resulting student churn so that charters can move into the voids left by the damage. Rahm’s cronies and their reformy friends know that vouchers themselves would never fly in Chicago, that all politics aside it is structurally impossible for vouchers to succeed, so they have excised and repurposed the funding model for use as a “free market” weapon against public schools.
Jon Lubar,
You are exactly right about the portable per-pupil funding idea. Conservatives promoted this as a prelude to vouchers. The phrase they use is that the money should follow the child, and it sounds reasonable and benign. But the real goal is to set up funding for vouchers, charters, and any other outsourcing of public funds to private hands.
Choice is an illusion. Choice in public education rarely levels the playing field.
There’s no reply button on yours Robert. Yes, choice is an illusion because it doesn’t exist. So we can’t really judge it. And I would hope the goal of public education isn’t to “level the playing field,” because when we are talking about government-run operations, that means all we’re doing is finding the lowest common denominator. I think it would be a better idea to give people choices when it comes to educating their children. Then we have a better chance to raise more people up, not bring them down to a level field.
Your pioneer individualist thinking is the enemy here, and the natural progression of class warfare will never tolerate it, Matt. In fact, the progression will tend to stomp on it like an eingineer boot upon a water bug . . .. .
How old are you, and what do you do for a living? Where are you based? Care to reveal more about who you are when you comment?
We don’t hear from Harlan Underhill all that much any more, alas, and I would like to knight you the new Harlan. . . . .
Please write more . . . .
No, I don’t care to reveal any more about myself. Consult Mr. Koskinen. I’m sure if it serves his purposes, he can find that. You should really avoid the name-calling assuming “Harlan Hill” is a pejorative.
diane, we have got to get an anti-privatization democrat running for President. all of us must demand support for Karen lewis and all the heroes from any democratic candidate.
laurencoodley, sorry,but the privatizers control both the dems and repubs. Notice how their treatment of African-American populations is particularly obscene – Chicago, Newark, New Orleans, Detroit).
And so much of this coming from Obama and his wife.
The Dems are framing the 2016 presidential election around women’s issues by supporting equal pay, reproductive rights, raises in the minimum wage, all a smokescreen for their contradictory neoliberal economic polices. We should call them out. The war on teachers IS a war on women.
PL Thomas says Education Reform is the new misogyny:
http://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/education-reform-as-the-new-misogyny-a-reader/
Unfortunately, I think the presidency is out of reach for now. We need to start locally and support candidates for school board, superintendent, mayor, governor and other local positions.
do the teachers union really have no more influence on the Democratic Party? That’s why I hated House of Cards, the way it demonized/ridiculed them. But surely Hillary is friendly with some anti-corporate professors of education?
Is there a single example of ed reformers improving a public school?
That’s how this scam was sold to the public; they would IMPROVE public schools. If they had sold it honestly, as privatization, no one ever would have bought it.
How’s that UNO investigation coming, btw? Do we still have prosecutors or has that been outsourced to private companies too?
How quickly do you think Mayor 1% will replace those support staff with contract temps?
What is it about ed reform that the people at the top are the only ones making any money off privatization?
The charter school teachers know that the moment that union is gone their wages will hit bottom, right?
They know the only reason they’re making more than 35k is because charter schools have to compete with publuc schools on wages, right?
They’re free-riding on that union right now. Once it’s gone their free ride is over, and it’s race to the bottom.
Anyone else sick of the DEMs and REPs? Both parties want public education in the hands of the privatizers….thus CCSS and high-stakes testing. Follow the $$$$$.
I choose “librarians for every child” Let the presidential library be built in Hawaii or not at all.
If Obama cared one iota for children, he could spend the obscene amount of money that he’s spending on his presidential library that few will ever use and instead spend it on libraries for all the public schools in Chicago. If he did that, I wouldn’t even mind his name being slapped all over the place – each one could be the Obama library for all I’d care. As it is, his name is going to be slapped all over my city while the people are getting slapped around. How nauseating.
Dienne, you are my kind of girl! I like your idea very much, what a legacy. My school is almost 100% free-and-reduced lunch. My little people are so excited when they come to the library and I am so excited that they are there ready to learn about different things and places they may never have known about otherwise.
I have this quote in my library:
“At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better” Barack Obama
I could not have said it better. Now get with the program Mr. President!
I think Karen Lewis is terrific. Our side doesn’t have many high profile, outspoken supporters.
I wish we had someone like Karen Lewis in Los Angeles. At least in Chicago you have a union that supports teachers and is willing to stand up to the powers that be to defend it. Our union in Los Angeles is a sham. It spouts all the words and then proceeds to do nothing. Yes, in Chicago they are punishing the union and Lewis for successfully striking and getting raises for teachers and other staff. But at least they fight, they struggle, they don’t just give up because it would be better to get a little than what we deserve. I’ll take a fighter any day over a do nothing union. CPU, continue to fight. Unfortunately, the feds are in with the deformers and this makes it more difficult. We probably, if this continues, will lose many students to charters and private schools. This will not benefit our students, too bad it will take the loss of a whole generation of students to prove this.
Paula,
What you say about the current lack of leadership in UTLA is correct. But soon enough, all will know that Eli Broad has met his match in Alex Caputo-Pearl.
Time will tell regarding Alex.
He takes office on midnight Monday night… 12:00 am, July 1.
Everyone at UTLA—including those who backed his opponent in the recent election—is now hoping that he and his incoming team delivers for our students and our fellow members.
We’re all backing him 100%.