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.
Just received from AFT press office:
|
AFT Statement in Support of Chicago Teachers Union |
| WASHINGTON—Statement of AFT President Randi Weingarten in support of the Chicago Teachers Union.
“Yesterday, on a call with her fellow AFT executive council members, including the union’s three national officers, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis reported on the status of the CTU’s ongoing negotiations with Chicago Public Schools, the CTU’s hope for a settlement, and its preparations for a strike if a settlement is not reached. “Chicago’s teachers want what is best for their students and for Chicago’s public schools. And they want to work in an environment that respects their work and their role as partners with administrators in ensuring that every Chicago child has a chance to succeed. The AFT and its members stand with the CTU. “Chicago teachers have already agreed to a longer school day—and offered ideas to make it not just a longer day but a better day by investing in art, music and other subjects that expand and enrich our children’s minds. And they’ve galvanized parents and community to support these ideas. “No one takes a strike lightly. CTU members feel that a clear message has been sent by the school district that they and their work are not valued. This message is demonstrated not simply by the school board’s denial of agreed-upon pay raises, but also by Chicago Public Schools’ exclusion of the CTU from conversations it had with outside groups about potential school closings. “CTU President Lewis and CTU members are committed to working around the clock to reach a fair, substantive agreement that keeps them where they want to be: on the job, in the classrooms, educating Chicago’s students. That will remain their goal if a strike is not averted.”
|
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
Deborah Meier comments on a post about efforts in Philadelphia to weaken or eliminate collective bargaining:
INTERESTINGLY, ALMOST NO ONE FEELS OBLIGED to defend their strategies, etc in terms of its impact on a democratic society! IF, just suppose, it raised test scores we seem prepared to dump democratic norms on the behalf of test scores. The grand old USA is–might we mention–an experiment in democracy! (It was not primarily founded on the principles of the market place–that was true, after all, of the decadent European nations we were breaking away from as well.)
This teacher read about the push in Philadelphia to weaken, perhaps eliminate collective bargaining. The School Reform Commission with the guidance of its advisor the Boston Consulting Group (big proponent of privatization without unions and parent to Bain) thinks that if it can create a flexible workforce with performance pay and no job protections, this will attract better teachers. This reader responds:
Oh boy, low pay and no protection of any kind, whatsoever. Sign me up. What is the thought process behind “better teachers without a union”? Do they truly believe those Gates funded teacher groups that claim they don’t need a union or a contract?
The School Reform Commission in Philadelphia got some recommendations from the Boston Consulting Group that would essentially wipe out collective bargaining. BCG wants principals to be able to hire and fire at will; they want teachers to have no job security. Given its druthers, according to this account in The Notebook, the business-dominated School Reform Commission would like to get rid of all job protections and simply impose a contract. The SRC and BCG think that they can attract better teachers to Philadelphia if they break the union. Like other corporate reforms, they have zero evidence for their hope.
Just another sad chapter in the ongoing effort by corporate-style reformers to get rid of collective bargaining for teachers. Very likely the BCG proposed the vast expansion of charters as another way to bypass unionized teachers.
On Labor Day, Karen Lewis addressed 20,000 teachers about their struggle with Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Do you know how hard it is to get 20,000 people to turn out for anything?
When Karen Lewis met with Rahm Emanuel after his election, he told her that 25% of the children in Chicago would never amount to anything. She was outraged.
Karen Lewis is a plain-spoken yet articulate leader of the teachers. She was elected because teachers were sick of the compromises and wanted someone who would speak up for them and for the children they teach. She has done that.
Rahm sends his own children to the University of Chicago Lab School, which is his right as a parent. But he doesn’t think that the children in the public schools deserve equal opportunities to the education he requires for his children.
The public schools may not be the Lab School, but shouldn’t he be rallying the business community to make every school in Chicago a great school with a great curriculum, reasonable class size, and excellent facilities? Instead, the board he appointed recently voted to close more public schools and hand them over to private management.
The fight between CTU and Rahm Emanuel is not helpful to President Obama.
The mayor should sit down with Karen Lewis and figure out how to resolve this impasse so he doesn’t have a strike on his hands. And he should figure out how to put himself on the side of public education and the children in the public schools.
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.)
Many readers have been critical of their unions and wish they were more militant in fighting the corporate suits. This reader disagrees and explains why:
| I’m going to go out on a limb here because the comments I am about to post are probably not going to be very popular with anyone who has commented in this discussion.So many people want their state and national teachers unions to launch a campaign of all-out protest toward the corporate reform movement.If anyone here has not yet noticed, there is a great deal of public dissatisfaction with the mere idea of public unions, let alone their actions. It would be political suicide for unions at any level to come out with “horses on fire and guns a-blazing” against these public perceptions. I have found that unions will seek to publicly take the high road in working towards better ways to improve the system.
There are times to get aggressive, but for all the “right-is-on-our-side” mentality among union members, there are plenty of people with the mentality that any aggressive union action (whether in word or deed) is negative. This negative public perception was demonstrated in Wisconsin, and it can and does continually appear in just about every other state in this country. Too many people in the public do not understand the value of unions nor know the history behind the formation and support of unions throughout the last century. Many union members themselves do not even have a background in this. This is not a time for unions to take a defensive position–there are ways to approach these issues without giving the anti-union camp more fodder to spread their “unions are bad” message. There are many facets to the politics of the cause that can work for or against the public perception of the unions. Whether you as a purist believe that the public perception is not important is irrelevant—it is of great importance if one wishes to garner support for public education. There truly are no advocates for teachers and public education with any kind of position of effectiveness outside of the public teachers unions. Therefore, one must tread lightly when publicly criticizing the unions. That is not to say that members should feel as if they cannot have any critical opinions—these opinions must be voiced to the union leadership, but it is never a good idea to publicly criticize your own union as a member. It only weakens everybody’s position including that of the members themselves. Unions invariably seek to effect positive influence on policies that affect public education. One of the most effective avenues of influencing positive public education policies is through conversations with legislators in the public forum. Union members should maintain a presence in their state legislature’s public sessions–the policy-makers need to hear from the unions especially before enacting some of the horrific proposals by some factions of the political arena. Another way to be an effective force in public education is to continually work within a public advocacy program to show the public that unions not only work to continually improve schools, they continually work to improve communities. I ask those who are critical of the national unions: How many of you have taken the time to attend your state legislature sessions to speak up about the policies in the public forum? I’m sure there are some here and there, but it has been my experience that most union members who complain about the union have never done this very thing. Have you at least made a phone call or sent an email to your legislators? If you have not joined in the conversation and simply left that to your representation, then it might be safe to say that you are not part of the solution. It’s so easy to be critical of your union representation when you have not gotten involved. Once you see what is required of union representation on many levels, you can take a more informed position of criticism toward what union leadership actually does. For those who have had bad experiences and felt your local representation did very little to help you, know that you should never be left without recourse. Just like in any other area, there are varying levels of effectiveness among local associations. This is why there are country and state affiliations, just like in the court system. Take it to a higher level if you are not satisfied with the local level. Your personal situations are understandably important to you, but it is not fair to characterize every local in every state across the country as the same, just as it is not fair to characterize every teacher, student, school, district, etc. in the same way. We have used this “avoid generalizations” argument time and again in discussions on this blog. I caution anyone who is using one example as evidence of how all locals operate to be a little more responsible. In my state, engaging in conversations with the public policy-makers is just what one of the state unions does. This practice has effectively prevented many bad policy ideas from becoming law despite what some perceptions of the actions of union leadership might be. I applaud the leaders and members of our state union for having not only the courage to continually speak up, but also for working WITH the legislature to ensure that public demands for improvement are answered without demeaning of devaluing the professionals who work in the school system. We do not operate in a public vacuum–we do need to be quite aware of the needs and perceptions of our constituency. We also need to be aware of how damaging perceptions without evidence can be. It’s amazing that so many union members themselves believe in the existence of “back-door” deals about which so many conspiracy theorists and anti-union pundits are always going on. When did the membership start believing this hype? Where is your evidence that union leaders are conspiring with the “reformers?” This link posted above by another reader (touting how national unions are “in bed” with the Gates Foundation) caught my attention: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/education/22gates.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all You have to read a great deal before you even get to the excerpt that speaks to this claim, but here it is: An article on the Gates foundation with an excerpt stating that the foundation gave money to union membership three years ago is not evidence of anything–it is supposition based on a concept that every donation has an agenda. Does the reader have any evidence of how that donation was appropriated? I also wonder where that money went. Let’s find out before we use this as “evidence” that the unions are “sleeping with the enemy.” It is never a good idea to try to sway public opinion by openly declaring war on what many of the uninformed have convinced themselves to be “good” policies (i.e., “corporate reform”). The political stronghold on the public message belongs to those with the power and influence to control these messages, and in case no one has noticed, it isn’t the teachers unions. A great deal of the public does not support the public unions because people have been fed a constant diet of anti-union rhetoric by the powerful voices in politics. I have found even among my teaching colleagues, that just being affiliated with a teachers union turns people off from listening to you. Do you seriously think that you can change the message as a union without flack from the usual anti-union camp that is so powerful in the media and in politics? You need a strategy of positive influence and cooperation, not a defensive posture. One needs to heed the lessons of good public relations as a union member. Start by supporting your own unions–ask questions, yes, but never, NEVER put your union down publicly because you’re so angry. Work from within the system that advocates for you, whether you want to believe it actually does or not. And for those who do not believe that the unions advocate for you, try doing your job without the unions. While I’m sure there would be isolated instances of “great non-union experiences,” the majority of us would be mistreated in our jobs just by the very nature of human nature and the public’s perception of “public service.” |
