Mike Klonsky reports from Chicago that Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis and her slate of officers were re-elected by acclamation.
She is a much beloved figure in Chicago, and had she not suffered a major illness last year, she would very likely be Mayor Lewis today. She is far more popular than Rahm Emanuel.
The Washington State Education Association and other groups are suing to block the funding of charter schools in Washington State.
The battle over charters has gone on for years. There have been four referenda: the first three blocked charters. The fourth, in 2012, won by less than 1% after Bill Gates and fellow billionaires dumped nearly $20 million into the campaign. The funding was challenged in court and the state’s highest court ruled that charter schools are not public schools because they have private governance.
The oligarchs lobbied hard, persuaded Democrats to fund the 1,000 children in charters at the same time the legislature took no action on a court order to fund equitably the public schools that enroll the state’s 1 million children.
The WEA is going back to court to block the new funding, on grounds that charters are not public schools.
The only democratic institution untouched by Gates’ power to date is the courts. Let’s see what happens next.
Kudos to WEA for defending public schools.
EduShyster interviewed teachers at the University of Cleveland Prep School about why they decided to unionize. Charters have a reputation for expecting teachers to work long hours. Because of working conditions, charters have high teacher turnover.
She writes:
“For Jacqueline Lehane, it was the teacher demerit system at her Cleveland charter school that was the last straw. Teachers who’d been heard talking in the hallway, or whose students had been spotted with an untucked shirt, would be called out via an official email entitled *Quick Hits,* on which teachers, school and network administrators were copied.
*It’s just public humiliation,* says Lehane, whose *hits* included having a messy classroom after her first graders completed an art project. To Lehane, this top-down shaming was a symbol of everything that was wrong with the school. *Once I even asked a dean, ‘do people who are higher up than you treat you the way you treat us?’
“If all you know about unions is that they are protectors of the status quo, responsible for everything that’s wrong with public education, I’m guessing you have no idea how hard it is to actually organize one. By the time Lehane and her colleagues at the University of Cleveland Preparatory School, part of the I CAN network, voted 18-4 to join the Ohio Federation of Teachers, the teachers had spent two years trying to form a union. Administrators responded, first by attempting to intimidate teachers into changing their minds, then firing the teachers who they’d identified as leading the effort. Seven teachers at the school were fired as punishment—such a clear and blatant act of retaliation that the National Labor Relations Board ordered I CAN to reinstate the teachers and give them full back pay….
‘This can’t be good’
“Lehane started teaching at UCP in 2015. A week after the school year started, she found herself in front of 32 first graders, with no training. *I think it took me about an hour to figure out that there were some serious problems,* says Lehane. One of the first things she noticed was how high the teacher turnover rate was at the school. Teachers were constantly quitting, replaced by brand new teachers, some of whom weren’t even licensed to teach. Lehane was struck by how different this was from the public schools she’d attended growing up in suburban Cleveland. *My teachers were there for my three sisters and my brother, but no one ever stays at I CAN. I just remember thinking ‘this can’t be good,’* says Lehane.
“When a group of teachers at the school approached Lehane about coming to a meeting to talk about organizing a union, she was in. At that first gathering, the teachers listed off their concerns and identified problems that they thought needed to be fixed. Like the sky-high turnover among teachers. And the fact there seemed to be no accountability for administrators. Work hours and expectations were outrageous, even though teachers lacked the most basic supports and resources to accomplish what was expected of them. *It was such a relief to hear that everyone was frustrated by the same things, and that we all wanted to fix them,* says Lehane.”
About 90% of charter schools are non-union. Some funders underwrite them to get rid of unions. This must be very disturbing to the Walton Family Foundation, the Eli Broad Foundation, and many others who want schools to be free of unions.
The tabloid press in New York City, which has consistently supported corporate reform, such as charters and high-stakes testing, regularly claims in its editorials that the parents’ opt out movement is secretly funded and manipulated by teachers’ unions.
This is absolutely untrue. There are teachers involved in the opt out movement, but as individuals and parents, not as representatives of their unions. When Karen Magee, the president of the New York State teachers’ union, endorsed opt out last spring, right before the testing started, it was big news. (My blog got the biggest one-day readership in its history [about 140,000 views in one day] when I reported Magee’s decision).
The New York City United Federation of Teachers never endorsed opt out, never funded it.
Please, editorial writers for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and yes, even the New York Times, please take note: The opt out movement is parent-led, parent-organized, and depends on parents for its energy and passion. It is not union-led, union-funded, or union-controlled. In short, the opt out movement is a grassroots uprising against the absurd emphasis on standardized tests that consume instructional time without any benefit to students and without providing any useful information to teachers.
Michelle Gunderson has taught in the Chicago public schools for 29 years; she teaches first grade.
In this post, she describes why the Chicago Teachers Union decided to strike on April 1. The House of Delegates’ vote to strike was overwhelming, but it was not unanimous. It was 486-124. Some teachers wanted a longer strike. Others had other reasons to dissent. Some Chicagoans predict that the strike will be joined by other unions, to protest Mayor Emanuel’s failure to fund the public schools, by his open hostility to public schools and their teachers, and by his clear favoritism toward charter schools opened by his friends and funders. Some think it may be close to a general strike. We will see. In the meanwhile, those of us who do not live in Chicago send our love and support to our allies who are fighting for the equitable treatment of the children they teach.
Gunderson writes:
In many schools around Chicago teachers experienced losing their colleagues through the recent cuts. When a teacher leaves a job they do not simply pack their personal effects into a banker’s box and walk out the door. Most teachers need a U-Haul to pack up all the materials they have personally brought into the school. And they leave behind them grieving children (losing your teacher is akin to losing a parent) and colleagues who must take up the additional workload.
In these schools which were cut to the bone, the argument to strike for revenue was easy. It is not a coincidence that the argument is harder at schools on the north and northwest side where race and class divide us on lines that were construed by injustice in the first place.
You will hear stories of teachers and parents who disagree with the strike. You will read news articles that amplify this message and comment sections in our Chicago papers that promote this injustice and often pure hate of teachers and children.
The facts remain – our city is divided, our children are suffering, and the Chicago Teachers Union has a vision of the world that makes this not so.
Join the strike on April first.
Earlier today, the US Supreme Supreme Court split 4-4 on the Friedrichs case, leaving the lower court decision undisturbed. At issue was whether teachers should be required to pay union fees. Not at issue was paying for the union’s political activities, which was previously decided (members don’t have to).
A reader asked what supporters of Friedrichs were saying about the decision. Here are “expert opinions” from the conservative Heartland Institute, which opposes unions.
“Heartland Education Experts React to Decision in
Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association
On Tuesday, March 29, the United States Supreme Court issued a one-sentence ruling in the case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.” The 4–4 tie from the Supreme Court means the lower court ruling remains intact, compelling public employees to pay union agency shop dues even if they do not belong to the union.
The following statements from education experts at The 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 New Media Specialist Donald Kendal at dkendal@heartland.org and 312/377-4000.
“The ramifications of Justice Scalia’s death are seen early in this Court session with the continued protection of public-sector unions. Non-union members will continue to be forced to pay for the political agenda of union bosses. This case should be reheard once a new justice is seated. “
Lennie Jarratt
Project Manager, Education
The Heartland Institute
ljarratt@heartland.org
847/302-3985
“After the death of Justice Scalia, it appeared Friedrichs was fated to a split decision, and this was indeed the case. While the plaintiffs plan on filing again, it is yet to be determined if the justices will take it up a second time, and what the makeup of the court will be at that time.
“Even though this split was almost assured, it is still a disappointment. Lovers of liberty can at least hang their hat on the knowledge that more and more states are ending mandatory dues collections on their own.”
Tim Benson
Policy Analyst
The Heartland Institute
tbenson@heartland.org
312/377-4000
“This Supreme Court decision, favoring the California Teachers Association, effectively forces teachers who declined union membership to be forced into it. In a blue state like California, these teachers have alternatives, but none of their options will be easy to exercise. Could they become non-unionized teachers in charter schools or private schools? Not easily. Would they move to a state, such as Wisconsin, that has a right-to-work law? Getting hired there might be easier but moving and the uprooting would be their challenge.”
David Anderson
Senior Fellow, Education
The Heartland Institute
david.anderson@asoraeducation.com
312/377-4000
The Heartland Institute is a 32-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000.
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a 4-4 decision on the case of Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association. Fredrichs wanted to receive the benefits of collective bargaining without paying dues to the union. She wanted to be a “free rider.” The untimely death of Justice Scalia, however, eliminated the possibility that Friedrichs would win. The tie vote is a victory for the union, because nothing changes.
Frustrated by ongoing budget cuts, layoffs, and the Chicago school board’s support for privatization, the Chicago Teachers Union voted overwhelmingly to take a “Day of Action” on April 1.
The union has been fighting for the needs of the students of Chicago public schools. The union is in a two-front battle for survival: Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Governor Bruce Rauner both prefer charter schools to public schools. Both are hostile to the CTU. Rauner, a hedge fund manager and political amateur, has been unable to get a budget passed by the legislature, and the schools face a growing deficit without adequate funding. Meanwhile, the Chicago Public Schools–led by a non-educator–is demanding ever more layoffs and budget cuts. Chicago doesn’t want to pay for public education. The constant attacks on the union and on teachers hurts children. It means increased class sizes and loss of the arts, librarians, and other services.
Teachers will be walking off the job April 1 for a “day of action” the Chicago Teachers Union said it hopes will help pressure the city and state to properly fund the school system.
After months of threatening the action, the union’s House of Delegates took the vote during a meeting Wednesday night at the International Operating Engineers Hall, 2260 S. Grove St. The union voted to authorize the strike with 486 votes, said union President Karen Lewis.
Another 124 members voted against the day of action, but only because they thought an official strike should be organized immediately, Lewis said.
“The labor conditions have gotten to a point where they are not tolerable,” Lewis said at a news conference after the vote.
Whereas the union has traditionally clashed with Mayor Rahm Emanuel over issues of funding and school closures, this time the teachers are putting Gov. Bruce Rauner within their crosshairs.
The action is needed because the budget impasse and political stalemate in the General Assembly have led to unfair working conditions for teachers in Chicago Public Schools.
The lack of a state budget has placed tremendous financial burden on the school system. Teachers already have been asked to take three furlough days so the district can save $30 million, with the first furlough day scheduled for Friday.
“We are dying the death by 1,000 cuts,” Lewis said. “We cannot go on like this … We need Gov. Rauner to get a budget passed.”
Cami Anderson was appointed by Givernor Chris Christie to run the Newark school district. Following much turmoil and disruption, she became a target of parent protests. After being insulted at a meeting of the city’s powerless board, she stopped attending board meetings.
This past weekend, Anderson resurfaced to declare herself on the side of the plaintiffs in the Vergara case who are trying to strip teachers of due process rights (aka tenure). She declared she was a “huge” supporter of unions and due process, but sided with those who seek to eliminate both.
Her article appeared not surprisingly in the anti-union Wall Street Journal.
She writes:
“An appeal is under way of the landmark 2014 Vergara v. California ruling in favor of nine public-school students who courageously challenged state laws they said deprived them of a quality education. The ruling by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge struck down California’s teacher tenure, dismissal and “last in, first out” layoff laws on grounds that they violate the equal protection clause of the state constitution and “disproportionately affect poor and/or minority students.”
“Opening arguments in the appeal, which began Feb. 25, had me reflecting on the disheartening lessons I learned regarding teacher’s contracts and labor laws during the five years I served as superintendent of New York City’s Alternative High Schools and Programs (District 79).
“In 2006 my team and I were charged with improving the lives and academic outcomes of some of our city’s most at-risk young people. About 30,000 students ages 16 to 21, most from low-income families of color, attended our education programs in drug-treatment centers, juvenile detention, in jail on Rikers Island or in the basements of high schools. From the start it was clear that many of these resilient and brilliant young people—trapped in what some call the “school-to-prison pipeline”—had limitless potential, if only they had caring, quality educators
“Not long into my term, however, the ugly reality of the dysfunctional systems working against our students hit me. Far from setting the high expectations our students needed to beat the odds, many teachers and staff reinforced our students’ deepest self-doubts. The young people who needed the best, most motivated educators sat downwind of policies that meant they too often got the least-effective educators.
“At the time, most teachers attained tenure after three years in New York. In District 79, most teachers had attained tenure decades before I became superintendent. (Under California’s now-unconstitutional tenure law, teachers achieve tenure even more quickly: 18 months or less.) Annual performance evaluations are supposed to ensure ongoing quality among tenured teachers, but all too often the system fails. In New York 99% of teachers receive “effective” ratings while fewer than 40% of high-schoolers graduate college-ready. Union and management officials admit in private that the results of teacher evaluations have little to do with reality.
“Even worse, teachers engaging in egregious conduct, like showing up late 40 times in a single year, physically assaulting a child, or falsifying records (actual examples), incurred no consequences—unless we spent over $100,000 and up to two years to revoke their tenure. Even then, a slow and broken arbitration system could order the teacher back into the classroom due to technicalities.
“More shocking, if a teacher is merely incompetent and delivering mediocre lessons, the process is twice as long and costly, even though, as evidence in Vergara v. California established, the damage to students is equally as devastating.
“Statutes forcing us to retain tenured educators regardless of quality also prevented us from adapting staffing to meet evolving student needs. For example, if we wanted to hire a new, highly motivated person with alternative-high-school experience to teach computer code, the job security of the tenured “teacher of plumbing” or “elevator operator” prevented us—even if the unneeded teacher was mediocre or worse.
“As a huge believer in unions, due process and collective bargaining, I agonized seeing union staff zealously defend a tenure system that essentially traded students’ futures for jobs at all costs. Quality-blind tenure systems for teachers have a devastating impact on students and on the teachers who want most to make a difference.
“The incredible work of some dedicated educators was overshadowed by far too many who lamented that our students were unreachable and regularly told me students were best served with low-level work sheets and mindless busy work. When I arrived at District 79 in 2006, it was the exception, rather than the rule, to observe a teacher conducting lessons that actively engaged students.
“Meanwhile, our district employed nearly a dozen “principals” and “vice principals” who did not serve in any formal leadership capacity. Lawyers had negotiated settlements to place them “off the radar” rather than attempt to navigate the byzantine tenure-revocation process. Caring teachers were often discouraged and driven to become less effective or leave the district. People were quick to tell me there was nothing I could do about it because of labor laws and practices—and that asking questions made you a target.
“Despite the painful effects of a broken tenure system on our district, over five years, we made tremendous strides through better mental-health services, smarter curricula to close academic gaps, and individualized plans for students coming out of incarceration. Courageous staff and union leaders bucked the status quo and put the interests of students over the interests of adults. Unfortunately, the unnecessary obstacles we had to tackle to attain these results demoralized many dedicated educators, confronted daily by the overall lack of quality personnel.
“Over and over, I saw the issue at the heart of the Vergara case play out in my district—the worst educators serving children in the toughest circumstances, in part because these students and their families had limited ways to fight back. Why should doing the right thing require nine brave students to sue the state, as we’ve seen in California, or “rule-breaking” educators and union leaders, like I knew in District 79, to defend students’ rights to quality instruction? Shouldn’t public policy that puts students first be the status quo?”
What she doesn’t mention in her article is that the Vergara trial did not show any damage to the plaintiffs. One of the accused teachers was Pasadena’s “teacher of the year.” Two of the student plaintiffs were enrolled in charter schools, where none of their teachers had tenure. Some of the other teachers did not have tenure.
Jan Resseger, a social justice advocate in Cleveland, warns us to beware John Kasich’s calm and mild-mannered approach. He presents himself as the responsible, sensible candidate, not a dyed-in-the-wool conservative like Trump and Cruz. Although Resseger doesn’t mention it, Kasich tried to eliminate collective bargaining, but the law passed by the legislature was repealed by a referendum. Kasich is a strong proponent of privatization, including charters, vouchers, and cyber charters.
Resseger writes:
“You do have to give Kasich credit for one thing. He has been honest about his priorities: he is a tax slasher and a charter school supporter. He is also delusional about his accomplishments as Ohio’s governor since 2010. He claims the state has turned around economically. If there has been a turnaround, it hasn’t yet come to Ohio’s Rust Belt cities. He continues to claim he has turned around the Cleveland schools, but that isn’t true either. To his credit, he did, against the wishes of those in his own party, expand Medicaid.
“He has also slashed the income tax, eliminated the estate tax, and eliminated a reimbursement the state had created for local governments and school districts when a previous administration summarily eliminated a local tax on inventories and equipment. The Plain Dealer reminded us last Friday that local governments have been busy trying to pass local taxes to make up for enormous losses of state revenue because of Kasich’s “sharp reductions in the state’s Local Government Fund, which was created during the Depression when the sales tax was enacted to share money with the cities and villages.” Under Kasich, according to Friday’s Plain Dealer, state funding in Cleveland this year is down by $21 million, in Columbus by $27 million, and in Cincinnati by $28 million, and the big cities are not the only losers. The inner ring suburb where I live is down over $2 million this year. School districts across the state are struggling to pass levies at the same time they are increasing class size and charging students large fees to play sports.
“In a stunning piece published yesterday by Politico, Kimberly Hefling summarizes Kasich’s troubling record of flawed oversight of Ohio’s charter school sector, despite that Kasich has made charter school regulation “a priority.” She quotes Kasich in 2014 claiming: “We are going to fix the lack of regulation on charter schools. There is no excuse for people coming in here and taking advantage of anything.” That was the claim. And to give the governor credit, Kasich signed a law at the end of 2015 that, Hefling explains, “improves the state’s ability to revoke the rights of the poorly rated charter school sponsors and makes it more difficult for schools to switch sponsors.” (It has been a practice in Ohio that if an authorizer tries to shut down a charter school for academic or financial reasons, the school could merely “hop” to a new sponsor.)
“Here, however, are some realities described by Hefling, that demonstrate the seriousness of Ohio’s problem with charter schools and that undermine Kasich’s claim that he has led the way to better regulation: “Ohio ranks among the top five states in the number of charter schools. It has more than 370 charters that enroll 132,000 students… but the sector has been plagued with problems including mid-year school closures, allegations of financial improprieties and charter schools ‘sponsor shopping’ to avoid scrutiny. Ohio has more than 60 charter school sponsors, or authorizers, that open and oversee the schools… A 2014 study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes paid for by the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute found students in the state’s charter schools perform worse on average in reading and math than their peers in traditional public schools.
“And then there are the notorious online charters. “A big player among Ohio online charters is the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, which enrolled 14,000 students last year and was founded by longtime GOP booster William Lager. Another longtime Ohio charter school backer is David Brennan, founder of White Hat Management, who has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Kasich over the years. Innovation Ohio has estimated that since charter schools first opened in Ohio in the late ’90s, $1.8 billion of the $7.3 billion the state has spent on the sector has gone to schools run by Lager and Brennan—or $1 out of every $4 spent. Then, there’s the 11,000-student Ohio Virtual Academy, run by K12 Inc., that donated $100,000 in 2014 to the Republican Governors Association.”
“Finally, Hefling reports, there was the scandal that began last summer when David Hansen, then head of the charter schools office at the Ohio Department of Education, submitted a federal charter school expansion grant application that painted a rosy picture of the performance of Ohio’s charter schools and mysteriously omitted the horrible ratings of Ohio’s online charter schools. This whole mess is very much connected to Kasich, because Hansen’s wife was then the governor’s chief of staff and is now the head of Kasich’s presidential campaign. When the U.S. Department of Education responded by awarding what is a $71 million grant to expand charters—and to take over and charterize the Youngstown City Schools—a firestorm broke out. David Hansen was fired for his flawed rating system, and the federal government has demanded documentation that charter school regulation is being improved. As Hefling reports, “(T)he state took the embarrassing step in January of updating its application figures to say that instead of having nine charters schools that are poor performing, 57 are in that condition.” But even in the updated federal application, Ohio’s amended figures rate only brick and mortar schools and omit the politically connected virtual academies….
“Hefling summarizes her concerns about Kasich and the charter schools he loves: “Ohio Gov. John Kasich is an avid proponent of school choice, but his home state’s notoriously problematic charter school sector is often held up as an example of what can go wrong.”
Resseger includes links to all her statements. Open the post to see them.
