There are very few people I have met in my lifetime where I had one meeting and was instantly smitten. Karen Lewis is one of them. In the fall of 2010, I was traveling the country to talk about my somewhat explosive new book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.” Within the world of education, it was a bombshell, because I was renouncing many years of advocacy, switching sides, and losing many friends in the process. On the substantive side, I was explaining and describing the true nature of the powerful movement that would reveal its ugly face later that same year with the release of “Waiting for Superman.”
I had two speaking engagements one week, first in Detroit, then in Los Angeles. I planned to change planes in Chicago. But before I embarked, I got an e-mail from Karen Lewis, whom I had never met. She asked if I would change my flight and arrange a stopover of several hours in Chicago. I did. She and her husband John met me at O’Hare. We drove to a nearby hotel where they had rented time in an empty conference room, and Karen and I talked nonstop for four hours. When we were done, we left as close friends. She is brilliant, funny, passionate, compassionate.
We met from time to time after that and emailed often. She led a historic teachers strike in 2012 to protest the city’s underinvestment in the schools and Rahm Emanuel’s endless school closings. The year before, the legislature had passed a law to curtail teachers’ job rights and prevent teschers’ strikes, saying that a strike vote had to be approved by 75% of the members, thinking that would never happen. This was when Jonah Edelman of Stand for Children showed that he and his organization had sold out to the hedge funders. He engineered the deal and hoped to crush the Chicago Teachers Union (when caught on tape bragging about his coup at the Aspen Ideas Festival, seated next to James Crown, a prominent Chicago equities guy, he had to apologize. The session was about outsmarting the teachers’ unions by buying up the best lobbyists and was titled “If it Could Happen There, it Could Happen Anywhere.”)
The CTU didn’t get 75% of the membership, it got more than 90%. It went out on strike. While the national press was almost universally hostile, hated the very idea of a teachers’ strike, the parents and working people of Chicago supported the teachers.
Ben Joravsky writes here that Karen Lewis was the inspiration for the current wave of walkouts, insurrections, protests, but this time the teachers are winning broad public support. In Chicago, the teachers wore red. Today it is #RedForEd.
Rahm got even with the CTU in 2013 by closing 50 public schools in one day. It too was historic, in an evil way. Charters continued to open.
Karen Lewis planned to run against Rahm for Mayor in 2014–she was far more popular than he and would have likely won. But she discovered she had a malignant brain tumor. Her life changed. She had surgery and survived. Last fall she had a minor strike. She took these blows with courage, dignity and even humor.
I last saw her when The Network for Public Education held its annual meeting in Chicago n 2015. I interviewed her and the video is here. She was physically weak but spiritually strong.
Yes, she showed us that teachers must work in and with their communities to build public support. She said that those ties were essential. She showed us what teachers could do even in the worst of circumstances. And now that she is in the worst of circumstances, we remember her and thank her for her leadership, her example, and the life lessons she taught us.
A true inspiration to teachers — and workers — everywhere. Se’s as good as they get.
YES.
Go Karen!
And she’s done it all against the backdrop of an extremely hostile media, including (and especially) the so-called “liberal” media. I am ashamed to admit that for years I avoided her – to the extent I would turn off the radio or leave the room if she came on TV – because I didn’t want to listen to that angry black woman ranting … blah, blah, blah – all kinds of lovely descriptions I had unthinkingly accepted from Eric Zorn and other “liberal” Chicago journalists and reporters. When my husband made me stay and actually listen to her once, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Where was this angry ranting black woman I’d heard so much about? It was a humbling lesson and the beginning of my loss of faith in mainstream media.
I echo your sentiments about the power of example in the life of Karen Lewis. I hope she is surrounded with love.
Karen Lewis led the bold Chicago teachers into a strike at a time when the public and media were still smitten with charters and their fake agenda. The Chicago Teachers Union took a beating in the press. They were the pioneers of the privatization resistance movement. They helped raise awareness of all the groups that had lined up against public education. Today we know the enemy much better, and most of the public and some of the media are supporting teachers’ walkouts due to the ground work laid by the Chicago teachers and their brave leader, Karen Lewis. Thanks to their hard work, it is becoming more difficult for the privatizers to operate in the shadows.
Karen Lewis is a remarkable labor leader. I think she’d be the first to say she couldn’t have done what she has without the support of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators. That’s one critical way she differs from other union officers – she understands that union leadership is best when it’s collective and the union “member-driven” – a term I first heard from Karen.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Karen Lewis was my inspiration when I first saw her & Lois Weiner on Democracy Now talking about education reform- Chicago style. I followed her every move after that, thanks to You Tube, Mike Klonsky’s blog & your updates, Diane. She was the one who convinced me privatization was a bipartisan thing and that real people don’t want privatized education. She is smart, savvy and funny. I’ve missed her voice and wish her well in this dark time.
So glad I was at NPE Chicago in 2015 to see that interview. Any chance Karen will be with us in Indianapolis for NPE2018?
Have you seen the latest from Fred Klonsky about how Illinois hasn’t paid its required payments for retired teachers health care for the last 17 months? See
I too love Karen Lewis for her effectiveness in advocating for Chicago teachers. Unfortunately when the forces of privatization uniting money elite and political elite got together, they overpowered the union. I don’t know where or how Karen Lewis is but yes she is a model of how the struggle should be fought. Blessings to her always
I would not be surprised if the Rheeformers paid someone to expose Karen Louis to a toxic agent that was engineered to cause tumors and/or strokes.
Under the rules imposed on the CTU by reformy henchmen both in Chicago and Springfield, any non vote by a CTU member was counted as a no vote. That’s the source of the conflicting percentage numbers. As I recall, out of all of those who did vote, those in favor were either 95% or 98%. It was an epic smackdown for Edelman and Rahmpulstiltskin.
There are no words to describe just how wonderful Karen Lewis is. I was honored to be invited to a kick-off party for her mayoral campaign, & was sitting close to where she was speaking–so true & so powerful. Aside from the great sadness I’ve shared w/others over her illness, it has been a real loss for Chicago that she was unable to run for mayor, because she most assuredly would have won, and Chicago would be so much a better place: there would be no “other people’s children,” & that’s for sure. Instead of being found to be “the most corrupt city in the country” (according to a recent University of IL study), it would be the best. Thanks to C.O.R.E. & the CTU for voting for Karen to be their leader, one who really speaks truth to power, one who brought red shirts into the street–so many, that the media could NOT ignore them & so, yes, “the revolution WILL
be televised” (Gil Scott-Heron) & continues to be, now, in so many other states.
My best regards to Karen & John.
Jesse Sharkey is great, but there’s just something about Lewis, and we’ve missued her greatly. She got a minutes-long standing ovation from Chicago teachers a few weeks ago. She and CORE are definitely a reason I’m so outspoken at work; I am from a union family and beyond proud to be a member of this one. Our union isn’t perfect, but it’s staffed and led by outstanding educators who fight their hardest to do what’s right.
This former CTU member is beyond grateful for the leadership of Karen Lewis…as I have now used the organization structures I learned in CTU (I was part of the 2012 strike) to structure the movement now in Arizona with my colleagues. #RedforEd #CTUProud