| For Immediate Release October 31, 2019 |
Contact: Ori Korin okorin@aft.org |
| American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten Congratulates Chicago Teachers Union |
| WASHINGTON—AFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement in response to the news that the Chicago Teachers Union, AFT Local 1, reached a return-to-work agreement with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and will return to classes tomorrow:
“More than 20 years ago, in 1995, educators in Chicago were stripped of their right to bargain, and with that, they lost their voice to influence their students’ learning conditions and their own teaching conditions. As a result, Chicago’s students—particularly students of color and students with special needs—lost out on so many things they needed in schools, including losing many of the neighborhood public schools themselves. This contract is the culmination of a generational struggle to make up those losses. The members and leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union have taken on these inequities and fought for the conditions our kids need and the respect our educators deserve. With this agreement, if ratified, they’re one giant step closer.
“This historic fight for what students deserve—nurses and counselors in every school, librarians, class-size caps, and additional investments in special education—represents a paradigm shift: It wasn’t simply a fight to mitigate the damage of austerity, it was a fight to create the conditions that both students and educators need. This strike, like so many other fights to fund our future, is about building the political will to strengthen our public schools so all kids have their shot at success.
“We thank the Chicago community for standing with us and are glad Mayor Lightfoot heard us. We congratulate CTU’s leadership, its bargaining team and every member it represents for the work they did and continue to do. I saw their commitment to this fight and their students at every picket line and rally I joined. I want to thank CTU President Jesse Sharkey and Vice President Stacy Davis-Gates for their incredible leadership.
“Together with SEIU Local 73 and every parent, student and ally who stood with CTU Local 1—including our state affiliate, the Illinois Federation of Teachers—we know this: We have helped make Chicago’s public schools safe, welcoming sanctuaries of learning, and we have shown an entire nation that when we fight together, we win.”
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| Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten |
| The American Federation of Teachers is a union of 1.7 million professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through community engagement, organizing, collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through the work our members do.
Randi Weingarten Lorretta Johnson Evelyn DeJesus American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO AFT Teachers • AFT PSRP • AFT Higher Education • AFT Public Employees • AFT Nurses and Health Professionals |
AFT, 555 New Jersey Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001 United States
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Class sizes remain far too large to enhance the achievement of CPS students. Reducing oversize classes will require aggrieved teachers initiating a complex bureaucratic process. And, CPS is not required to install a nurse and a social worker in every school until July 2023, 4 yrs down the road. Labor leaders who encourage teachers to settle quickly and settle for less have an obvious self-interest in celebrating such weak contracts as victories. Public schools cannot be rescued from decades of private war on them unless we honestly face the music of what is going on vs. what is possible given teacher power already in the hands of teachers, waiting to be used.
You do make sense on accepting unsatisfactory solutions. The leader is Jesse Sharkey so then he and a few others would have been the ones to accept the deal.
Union leaders, it seems, are often times too willing to accept deals presented to them, and forget what they were fighting for. It makes no sense to strike if people will accept much less than needed.
A large minority of delegates to the DA voted against the contract, so it’s obvious that many in the CTU see it as a weak contract which did not solve the problems for which they struck–class sizes far too large, no support staff in all schools—nurses, social workers, librarians. This same faux declaration of victory accompanies the end of every teacher strike b/c the leadership can’t represent itself as leading the hard-working, disrespected rank-and-file down a rabbit hole. It’s a political dissimulation sometimes referred to as “triumphalism.” Given the deep damage to public schools and the teaching profession in the last 20 years, this won’t turn the tide.
that essential key: dedicated and deeply offended leadership
I, too, noticed that the adequate staffing will take place for another 4 years; that is like the minimum wage being raised to $15 in 2 years, or the bill for the elected schoold board stating that it wouldn’t take effect until 2022 (which was too long to wait &, also, the # of school board members as required by the bill was totally unwieldy, so that’s why Lightfoot was against it, & the CTU leadership was angry with her.
And now the union leadership is settling to wait FOUR years for adequate staffing/lower class size?!
Leave it to Randi to crow about something that deserves, at best, a “caw.”
&, that having been said, the I.E.A./N.E.A. wouldn’t have done any better.
This is off topic but worth mentioning. Here’s to Idaho and the progress made by standardized testing.
Gad, how did I ever learn when there weren’t state goals and standardized tests to tell me how stupid I am? [I am a graduate of Boise public schools.]
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Idaho EdNews reported Idaho missed all 22 of its interim targets toward longterm education goals in both English and math for the second year in a row.
“I saw their commitment to this fight and their students at every picket line and rally I joined.”
Weingarten never misses a chance for self promotion, does she?
These weak deals by union leaders are a trend now. Until the rank and file take over and democratize their unions, it will be more of the same. Or maybe what’s left of the left (i.e., what’s left over after a 40 year class war waged by the right – which includes D’s & R’s by the way) should organize and unify into a force that can actually fight capitalists and win. Neoliberalism has decimated us. Yes, it has been discredited, but it continues on, around the world in fact. Look at what they’ve done to the NHS, for just one example. Diane once told me here that she didn’t really know what Neoliberalism was or how it was different from crony capitalism. Well, Neoliberalism exacerbates capitalism. The logic of capitalism, or what one might call the rules of the game, are ceaseless accumulation and the commodification of all things. So, if we want public schools and healthcare and housing and retirement and infrastructure that doesn’t, say, crumble when you drive over it, or, you know, to not have the planet alternately on fire and flooding, not only do we have to stop neoliberal policies, we have to stop capitalism. Until that fight is all of our fight, and we are fighting together, we may win a few battles (unfortunately, mostly Pyrrhic victories like weak union contracts that continue the suffering of many) but we will surely lose the war. Get radical, or lose everything. This liberal, incrementalist bullshit is too little too late.
NB: I am being quite civil.
The CTU settlement is NOT a weak deal. Teachers got a 16% pay increase. Raises for other staff. Nurses and counselors for all schools. This is “Bargaining for the Common Good.” Teachers striking on behalf of students and other staff. The 16% raise was available without a strike.
Many teachers seem to disagree – including the ones commenting here. I’d be interested to hear your response to the rest of my comment, as it contains the heart of the matter.
If liberals want to see the changes they say they believe in, they will have to become radicals.
Accreditors will no longer be required to take action against colleges that fail to live up to accrediting standards, nor will those agencies have to inform students a problem exists.
How is this going to Make America Great Again? Students can to go a college that fails accreditation standards and the public won’t know?
DeVos is proving her lack of intelligence/knowledge in anything related to education. The Secretary of Education should be working to improve schools, not make them worse.
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The Trump administration aims to relax college-accreditation requirements as House Democrats forge ahead on tougher rules
Oct. 31, 2019 at 4:43 p.m. CDT
President Trump’s administration is loosening federal oversight of the accreditation system designed to compel colleges and universities to live up to high standards, just as House Democrats have advanced legislation that imposes more stringent rules.
On Thursday, the Education Department finalized regulations that could extend federal student aid dollars to a wider variety of higher-education institutions, with limited accountability. The rules give accreditors more flexibility to approve new programs and schools more time to come into compliance if they’re in violation of standards, while dialing back the department’s supervision of the gatekeepers between colleges and billions of dollars in financial aid. The rules will go into effect in July.
Education Dept. forges ahead with plans to weaken college accreditation system
“These reforms are necessary to bring higher education into the current century, to be more responsive to the needs of students, and to reduce the skyrocketing cost of higher education,” Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said in a statement Thursday….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/10/31/trump-administration-aims-relax-college-accreditation-requirements-house-democrats-forge-ahead-tougher-rules/