http://withabrooklynaccent.blogspot.com/2012/09/press-statement-on-chicago-teachers.html
Press Statement on Chicago Teachers Strike
Dr Mark Naison, Fordham University
The Chicago Teachers strike is an incredibly important development because it is a the first time a union local has threatened to strike against education policies pushed by the Obama Administration through its Race to the Top initiative, policies, in my judgment, that have had incredibly destructive consequences for Urban school systems and distressed urban communities
The policies pushed by Rahm Emmanuel, which are being simultaneously implemented in New York and many other cities, involve evaluating teachers and schools on the basis of student test scores, closing schools whose test scores fail to meet a certain standard and firing half their staffs, replacing public schools with charter schools, some run as non profits and some run for profit, and trying to weaken teacher tenure and introduce merit pay
The first three components have been already introduced in Chicago and the mayor wants to intensify them and legnthen the school day. The union is saying enough is enough.
I support the union in taking this stand for the following reasos
1. Closing schools, many of which have been a bulwark of neighborhoods for generations, has been a complete disaster. It has destroyed one point of stability in the lives of young people who have precious little. It removes teachers who have been a part of students lives. It is not an accident that Chicago has seen a serious uptick of violence since Emmanuel became mayor. Young people in distressed neighborhoods need to see community institutions strengthened and teacher mentors protected. School closings and staff turnover take away needed anchors
2. Rating teachers and schools on the basis of student test scores, and threatening to close schools and fire teachers if the proper results aren’t achieved have not only ratcheted up stress levels in schools, they have led to the elimination of art music, sports, school trips and even recess for test prep. The result is that more and more teachers hate teaching and more and more young people hate school, increasing the drop out rate in neighborhoods which desperately need schools to become community centers where young people want to go. The union wants to make schools welcoming places where students want to come by reducing class size, and bringing back sports and the arts, and strengtheining struggling schools rather than closing them. That makes a lot of sense to me
3. Favoring charter schools over public schools has resulted in the systematic creaming off of high performing students by the charters and the warehousing of ELL and special needs students, along with students who have behavior issues, in the remaining public schools. The result is that overall academic performance in the district has not improved
4. Removing teacher tenure and job protections has resulted in the most talented teachers leaving the city system or trying to move from low performing schools to high performing ones where they are less likely to be fired. The result is an accentuation of racial and economic gaps in performance
Basically, what the union wants is to strengthen neighborhood schools an invest in making them places where students are nurtured and want to come, rather than stress filled test factories which the Emmanuel plan and Race to the Top guarantees
The union, in this instance is far better advocate for the children
of Chicago than the mayor
I am available for interviews on my cell all weekend (917) 836-3014
Mark D Naison
Professor of African American Studies and History
Fordham University
“If you Want to Save America’s Public Schools: Replace Secretary of Education Arne Duncan With a Lifetime Educator.” http://dumpduncan.org/
I link two different articles here, each of them explaining the dilemma in which we find out society today.
On the one hand, there is the potential strike of the Chicago Teachers Union. This situation pits a Democratic mayor against the city’s public school teachers, who stand united (98% voted to authorize a strike). They should have been his allies. President Obama will need their votes in two months.
On the other, there is a growing realization that the new jobs created since the recession of 2008 are low-wage jobs. The middle class is losing ground. Many new college graduates find themselves working at a fast-food chain or in retail sales, not making enough to pay off their student loans. The jobs they expected to get have disappeared.
What is happening to our country? The middle class is shrinking. The rich are getting richer. Income inequality is growing. The ranks of the poor and the near-poor are expanding. There is a full-court press to eliminate collective bargaining or reduce the power of unions, rendering them toothless.
The attack on unions is an attack on the middle class. It is an attack on an institution that builds a middle class. Unions were an essential part of the movement to create a middle class, allowing poor people to find jobs with a pension, health benefits and a decent wage. As unions wither, the middle class will shrivel even more.
Unions were an important ally in the civil rights movement and they have been fundamental in promoting the economic progress of black and Hispanic workers.
Consider this guest post on the Shanker Blog by Norm and Velma Hill, veterans of the civil rights movement and the union movement:
With a lot of prodding from [A. Philip] Randolph, the AFL-CIO… came to recognize the deep connection between labor rights and civil rights. The civil rights movement has moved the same way, acknowledging organized labor as by far its strongest ally. In a 1961 speech, Dr. King spoke to this, declaring that “Negroes are almost entirely a working people. Our needs are identical with labor’s needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education and respect in their community. That is why blacks support labor’s demands and fight laws that curb labor.”
That is why the labor hater and the race baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature, spewing anti-black epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other. That is why, at the time of King’s assassination in 1968, he was preparing to lead a march in Memphis, Tennessee, in support of black sanitation workers who were striking for union recognition. And that is why, for generations of black Americans and other minorities, a “good” union job was understood to be a path to the middle-class.
Still today, the benefits of trade union membership for African Americans, women, and other minorities are clear. According to one recent estimate, the wages of black union members are 31 percent higher than the wages of African Americans who are not union members. The union wage advantage for women workers is 34 percent; for Latino workers, it’s a whopping 51 percent. That being true, the decline of the union movement should be of special concern. In the mid-1950s, about one-third of the workforce belonged to unions. Today the proportion is down to not much more than 10 percent.
Some black and Hispanic entrepreneurs have done well during this period of growing income inequality. But black and Hispanic poverty remains deep and entrenched. Destroying unions eliminates the good jobs where black and Hispanic workers earn more. Access to the middle class becomes harder when unions are eliminated.
As the non-union charter sector expands, teachers’ unions are weakened. 88% of charter schools are non-union. It is easier for them to fire expensive teachers or to fire teachers who don’t conform or to fire whistle-blowers. There is no evidence that non-union charter schools are systematically more successful than public schools with unions. Here and there, you will find a high-flying non-union charter school, but you can find many more high-flying unionized public schools. On average, charters do no better than public schools when they enroll the same students and have the same resources.
So, yes, we need a rebirth of unionism. Yes, working people need protection from predatory employers who care only for lowering costs, no matter what the human cost. This country must restore a balance and sanity to its policies, and that won’t happen as long as the most powerful figures are joined in an effort to destroy unions and to privatize public education.
P.S. A personal disclaimer: I do not belong to a union. I never have.
The Heartland Institute in Chicago, a major advocate for charters and vouchers, has issued a statement supporting Rahm Emanuel and urging him to be firm in resisting the demands of the Chicago Teachers Union. Is Mayor Emanuel at the right convention?
Heartland Institute Education Expert Reacts to
Chicago Teachers Union Strike Threat
The Chicago Teachers Union on Wednesday filed unfair labor practice charges against Chicago Public Schools, and CTU President Karen Lewis says the union will not extend its Monday, September 10 deadline to reach a new contract or go on strike.
The following statement from Joy Pullmann of the Chicago-based Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank – may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Tammy Nash at tnash@heartland.org and 312/377-4000. After regular business hours, contact Jim Lakely at jlakely@heartland.org and 312/731-9364.
“The Chicago Teachers Union is playing a game of chicken with taxpayer dollars, parent patience, and children’s futures. Their threats to strike, bluffs or not, should be seen for the craven malfeasance that represents what’s wrong with the incredibly expensive and ineffective Chicago Public Schools.
“Chicago teachers make about a third more than the average Cook County worker, and they receive far better pensions. The city is as broke as its hobos. Mayor Rahm Emanuel shouldn’t blink, and voters should demand the union stand down.”
Joy Pullmann
Research Fellow, The Heartland Institute
Managing Editor, School Reform News
jpullmann@heartland.org
312/377-4000
Thanks to loyal reader Prof. W. for forwarding this story.
Chicago public schools have been under mayoral control since 1995.
Mayor Daley hired Paul Vallas to reform the schools. He went on to reform the schools in Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Haiti, and now he is reforming schools in Bridgeport while running a national consulting business on reforming schools.
Then Mayor Daley promoted Arne Duncan to reform the schools. Duncan called his reforms “Renaissance 2010.” Before he left for DC in 2009 Duncan opened 100 new schools and closed many neighborhood schools.
Then came Ron Huberman to continue the Daley reforms.
And now Mayor Emanuel carries on in the Daley tradition, having recently instructed his hand-picked school board to close or privatize more schools.
And what’s the upshot of nearly two decades of reform?
“Twenty years of reform efforts and programs targeting low-income families in Chicago Public Schools has only widened the performance gap between white and African-American students, a troubling trend at odds with what has occurred nationally.
Across the city, and spanning three eras of CPS leadership, black elementary school students have lost ground to their white, Latino and Asian classmates in testing proficiency in math and reading, according to a recent analysis by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.”
The Consortium report had the following conclusions:
• Graduation rates have improved dramatically, and high school test scores have risen; more
students are graduating without a decline in average academic performance.
• Math scores have improved incrementally in the elementary/middle grades, while
elementary/middle grade reading scores remained fairly flat for two decades.
• Racial gaps in achievement have steadily increased, with white students making slightly more
progress than Latino students, and African American students falling behind all other groups.
• Despite progress, the vast majority of CPS students have academic achievement levels that are
far below where they need to be to graduate ready for college.
Some more quotes from the report:
“Chicago schools are not what they were in 1990. Graduation rates have improved tremendously, and students are more academically prepared than they were two decades ago. ACT scores have risen in recent years, and elementary math scores are almost a grade level above where they were in the early 1990s. However, average test scores remain well below levels that indicate students are likely to succeed in college.
This is not a problem that is unique to Chicago. Nationwide, the typical high school graduate does not perform at college-ready levels. Chicago students do not perform more poorly than students with similar economic and ethnic backgrounds at other schools in Illinois.” p. 78
Over the course of the three eras of school reform, a number of dramatic system-wide initiatives were enacted. But instead of bringing dramatic changes in student achievement, district-wide changes were incremental -when they occurred at all. We can identify many individual schools that made substantial, sometimes dramatic, gains over the last 20 years, but dramatic improvements across an entire system of over 600 schools are more elusive.
Past research at CCSR suggests that that the process of school improvement involves careful attention to building the core organizational supports of schools -leadership, professional capacity, parent/community involvement, school learning climate, and instruction (Bryk, et al., 2010).
Building the organizational capacity of schools takes time and is not easily mandated at the district level. Nevertheless, the extent to which the next era of school reform drives system-wide improvement will likely depend on the extent to which the next generation of reforms attends to local context and the capacity of individual schools throughout the district.” p. 79
It is hard to see how this rate of change will eliminate poverty or close the achievement gaps (which have widened).
And will anyone be held accountable?
As a historian, I can assure you that the roots of the current “reform” movement are on the far right. Vouchers began with Milton Friedman in 1955; charters began in 1988 with liberal origins, but were quickly adopted by the right as a substitute for vouchers because voters always defeated voucher proposals. The attacks on teachers’ unions are out of the rightwing playbook. The demands for test-based accountability did not originate in the Democratic party. The effort to remove all job protections–seniority, tenure, the right to due process–did not originate with liberal thinkers or policymakers, but can be traced to the Reagan administration and even earlier to rightwing Republicans who never wanted any unions or job protections for workers. The embrace of privatization and for-profit schooling is neither liberal nor Democratic.
How this happened is a long story.
No matter who supports this agenda, it is not bipartisan. It originated in the ideology of the rightwing extreme of the GOP. Its goal is privatization.
This reader notes the long list of Democrats who have adopted the rightwing GOP agenda:
It’s not just right wing states and politicians that want to harass teachers.
Plenty of Dems are in on the fun.
Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado is a nominal Democrat who never saw a teacher he didn’t look upon with suspicion or a test company he didn’t want to give a contract to.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is leading the charge in teacher demonization efforts in the Midwest, and I would argue that his anti-union, anti-teacher track record is beginning to rival that of his brethren to the north, Scott Walker and Paul Ryan.
Emanuel is a Democrat in name and once led the DCCC when Dems took back the House of Representatives.
Congressman George Miller, who chairs the House Education Committee, is a Democrat but like Bennet in the Senate, he too never met a teacher he felt could be trusted to teach without “high stakes accountability measures” imposed from afar.
Cory Booker is a Democrat who is currently engaged in the wholesale privatization of the Newark school system. He’s got buddies in the hedge funds and Wall Street who bankroll him, he’s great friends with Chris Christie and loves Christie’s privatization efforts at the state level and his demonization of teachers and teachers unions in the media. That won’t stop Booker from running against Christie for governor next year, however, so those of us who live in NJ can expect privatization of the schools no matter who wins – Christie or Booker.
Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein and Michael Bloomberg were all nominal Democrats before they embarked upon their teacher demonization/school privatization agendas as well.
And of course the Democratic politician who has had the most impact in the teacher demonization/school privatization effort is Barack Obama – from Race to the Top to Central Falls, Rhode Island to Race to the Top II: The Municipal Version to Race to the Top III: The District Version, few politicians have been as successful at bringing teacher evaluations tied to test scores and changes to tenure laws or promoting a broad expansion of high stakes testing in every grade in every subject, K-12, as Barack Obama.
I wish it were simply right wingers and Republicans out to harass teachers who were the problem. Unfortunately, because both parties take money from the same corporate masters, politicians in both parties are out to give those masters what they ultimately want when it comes to public education – a privatized system with busted unions, cheap labor costs, and lots and lots of opportunities to cash in on the latest ed buzz craze (these days that being the Common Core Federal Standards, the tests that are going to be aligned to those standards and the test prep materials that are going to be needed to get students prepared for those tests.)
After nearly two decades of mayoral control in Chicago, it is clear that it doesn’t improve schools.
The board is appointed by the mayor, and the public has nothing to say about who sits on the board and no way to contest its actions.
As in New York City, mayoral control means that the public has no role in public education.
Under this system, Mayor Daley started Renaissance 2010 (run by one Arne Duncan) and the results have been barely noticeable.
One thing for sure: Renaissance 2010 did not produce a renaissance; 2010 has come and gone.
Chicago is still in trouble.
People are beginning to wonder whether an elected board could be any worse than one-man rule.
They wonder whether an elected board might be willing to listen to parents and community members.
And they are gathering petitions to put the question on the ballot.
This must frighten the mayor. Can he rally the public to disenfranchise themselves again?
Can he persuade the public to believe that all these years of stagnation is progress?
This parent activist in Chicago says that parents have good ideas about how to improve the schools but Mayor Rahm Emanuel won’t meet with them.
Parents in New York City say the same about Mayor Bloomberg.
Why won’t the mayor listen to the most informed and most committed stakeholders of all? Not the business community, not the entrepreneurs, but the parents of the children?
| It would cost more than the city has which is a nearly 1 billion dollar deficit! Parent groups have proposed plans that would increase art and gym, support after school programs and allow more opportunity for hands-on learning, but CPS and the mayor emphatically refuse to discuss the future of our children’s education with parents. Rahm’s only solution is to impose a longer school day with no additional funding and essentially let schools try to figure out how to make it work, while secretly hoping schools fail so he can close them and create more charters. |
One of the themes of the corporate reform movement is this:
“We know what’s best for other people’s children but it is not what’s best for mine.”
Many of the leading corporate reformers went to elite prep schools and/or send their children to them.
Schools like Exeter, Andover, Deerfield Academy, Sidwell Friends, the University of Chicago Lab School, Lakeside Academy (Seattle), Maumee Country Day School (Toledo). At these schools there are beautiful facilities, small classes, experienced teachers, well-stocked libraries, science laboratories, and a curriculum rich in the arts, sciences, languages, and other studies.
I hope you read this post about Chicago billionaire and school board member Penny Pritzker. She sends her children to the University of Chicago Lab School, which has the best of everything, but feels no embarrassment that the children of Chicago who attend public schools that she oversees do not have the same advantages.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel sends his children to this school. Arne Duncan is a graduate of it.
Remember that theme: Other People’s Children.
This reader thought about what Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants for his own children. Why doesn’t he want the same for all Chicago’s children?
| Others have mentioned that Rahm’s own children attend the University of Chicago Lab Schools. If true, it irks me to no end that they benefit from a school:Whose motto is “learning by doing”Whose total school population is less than 1800 students, nursery school through 12th (and it is still called nursery school, which has an entirely different connotation than preschool or pre-K)
Where John Dewey himself formulated and applied his progressive educational theories Where Vivian Gussin Paley, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, spent many years researching and writing about the importance of young children’s imaginative play (she is a great hero of mine because she documents children’s first language, play, with respect and thoroughness). Most people’s children, mine included, don’t have the benefit of time at school to learn together through play. They have been robbed by adults who don’t understand or care about child development. The school for Rahm’s kids develops character, values diversity, and provides depth in learning (see website). Other people’s children are left with worksheet after worksheet and empty bubbles to fill in on a test. |
Chicago Public Schools have a large deficit. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is responding to the deficit by encouraging the growth of charter schools to carry the burden of educating the city’s children.
One reason for the growing deficit is declining enrollment, caused in large part by the CPS promotion of charter schools. The more students leave the CPS system to enroll in charters, the less state aid CPS gets. As more charter schools open, the financial crisis gets worse. Thus, Mayor Emanuel’s policy makes the deficit worse by stimulating the exodus of students from the school system and reducing its revenues.
One of the mayor’s favorite charter chains is UNO, which is based in the Latino community. UNO just leased a historic Roman Catholic school, St. Scholastica Academy and is set to increase its enrollment. It is sad to see Catholic schools close in urban areas, especially one with such a long history of serving its community.
Both the city and state are pumping money into charter schools, both for operating costs and capital costs. This money is diverted from public schools to privately managed charters. UNO received a state grant of $98 million to expand, and the city adds to its capital costs. In effect, both the city and state are paying charters to drain students and revenues out of the public school system.
Mayor Emanuel is one of those new conservative Democratic mayors who attack the teachers’ union and work to privatize public education in his city. He is following the trail blazed by Arne Duncan in Chicago. If it was a successful policy, Chicago should be one of the nation’s top performing school systems. It is not. How many years will it take before the politicians begin to understand the futility of privatization and the harm they are doing to one of society’s important public institutions?
As you may recall, Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago has demanded that teachers teach a longer school day without additional compensation.
For that and other reasons (including rising class size), the Chicago Teachers Union took a strong stand in opposition. It took a strike vote, and 98% of those voting gave their approval, which was unexpected and unprecedented. The CTU held a rally, and 10,000 members turned out.
Mayor Emanuel accepted a deal that met the CTU’s demands. Its members will not have to work longer hours without pay. The school day will be extended, as he wants, and the teachers who provide the extra time will be selected from the pool of veteran teachers who were laid off.
This was a stunning victory for the CTU. It shows what happens when a union is resolute and united, and its demands are just.
Here is the CTU press release, which is the only information available at this time:
|
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
|
|||
|
Components of Teacher Day
|
Current Default
(open campus)
|
Announced
Full School Day
|
Interim
Agreement
|
|
Instructional Minutes
|
296
|
315
|
296
|
|
Morning Preparation
|
30
|
25
|
0
|
|
Midday Preparation
|
32
|
60
|
64
|
|
Duty-Free Lunch
|
45
|
45
|
45
|
|
Supervision
|
17
|
15
|
15
|
|
Total On Site
Work Time
|
420
|
460
|
420
|
|
HIGH SCHOOLS
|
|||
|
Components of Teacher Day
|
Current Schedule
|
Announced
Full School Day
(regular day)
|
Interim
Agreement
|
|
Instructional Minutes
|
244
|
Up to 276
|
248 to 251
|
|
Morning Preparation
|
0
|
10
|
0
|
|
Midday Preparation
|
92
|
92
|
92 to 102
|
|
Duty-Free Lunch
|
46
|
46
|
46 to 51
|
|
Passing Periods
|
38
|
36
|
up to 36
|
|
Total On Site
Work Time
|
421
|
460
|
435
|
