Archives for category: Chicago

Craig’s Chicago Business acknowledges that the children in Chicago public schools need what the Chicago Teachers Union won in their contract negotiations. But still, they wonder, are taxpayers willing to pay the price?

Now that financial details of the pact are starting to trickle out, it’s clear that the mayor was telling the truth—that is, for the teachers. And that truth raises a very significant question of whether the unprecedented, potentially $1.5 billion mayoral bet will be worth the cost to already struggling Chicago taxpayers.

That $1.5 billion figure comes from the Chicago Public Schools’ budget office. It’s at the high range of what officials say the new CTU deal will cost over the next five years cumulatively…

“The union won the strike. They absolutely won,” says Paul Vallas, a former CPS CEO who was one of Lightfoot’s rivals in the February mayoral election. “It’s going to be impossible for them to come up with that much dough without major tax increases if (Gov. J.B.) Pritzker does not fully fund the state’s new school-aid formula.”

Pritzker is working on that. But as Vallas noted, doing so likely depends on voters next year enacting the governor’s proposed graduated income tax amendment, and that’s no sure thing.

Overall, there is little dissent that putting increased staff resources into particularly needy schools—as the contract requires—is the right thing to do. Eventually, that should result in higher graduation rates and kids better prepared to enter the job market.

It is always good to get Vallas’ views, since he privatized schools in Philadelphia and New Orleans as his budget solution and ran unsuccessfully for mayor, governor, and lieutenant governor.

Are the voters in Illinois willing to pay higher taxes to improve conditions of learning, to assure smaller class sizes, and to get better prepared youth?

The Chicago teachers’ strike represents a change in Chicago, for sure. The harsh policies of Daley, Duncan, and Emanuel are over. A new day has dawned, with national implications.

“It’s a definitive shift in the entire landscape, not just in Chicago, but throughout the U.S., away from privatization, school closures, charter schools, and the kind of Koch Brother-funding of private schools instead of public schools, a threat we’ve been fending off for the last 30 years,” said Jackson Potter, a high school teacher and union bargaining member in Chicago.

Potter continued, “This contract really represents advances—and not just trying to preserve what we had or prevent the annihilation of the public system—but how to expand it, fortify it, and have a considerable [investment] in low income students of color and their communities that starts to look more [like] what we see in wealthy white suburbs.”

The contract dealt a blow to the charter industry, with “hard caps on charter school expansion and enrollment growth.” The rightwing Heartland Institute called the settlement “a death blow to charter schools in the Windy City.”

Alas, the sustained efforts of the Disrupters foiled by one powerful teachers’ strike, joined by Chicago’s progressive new mayor! Their policies of austerity and privatization undone. Calling the world’s smallest violin.

Thanks to the invaluable organization “In the Public Interest” for assembling these sources in one place.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Chicago, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Disruption, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm, Funding

Jan Resseger: The History and Context of the Chicago Teachers Strike 2019

By dianeravitch

November 2, 2019 //

Jan Resseger explains the history and context of the truly historic teachers’ strike in Chicago that recently ended. She explains it with clarity, as only Jan can do.

This was not a strike for higher salaries. The mayor offered a 16% increase before the strike began, and that is what the Chicago Teachers Union accepted.

This was a strike for students. This was a strike to reverse a quarter-century of disinvestment by Mayors Richard Daley and Rahm Emanuel.

This was a strike against 25 years of austerity in a booming city that had billions for developers but nothing for students and schools.

This was a strike against corporate reform, which starved the public schools for the benefit of charter schools.

This was a historic strike. To understand why, read this post.

Categories Chicago, Class size, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Reform, Injustice, Resistance, Unions

Chicago: Principals’ Association Says Teachers Are Not Demanding Enough

By dianeravitch

October 31, 2019 //

Troy Laraviere, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, writes in Crains Chicago Business that the Chicago Teachers Union is not demanding enough for the public schools.

He maintains that the Chicago schools are woefully understaffed as compared to other districts in Illinois.

He writes:

Chicago Public Schools is the most understaffed school district in Illinois. It is impossible to make a reasonable judgment about the current labor dispute between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union without considering that fact. Even though the key issue in this labor dispute is CPS’ refusal to meet the teachers’ demand for adequate staffing, it seems that no one has attempted to find out what school staffing actually looks like.

Consider the following:
•The Illinois State Board of Education tracks staffing numbers for 861 school districts in our state. Chicago is ranked 861st—dead last—in the ratio of students-to-staff.
•The 20 most adequately staffed school districts in Illinois have 100 staff members for every 500 students.
•The average Illinois school district has 50 staff for every 500 students. In Chicago, however, our district has just 29 staff for the same 500 students.

On average, each Chicago school has 71 fewer staff than the top Illinois schools, and 21 fewer staff than the average Illinois school. Think about that for a moment. We would need 21 more staff in every Chicago school just to reach average staffing levels.

Those 21 missing staff members are music and art teachers to nurture a fuller array of student talents; classroom assistants and tutors; librarians to teach students how to evaluate the legitimacy of an information source in this age of omnipresent false information; classroom teachers to reduce class size in kindergarten through third grade; counselors to help students plan for their future; social workers to help students learn skills to cope with adverse circumstances such as homelessness, mental trauma and abuse; bilingual teachers to support students who are learning English, and security personnel to keep students safe, just to name a few. Think about the curricular, behavioral and academic development that Chicago students are not getting because those 21 staff members are not there to serve them.

Well, you have to start somewhere. The facts in Chicago demonstrate that the previous mayors–Rahm Emanuel and Richard Daley (the mayors from 1989-2019)–woefully underfunded the public schools as they diverted huge sums of public funding to luxury developments. Thirty years of underfunding shortchanged the students.

The CTU has been the leading edge of the fight to restore adequate funding to the schools and the children. Troy LaRaviere demonstrates that the changes are a beginning and that much more must be done to provide funding that the children of Chicago and their public schools need and deserve.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Chicago, Funding

Chicago: CTU Explains Terms of Tentative Agreement

By dianeravitch

October 31, 2019 //

Tentative Agreement

Tonight’s Vote to Conditionally Suspend the Strike

CTU’s House of Delegates met tonight to consider a new tentative agreement. The terms of the tentative agreement can be downloaded from the MemberLink Portal. Delegates voted 364 to 242, with four abstentions, to accept the revised tentative agreement on the condition that Mayor Lightfoot agree to make up the days lost in the strike. The text of the resolution reads:

Be it resolved, that the Chicago Teachers Union House of Delegates will suspend the strike against the Chcago Public Schools immediately upon a CPS agreement with the CTU to restore with pay student instructional days lost during the strike. Per the CTU Constitution and By-laws, a referendum by the CTU’s entire CPS membership on contract ratification will be held within ten (10) days of suspending the strike.

So far, the mayor still insists that she will not schedule makeup days for students to regain class time and for us to recoup our lost workdays. Her hypocrisy, though, is clear to see. She and her bargaining team fanatically insisted that elementary teachers couldn’t have a 30-minute morning prep because it would “reduce instructional time.” Yet, now they have the opportunity to make up days of instruction. What reason, other than sheer vindictiveness, would they have for passing up this opportunity? That’s why we’ll still be on strike Thursday and until the mayor and CPS come to their senses and close this deal.

Tentative Agreement Highlights

Some major elements of the Tentative Agreement include:

A nurse in every school community every day.
A social worker in every school community every day.
Staffing Pipeline: $2.5 million in recruitment and training programs for clinicians, $2 million in tuition and licensure for nurses, increased investments in “grow your own” teacher pipeline programs and 50 percent tuition reimbursement for English Language and bilingual endorsement programs.
$35 million annually to reduce oversized K-12 classrooms across the district, prioritizing schools serving the most vulnerable students.
Unprecedented enforcement mechanisms for class size relief.
Sports Committee with an annual budget of $5 million (33 percent increase in annual funding) for increases to coaching stipends and new equipment/resources.
January 2019 0.8 percent increase in health care contribution rate rescinded as of 7/1/19; no plan changes to health insurance benefits and reductions in co-pays for mental health services and physical therapy.
Bank of sick days earned after July 1, 2012, increased from 40 to 244 days.
Development of special education Individual Education Plans (IEP) made solely by the IEP team; principals required to use substitutes or release time to provide adequate time for special education duties to the extent possible; common preparation periods with general education teachers where possible; special ed teachers last to be called to cover classes; $2.5 million annual fund to reduce workload.

Clarification on class size language

Many members have read the new language in Article 28 on Class Size and found the table and language confusing. We want to clarify how the new language improves on the class size language in our recently expired 2015-19 contract.

In that last contract, there were advisory class size limits for different grade levels. However, to relieve oversized classes only $6 million per year was allotted for the entire district. When a class was over the limit, the teacher would have to file for relief, a weak joint committee came and investigated. If there was money, and if there was will, the class might get a remedy.

In the tentative agreement, that protection still remains, but is strengthened. The same class size guidelines are maintained andthe pool of money to remedy oversized classes is increased more than five times, from $6 million to $35 million. The committee also has more power to award remedies.

The truly new part, however, is the automatically triggered hard cap on class sizes. Those classes that are over the limit by a set amount (differing based on grade level) will be immediately and automatically referred to the committee and relief for the those classes is mandated in the contract. There will be no need for a teacher to report their class and ask for help, the committee will automatically come out to relieve the problem.

Some have mistakenly read the higher numbers as eliminating the previous class size guidelines and raising them to allow even larger classes. That isn’t so. This language keeps the previous numbers and improves the enforcement mechanism quite a bit. Once the automatically triggered classes have been relieved, there is still a larger pool of money to relieve classes that may be over the existing guideline, but under the automatic trigger mark. Those classes will need to request relief, but will still have the stronger committee come to their aid and there will be more money available to solve their problems.

Day 11, Thursday

10:00am at City Hall

At 10:00 a.m. all members should meet at City Hall to demand Mayor Lightfoot agree to make up the strike days. Costumes are encouraged, especially if they’re red (no costume weaponry, though, please). We will not have pickets at school, but schools are encouraged to arrange breakfast or lunch meetings or conference calls to discuss the tentative agreement and our next steps as a union.

Day 10 Recap

Wednesday’s Actions

Our members maintained picket lines at every school today. At noon, in the cold and pouring rain, hundreds of CTU members met to protest “The 78” luxury real estate development. Like Lincoln Yards, The 78 got a huge TIF giveaway to develop already valuable land. The $700 million that Rahm and Lori gave them would have made a huge difference for our schools. We won’t stop reminding the public and the politicians that Chicago isn’t broke, the City’s priorities are.

New support from Springfield

As the bargaining team finalized the deal, new information emerged from Springfield.

Looking ahead and building power

As you talk about the tentative agreement, it’s worth thinking about the conditions at your school. Whether or not this TA is ratified, we will eventually have a contract. It’s important that everyone build on the solidarity and momentum you’ve developed together on the picket line to enforce it. If the fight for good working and learning conditions were a war, the strike would be the “air war.” It can win a lot, but what ultimately determines day-to-day conditions is the “ground war”—the back-and-forth between administrators and staff in each school and workplace.

Read the TA (and the existing contract, for that matter) with an eye to the changes you want in your school. Try to come up with one change—big or small—that CTU members, together, want to see in your work environment. Then you can use our Campaign Planning Worksheet to brainstorm your campaign for when we return to work. When members at your school have agreed on a rough plan, check in with your organizer and/or field rep to talk through the details of putting it into action.

Union staff will continue to work hard in support of your rights. In your campaigns, they’ll help you refine your strategy and back you up. And they’ll always stand up for your rights in grievances and arbitration. If you organize well, you can make change without the long process of a grievance and help build your school’s solidarity and power.

Sent via ActionNetwork.org. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Chicago Teachers Union, please click here.

Categories Accountability, Chicago, Education Reform, Funding, Unions

Chicago Teachers Union Reaches Tentative Agreement, But Strike Not Over Yet!

By dianeravitch

October 31, 2019 //

The CTU reached a tentative agreement with Chicago Public Schools. The CTU House of Delegates voted 364-242 to suspend the strike pending resolution of final issues. The settlement, which meets most of the CTU demands, will be voted on by the full membership within 10 days.

But the strike is not yet over. The sides are very close but the union wants an assurance that there will be no loss of instructional time for the students. They want to make up the instructional time, possibly by extending the school year. Thus far, Mayor Lightfoot says no.

The union made no concessions. For the first time ever, they have won enforceable guarantees about class sizes, though the agreed-upon limits are still too large: no more than 32 students in K-3. No more than 35 in upper grades. $35 million has been pledged for class size reductions, which will be lowered as funding permits. The agreement commits the city not to authorize any new charters, nor add to the current enrollment of students in charter schools.

No school tomorrow while the bargaining continues.

The settlement contains not only caps on class sizes, but guarantees about school nurses, and other important staffing issues. It also offers significant salary increases, which was not a contentious issue. The union really did fight for better conditions for their students. .

The Big Three—Governor Pritzker, the Democrats in the Legislature and House Speaker Madigan— have agreed to restore a democratically elected board to replace mayoral control and to restore full collective bargaining rights so Chicago is on the same footing as other districts in Illinois.

Now we wait to see how long it will take to assure that the students do not lose instructional time.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Chicago, Class size, Education Reform, Teacher Pay, Unions

Chicago: A Message from Karen Lewis

By dianeravitch

October 29, 2019 //

The Chicago Teachers Union posted the following message from its legendary leader and president emerita, Karen Lewis:

Diane-

When Lori ran for mayor, she gave us hope that she would represent real change in City Hall. She ran on our education platform and made a commitment to reverse years of failed policy and horrible planning by her predecessors.

She inherited a system built on revolving door leadership, misplaced investments, excessive standardized testing and few wraparound services for our students. And she took office on a promise of being a progressive, pro-education mayor who gave her word for an elected school board for our district, and said she would use her power to ensure that Chicago’s students have the resources they need regardless of where they live in this city.

It’s not too late.

For far too long, the students, families and educators of Chicago have been denied the high-quality neighborhood schools they deserve. Our students should be learning in safe and thriving environments with social workers, nurses and guidance counselors. Our educators deserve to work in well-equipped classrooms with manageable and enforceable class sizes. And Chicago’s families deserve an elected leader that stands by their promises and truly brings in the light for our great city.

Lori, keep your promises and let’s get this done. Our members have resolve and will not relent when it comes to the families they serve. I stand in solidarity with each and every teacher, PSRP, clinician, nurse and librarian, and urge them to stand firm in their fight and remain united in the struggle for the schools that our students and families deserve.

To them, I ask the questions I’ve always asked of them when making any decision: “Does it unite us? Does it build our power? Does it make us stronger?”

And remember, power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will.

In solidarity,

Karen GJ Lewis, NBCT

CTU President Emerita

Chicago Teachers Union • 1901 W. Carroll Ave.• Chicago, IL 60612 • 312-329-9100
www.ctulocal1.org

Sent via ActionNetwork.org. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Chicago Teachers Union, please click here.

Categories Accountability, Chicago, Funding, Unions

Meet Jitu Brown, a Hero of the Resistances

By dianeravitch

October 28, 2019 //

Jitu Brown is a son of Chicago. He is National director of the Journey for Justice Alliance, which has affiliates in 30 cities, where they work for social justice.

Jitu was the driving force behind the community effort to save Dyett High school in Chicago, the last open admission high school in Bronzeville. Mayor Rahm Emanuel had decided to close Dyett, and Jitu organized a campaign to save Dyett. He led a 34-day hunger strike, and eventually Rahm gave up and instead of closing Dyett, he invested $16 million into renovating it as a school for the arts.

Listen to Jitu here, where he is videotaped by videographer Bob Greenberg. Greenberg has created an archive of hundreds of interviews with educators. He is a retired teacher.

In this video, Jitu Brown describes the two teachers who had a profound impact on him and helped him discover his strengths.

In this video, Jitu Brown recites Claude Mckay’s “If We Must Die.”

Jitu belongs on the Honor Roll of this blog.

Jitu Brown is a hero of the Resistance. He is also a member of the board of the Network for Public Education.

He is featured in my new book SLAYING GOLIATH.

Categories Chicago, Emanuel, Rahm, Honor Roll, Resistance

Chicago: Update on Teachers’ Strike

By dianeravitch

October 27, 2019 //

Chicago Teachers Union

NEWS ADVISORY:
For Immediate Release| ctulocal1.org

CONTACT: Chris Geovanis, 312-329-6250, 312-446-4939 (m), ChrisGeovanis@ctulocal1.org

Half of 1% of CPS budget stands between CTU, CPS and tentative agreement

CHICAGO, Oct. 27, 2019—CTU President Jesse Sharkey issued the following statement this evening, as CPS CEO Janice Jackson made her first appearance at the bargaining table.

Right now at the bargaining table, CPS is refusing to invest barely half of one percent of its annual budget to give our students the equity and educational justice they were promised. Amazon was set to get billions of dollars in public subsidies from the city. Lincoln Yards and the 78 got billions of public dollars to bankroll their new neighborhoods for rich people—dollars that should have gone to our schools. But CPS has yet to yield to provide a paltry fraction of those funds to support what our students need.

CPS has $38 million to settle a contract in one of the richest cities in the richest countries in the world. Yet today, their misplaced priorities will put us on the picket lines again tomorrow.

We have been attempting to bargain with CPS for ten months for the equity and educational justice our students were promised. It took a strike to get the mayor and CPS to just to trade proposals to bring down exploding class sizes and alleviate desperate shortages of school nurses, social workers, counselors, librarians and more. We shouldn’t have to work this hard—and we shouldn’t have to strike—to get our students what they deserve.

In 1995, the Illinois legislature gave total power and control of CPS to the mayor of Chicago, forcing us to jump through insane obstacles to get to an agreement, from super majorities to authorize a strike to constant obstacles just to bargain to get a nurse in school every day. No other teacher or school worker in any other school district in the state confronts this kind of obstruction.

We’re not yielding on our demands for equity and educational justice—and CPS has a path on the table right now to make a real downpayment on those promises. Let’s get it done.

# # #

The Chicago Teachers Union represents nearly 25,000 teachers and educational support personnel working in schools funded by City of Chicago School District 299, and by extension, the nearly 400,000 students and families they serve. The CTU is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers and is the third-largest teachers local in the United States. For more information, please visit the CTU website at www.ctulocal1.org.

Sent via ActionNetwork.org.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Chicago, Education Reform, Funding, Teachers, Unions

Chicago: Update on Progress of Strike

By dianeravitch

October 21, 2019 //

From the Chicago Teachers Union:

For ten months we had absolutely no progress on key proposals. After only two strike days, we have seen considerable movement and crucial openings on issues such as homeless students, class sizes, staffing and other key issues that the mayor told us would not be open for bargaining. Today, we got a tentative agreement for specific staff positions to support Students in Temporary Living Situations (students who qualify as homeless). For Pre-Kindergarten classes, we won contractual guarantees that CPS will follow Illinois law in maintaining a ratio of 1 adult for every 10 students in a Pre-K classroom. We also won guaranteed naps for preschoolers in all-day pre-K programs. We won language that counselors will not be pulled from counseling to do other duties such as substitute teaching in a classroom. This will lead to greater counselor access for our students.

We also brought CPS a new counter-offer on class size, today. We need guaranteed caps on class sizes and we continue to fight for them. There are still many open issues, including prep time and steps for veteran teachers, as well as a raise capable of moving our lowest-paid paraprofessionals above poverty wages.

Our gains have only been possible thanks to the strength of our picket lines, the turnout at our afternoon protests and the support we’ve gotten from students, parents and community members. Keep it up!

Pickets Monday at 6:30am

Although we made progress over the weekend on important issues, this strike will need to continue Monday. Like Thursday and Friday, all CTU members are directed to picket at their schools, starting at 6:30 a.m. Although different schools have different start times, it’s important that our union operate as one. Keep talking to parents, students and community members about what we’re fighting for. Despite the expected rain, we need to keep up our strength to win what’s best for our schools and our students. Dress for rain, bring umbrellas and boots. Take turns coming inside. But keep those picket lines strong from 6:30 to 10:30!

Regional unity marches

In a number of neighborhoods, educators at schools near one another are coming together for particular actions tomorrow.

Southwest Side

CTU strikers will line Pulaski from Archer to 111th from 8:00am to 9:00am. Contact Organizing@ctulocal1.org for more information.

Hyde Park

Hyde Park “Nurse in Every School” Solidarity March for Justice

CTU, SEIU, National Nurses United and Graduate Students United at University of Chicago are combining forces to put muscle behind our call for adequate and equitable nurse staffing. Marches will start at area schools between 8:45 and 9:00 am and converge on Kenwood Academy at 9:45am.

You can email Michael Shea of Kenwood Academy for more information and coordination.

North Side

Striking CTU and SEIU members on the north side will be enacting a solidarity action down Addison Street from Broadway to the expressway Monday at 8:00 am. Participating schools currently include Disney 1, Greeley, InterAmerican, Nettlehorst, Hawthorne, Blaine, Lakeview, Hamilton, Jahn, Burley, Audubon, Coonley, Bell, Lane Tech, Linne, Cleveland, Henry, Disney II, Murphy, and Belden.

March at 2:00pm at Union Park

Our afternoon rallies have been incredibly effective in demonstrating our unity and the sheer scale of what we are fighting for. Keep coming!

Monday, we will march from Union Park, at the corner of Washington and Ogden. The location is accessible from the Green Line Ashland stop and by bus (Ashland, Ogden, etc.).

Afternoon Allied Actions

Raise Chicago Coalition

Youth will hold an action at City Hall at 1:00 p.m. to highlight the need for $15 per hour minimum wage AND the need for a fair contract that enshrines the resources schools need to combat things like overcrowded classrooms and housing issues.

Resist, Reimagine, Rebuild Coalition

The R3 coalition will host a Teach-In for Strikers so that they may learn about community based struggles that support and intersect with teachers demands for education justice. It will be held at Experimental Station (6100 S Blackstone) from 12:00 to 3:00 pm.

Art Build

The Grassroots Collaborative will be setting up an art build at the CTU Center Monday night from 5:00 to 8:00 pm to create signs and props for colorful and impactful actions later this week.

Image adapted by Jesus Sanchez of Social Justice HS from Are You Ready to Play Outside? by Mo Willems.

Categories Accountability, Chicago, Class size, Teachers, Unions

Teacher Activism: The One, the Only, the Great Karen Lewis

By dianeravitch

October 20, 2019 //

Karen Lewis is the inspiration for today’s teacher’s strikes.

She is one of a kind.

She is a hero, a woman of courage, character, integrity, intellect, and steel.

The Chicago Teachers Union just released this video tribute to Karen.

Karen is a product of the Chicago Public Schools. She went to elite Ivy League colleges, first to Mount Holyoke, then transferred to Dartmouth College, where she was the only African American female in the class of 1974.

Karen returned to Chicago and became a chemistry teacher in the Chicago Public Schools, where she taught for 22 years.

In 2010, an upstart group of unionists called the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) ousted the leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union and elected Karen Lewis as its president. The new leadership cut its own salaries and began building relationships with community organizations and parents.

The city’s political and financial elite rewrote state law in hopes of preventing the union from striking. Assisted by Jonah Edelman of the turncoat “Stand for Children,” the city’s financial elite hired the state’s top lobbyists (so that none would be available to help the union), raised millions of dollars (outspending the unions), and passed a state law saying that teachers could not strike unless they had the approval of 75% of their members. They thought this was an impossible threshold. Jonah Edelman, seated alongside James Schine Crown, one of Chicago’s wealthiest financiers, boasted of their feat at the Aspen Institute in 2011. Surrounded by their union-hating peers from other cities at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Edelman said “If It Could Happen Here, It Could Happen Anywhere,” meaning that with enough financial and political clout, unions could be crushed. (The event was transcribed by Parents Across America and blogger Fred Klonsky copied the video before the Aspen Institute took it down). Edelman subsequently apologized for his candid remarks, but Stand for Children has continued to act as a proxy for philanthrocapitalists. (The Aspen video and Edelman’s apology is here on Fred Klonsky’s blog).

Needless to say, the elites were shocked when Karen Lewis and her team called for authorization to strike and won the support of more than 90% of the union’s membership.

In 2012, the union struck for 10 days and won important concessions, including protections for teachers laid off when Rahm Emanuel closed schools, prevention of merit pay (which she knew has failed everywhere), and changes in the teacher evaluation system. The union had carefully built relationships with parents and communities, and the strike received broad public support.

In 2014, Karen Lewis was urged to challenge Rahm Emanuel in the 2015 mayoral election. She set up an exploratory committee, and early polls showed she was likely to win. But in the fall of 2014, Karen was afflicted with a cancerous brain tumor. She was 61 years old. She stepped down as president of the CTU. She is cared for by her devoted husband, John Lewis, who was a physical education teacher in the Chicago Public Schools.

Karen Lewis exemplified courage, fearlessness, Resistance, leadership, and concern for teachers and children.

Every teacher who took the bold step of striking to improve the conditions of teaching and learning in their school stands on the shoulders of Karen Lewis. Every teacher and parent who wears Red for Ed is in the debt of this great woman.

She is our hero. She should be the hero of everyone who cares about the rights of children and the eventual triumph of the common good.

Watch here to see Karen Lewis before her illness, speaking at the first annual conference of the Network for Public Education in Austin Texas on March 1, 2024. Her speech was preceded by that of John Kuhn, superintendent of a school district in Texas. Karen starts speaking about the 14-minute mark. Both are worth watching.

I interviewed Karen Lewis at the second annual conference of the Network for Public Education in Chicago in 2015. You can see it here.

And this is my account of how I met Karen for the first time and why I love her.

She inspires me every day. I miss her very much.

Categories Chicago, Civil Rights, Courage, Honor Roll, Resistance, Stand for Children, Supporting public schools, Teachers, Unions

Chicago: The Teachers’ Strike Brings a Sea-Change in Education Policy

Jan Resseger: The History and Context of the Chicago Teachers Strike 2019

Chicago: Principals’ Association Says Teachers Are Not Demanding Enough

Chicago: CTU Explains Terms of Tentative Agreement

Tentative Agreement