Chi Teacher Rally and LA Times Pro Chi Union Editorial

	SOLIDARITY!
Please forward widely! Click here to download a printable flyer. Thousands will converge for education justice to… Stand Strong with Chicago Teachers Saturday 12:00 noon September 15 Union Park Lake & Ashland in Chicago Click here to RSVP The 30,000 teachers, school social workers, clerks, vision and hearing testers, school nurses, teaching assistants, counselors, and other school professionals of the Chicago Teachers Union are standing strong to defend public education from test pushers, privatizers, and a national onslaught of big money interest groups trying to push education back to the days before teachers had unions. Around the country and even the world, our fight is recognized as the front line of resistance to the corporate education agenda. Educators and our supporters have pledged to travel to Chicago in solidarity to rally. Click here to say you'll be there! NOTE: The union is not on strike over matters governed exclusively by IELRA Section 4.5 and 12(b). Vital Information Click the box to read more. Solidarity from Around the Country & World CPS commits Unfair Labor Practices Out-of-town Billionaires Attack CTU [VIDEO]
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Chicago, ground zero on teachers and test scores

Striking Chicago teachers are unhappy about several issues. (Sitthixay Ditthavong / Associated Press / September 12, 2012)

By Karin Klein

September 13, 2012, 5:30 a.m.

The Times' editorial board has supported making student test scores part of a teacher's performance evaluation -- within reason. But the Chicago teachers strike shows at least one reason why teachers unions have opposed such policies so vociferously.

Part of what we ask of teachers is that they keep bringing those test scores higher; as a result, it's reasonable for their evaluations to include how well they've done that part of the job. But when the scores are closely linked to the pay raises teachers get -- or whether they even have a job -- school administrators are in untested waters, and I'm not sure they remembered to bring a life jacket with them.

Of course a teacher's evaluation should have some kind of impact, including, in the cases of the most problematic teachers, that they could lose their jobs. Some teachers should lose their jobs, and parents don't need test scores to know exactly who those teachers are. Unions have stood up for teachers whom they knew had no place in a classroom, and now they're beginning to reap the payback.

But how many teachers are we talking about? With all of the Obama administration's talk about teachers being the most important in-school factor in a child's success, does anyone know how many "bad" teachers we'd have to get rid of to achieve that success? Or just how high the test scores should rise for the others to get a raise?

Let's face it: The state standardized tests were never designed to measure an individual teacher's performance, much less decide his or her pay. The tests have some value in that regard. When one teacher's students show solid or even spectacular growth during most years, that's probably a really good teacher. When another teacher's students don't just get bad scores but actually slide back year after year, that can't be allowed to continue. And this should only be measured over a course of years; the change in test scores in a single year can be attributed to all kinds of factors.

Most teachers don't belong in either the top or bottom category. They're somewhere in between, and that's where the tests are far less effective at showing differences.

At the same time, Chicago school officials want principals to be able to hire whatever teacher they choose when they have openings rather than picking from a pool of laid-off teachers. But in that case, isn't this a double whammy? Say a teacher is great at raising test scores but a principal doesn't want to hire this teacher because she's more experienced and thus more expensive. If the test scores are so important, why shouldn't they matter when it comes to rehiring teachers?

There could well be less than pure motives on both sides, which makes it hard to judge who's right or wrong in the Chicago contract dispute. The teachers union wants things done the way they've always been done: Nothing matters but seniority when it comes to hiring, layoffs and pay. That provides little incentive for veteran teachers to try hard, though many of them do anyway. Meanwhile, the administration can talk about this being all for children, but there's a vested interest in hiring younger, less experienced and thus much less expensive teachers. That might be good for school budgets, but it's not good for the future of the teaching profession or the long-term future of schools. If teachers have no job protection over time, if in fact their very experience counts against them, the job becomes just that -- more a job, less a career. That's not how we attract bright young people to the profession. Layoffs don't necessarily happen because a teacher is bad, and yet those teachers could be permanently out of jobs while principals bring in new people. How much loyalty can teachers have to a system like that?
There's room for some consideration of test scores in evaluations. It also should be easier to fire bad teachers, and principals should not have to hire an unsuitable teacher simply because that's the person in the layoff pool who has the next-highest seniority. But how far should schools scale back on job security before they're not just hurting individual teachers but themselves?
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, along with President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, have been pushing for a system that goes much further. But there's not a lot of research that says the key to better-educated students lies in holding teachers accountable for numbers that were never designed to judge their performance. A path has been chosen, but the reasons for treading that path so firmly are not as well understood as they should be.

Ravitch on Chicago in NYR

What is Rahm saying to this child? Probably: "If you don't score high and make me look good I'll knock your fuck'n head off.

Two Visions for Chicago’s Schools

Diane Ravitch

M. Spencer Green/AP Images

Rahm Emanuel at a temporary day care during the Chicago teachers strike, September 10, 2012

According to most news reports, the teachers in Chicago are striking because they are lazy and greedy. Or they are striking because of a personality clash between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and union president Karen Lewis. Or because this is the last gasp of a dying union movement. Or because Emanuel wants a longer school day, and the teachers oppose it.
None of this is true. All reports agree that the two sides are close to agreement on compensation issues—it is not money that drove them apart.

MORE

Parents and Other Unions Support Chicago Teachers

The people running the Chicago union today were at the top level of their profession as teachers when they were elected 2 years ago. I got to know many of them when they were still in the classroom and much of their conversation was about the kids. They were as much driven by what ed deform was doing to their kids as what it was doing to teachers.....Even if they end up settling for relatively few gains on the surface, they have won already in the minds of teachers all over the nation.  – Ed Notes

 buoyed by energetic rallies in which even parents inconvenienced by the strike waved placards in support. Other unions were joining in, with school custodian representatives saying their members will walk off the job this week as well. -- NY Post

"This union figured out they couldn't assume the public would be on their side, so they went out and actively engaged in getting parent support," Bruno said. "They worked like the devil to get it." --Robert Bruno

 To get this level of support amongst the members, a union leadership has to engage the membership who will then engage the parents. To do that requires breaking the level of cynicism that exists amongst the rank and file towards the leadership. And there was plenty of that in Chicago before CORE took over in 2010, only two years after their founding. To inspire trust in the leadership the rank and file has to sense that the leadership is on their side. Maybe some view it as symbolic, but the large cuts in salary Karen Lewis and the others took made an impact. And helped balance the budget of a union in debt when they took over. They used money saved to hire organizers to prepare the teachers for whatever come. I know some of these organizers and still much of their talk is about the kids.

A leadership also has to be democratic both at the union level and within the caucus that runs the union. Don't discount the fact that CORE has to run for re-election this May and at last count there were 4 other caucuses. As far as I can tell, the leadership has mobilized the entire union in this strike and in the outreach to the community.

To win friends, the union has engaged in something of a publicity campaign, telling parents repeatedly about problems with schools and the barriers that have made it more difficult to serve their kids. They cite classrooms that are stifling hot without air conditioning, important books that are unavailable and insufficient supplies of the basics, such as toilet paper.
"They've been keeping me informed about that for months and months," Grant said.
It was a shrewd tactic, said Robert Bruno, professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
"This union figured out they couldn't assume the public would be on their side, so they went out and actively engaged in getting parent support," Bruno said. "They worked like the devil to get it.

In a short time, an upstart group of relatively young teachers convinced 92% of browbeaten teachers under 17 years of mayoral control, that a strike, even in Leo Casey's vaunted you have to consider "the climate of the times," was not only feasible, but offered an opportunity to reverse the direction of ed deform and turn it into real reform.

Will they succeed? It depends how you define success. There are many dangers in what they are doing and sometimes in the midst of an action like this, logical political direction can get buried. But a national debate has been opened up that was not taking place before. Not only about the policies of ed deform but about the direction the national and many local teacher unions have been taking (Anthony Cody vs. Randi Weingarten on NPR). Even if they end up settling for relatively few gains on the surface, they have won already in the minds of teachers all over the nation.

I hear here all the time from cynical older teachers how the young teachers have no union tradition or interest in the union. Maybe here in New York (and I'll let you guess why). Have you seen how young so many of the Chicago teachers are? How did they get to this level of consciousness and knowledge -- every Chicago CORE member I met is incredibly astute. At the chapter leader meeting yesterday I had conversations with people in Unity Caucus who barely had an idea of what was going on in Chicago. And don't forget how Unity opposed every progressive resolution on testing, charter schools and closing schools coming out of Chicago at the AFT convention.

The people running the Chicago union today were at the top level of their profession as teachers when they were elected 2 years ago. I got to know many of them when they were still in the classroom and much of their conversation was about the kids. They were as much driven by what ed deform was doing to their kids as what it was doing to teachers.

And parents and community seem to sense that.

As the teachers walk the picket lines, they have been joined by parents who are scrambling to find a place for children to pass the time or for baby sitters. Mothers and fathers - some with their kids in tow - are marching with the teachers. Other parents are honking their encouragement from cars or planting yard signs that announce their support in English and Spanish.
Unions are still hallowed organizations in much of Chicago, and the teachers union holds a special place of honor in many households where children often grow up to join the same police, firefighter or trade unions as their parents and grandparents. -- NY Post

So how did the CTU in a time of much vilified teacher unions manage to get public support?

To win friends, the union has engaged in something of a publicity campaign, telling parents repeatedly about problems with schools and the barriers that have made it more difficult to serve their kids. They cite classrooms that are stifling hot without air conditioning, important books that are unavailable and insufficient supplies of the basics, such as toilet paper.
"They've been keeping me informed about that for months and months," Grant said.
It was a shrewd tactic, said Robert Bruno, professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
"This union figured out they couldn't assume the public would be on their side, so they went out and actively engaged in getting parent support," Bruno said. "They worked like the devil to get it.

To those that disparage this fact, I don't see Stand For Children (last) out there being able to mobilize parents to march against the teachers. I heard their leader debating Diane Ravitch on NPR yesterday and he claimed to be grass roots. He must be smoking that grass.


Update: SCHOOL JANITORS FILE NOTICE TO JOIN STRIKE

Mark Naison: Can Michelle Rhee lead 50,000 people through the streets of Chicago? Bill Gates? Arne Duncan? Jonah Edelman? Hell no! But Karen Lewis can! And that's the message that needs to go out to teachers around the country! They are not condemned to be passive victims of Corporate Ed Reformers! United, they have the power to fight back and defend their students from policies that will deaden their minds, weaken their bodies and make them hate school!

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Educators Respond to "Won't Back Down" Movie

If you are writing about “Won’t Back Down,” you should contact us.

Quite simply, Walden Films and 20th Century Fox cannot back up what is in “Won’t Back Down,” the new film directed by Daniel Barnz and starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis and Holly Hunter. 

The National Education Policy Center, based at the University of Colorado, has looked into the issue of “parent triggers” and other school choice options depicted in the movie scheduled for release on September 28.

We have joined with education experts from UCLA, U.C. Berkeley, the University of Illinois and the City University of New York to study this movie and separate what is real from what is fiction.

More than entertainment, this film is being used as a vehicle to promote “parent triggers” and “teacher triggers,” bash teachers and their union and trash traditional schools.

“Won’t Back Down” starts with the words “Based on actual events.”  However, very little in this film actually happened -- anywhere.

Please contact us if you are interested in receiving our reports related to this movie by e-mail or if you would like to interview one of the faculty members who researched this topic.

Call or e-mail Jamie Horwitz at 202/549-4921, jhdcpr@starpower.net or Amy Shenker at 301/412-2616, askpr2011@gmail.com.

Anthony Cody vs. Randi Weingarten on NPR

Exploring the fault lines within the union between the national leadership of the AFT and NEA which claims to be leading education reform as opposed to the Chicago teachers and many rank and filers who are ready to take a stand, this NPR Morning Edition report is a must listen.

The Chicago strike has opened up so many long-buried issues that are reaching the national media. While right wingers and many Democrats have attacked teachers unions for not going along with reform, the silent majority of union members have criticized the union leaders from the other end for going along with too many reforms. Finally, our side, led by the Chicago CORE group that leads the union, are getting a hearing.

Note how the conversation has shifted. Times. In today's Wall St. Journal piece I posted earlier, there are quite a few important points made.

Ms. Weingarten, while showing solidarity with Ms. Lewis on Tuesday, has embodied a more collaborative approach to national school reform. She has supported teacher contracts—including one in Cleveland—that effectively weakened tenure rules and linked teacher evaluations to test scores.
The Chicago teachers' previous contract, negotiated by Ms. Lewis's predecessor, gave teachers a total wage increase of 19% to 46% over the contract period from 2007 to 2012, according to a fact finders report issued in July. Chicago's average teacher salary is now $71,000 a year, according to the city.
But some teachers were angry because they felt the union didn't do enough to prevent the closure of dozens of poorly performing schools and increase the number of charter schools, which generally hire nonunion teachers.

Ms. Lewis "has thrown down a national gauntlet, of sorts, and said mayors and other reformers won't define teaching—teachers will define it," said Barbara Radner, director of the Center for Urban Education at DePaul University. "This is about the soul of teaching and who is going to define it going forward."

Ms. Lewis, the daughter of teachers, had been little involved in the union over two decades of teaching. In 2008, she joined the fledgling Caucus of Rank and File Educators.  --- Wall St. Journal

How amazing that Karen Lewis, barely involved in the union until 4 years ago, emerges as a national leader. It shows you how many potential leaders we have sitting in classrooms. I can attest to that from my own experience in meeting the always amazing Julie Cavanagh, who will be bringing 10 week old Jack to his first UFT Chapter Leader meeting today, only a little over 3 years ago when she became active, not as much in the union at that time, but in the charter school invasion struggles. I remember bringing up the union the first time I met her at a meeting at her house and she disagreed with me. I knew that was the start of a beautiful friendship. Over the next 6 months it didn't take long for her to start making all the connections. I believe there are many Karens and Julies sitting out there ready to go. What a difference from the old tired union bureaucrats. These are real teachers and Karen's amazing leadership emerges from the fact she thinks like a teacher.

More news: Pay of Chicago teachers and selected others:

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-pay-of-chicago-school-teachers-and-selected-others?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+beat_the_press+%28Beat+the+Press%29

A reminder to me for later before I head off to the city, I need to touch on the strike issue of supporting the Chicago equivalent of ATRs except these people were laid off when their schools closed. The CTU is taking a stand for them -- that they be hired first before newbies. Is Rahm holding out to make sure TFA gets its dibs? Really, is the TFA support mechanism a backdrop of this strike.

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Tributes to Chicago Teachers Pour In

The strike also provides a powerful antidote to the propaganda
campaign for the new Hollywood teacher bashing movie "Won't Back Down". The sea of red shirts marching through Chicago, and the teachers around the country wearing red in solidarity, show that teachers may not be as easy a target as the movie's backers anticipated. The Chicago Teachers Union has flipped the script on Michelle Rhee, Democrats for Education reform and other backers of school privatization and showed how a teachers union can be a militant advocate for the right of students to have a school experience which includes music, art, sports and class sizes small enough to receive individual attention. ---Mark Naison

God Bless Karen Lewis  and the entire Chicago Teachers Union for having
the guts to stand up to this corporate onslaught against our public schools. Their fight is our fight.  It is time to ask yourself : "Where do I stand"? ---Brian De Vale

Mark and Brian keep the ball rolling as Chicago Teachers Union and Karen Lewis gain nationwide and local support for their stand against the corporate invaders.

Brian De Vale letter to the editor:

The strike in Chicago is the long overdue stand off between those who got into education for a career in teaching vs. the corporate profiteers who

have labor and the working men and women they represent on the run. 

Make no mistake, these are rich powerful people who run the publishing, media, corporate education and the Wall St./Hedge Fund world. They are tough, cut throat and have deep pockets (Gates, Bloomberg, Walton Family, Koch Brothers, Democrats for Education Reform, Rupert Murdoch. Mort Zuckerman etc..)  They are the melding  of the neo liberal and neo con agendas. Neither of those groups like teachers and they despise public sector pensions as it bites into their wallets. They have bought off many of our traditional allies in the Democrat party and have effectively triangulated the unions that represented public school educators.

Everyone has to take a stand, regardless of  where any other union, their officials, educator or parent falls on this. I am with Karen Lewis. That is a woman who deserves to be Woman of the Year.  To stand up to Rahm Emanuel, Arne Duncan, their boss Obama's misguided education policies and  the entire "Reform" Movement takes guts!

These are not just run-of the-mill politicians, but well trained mercenaries for the corporate privatization movement.

God Bless Karen Lewis  and the entire Chicago Teachers Union for having
the guts to stand up to this corporate onslaught against our public schools. Their fight is our fight.  It is time to ask yourself : "Where do I stand"?

Brian De Vale
CSA Chairman
Community School District # 14

Mark Naison
Chicago's Teachers "Won't Back Down" and Inspire Teachers Throughout the Nation

http://withabrooklynaccent.blogspot.com/2012/09/chicagos-teachers-wont-back-down-and.html 

Whatever the outcome, the Chicago Teachers strike shows that cross
section of the nation's teachers are fed up with being made the
whipping boy for the nation's failure to reduce racial and economic
inequality and provide equal educational opportunity for its citizens.
You do not mobilize tens of thousands of people to put their jobs at
risk and take to the picket line without a powerful undercurrent of
frustration and rage with the way they have been treated. The strike
won't stop Education Reformers- who have the support of the nation's
biggest corporations- from cementing their stranglehold on education
policy on the local and national level, and from consolidating their
influence in both major parties. But it pulls aside the facade of
support and compliance with the Obama Administration's education
policies that the Democratic National Convention hoped to project and
revealed how wildly unpopular Race to the Top is with many of America's
teachers, and a small, politically savvy group of public school
parents. 

The strike also provides a powerful antidote to the propaganda
campaign for the new Hollywood teacher bashing movie "Won't Back Down" which hits American theaters at the end of the month. The sea of red
shirts marching through Chicago, and the teachers around the country
wearing red in solidarity, show that teachers may not be as easy a
target as the movie's backers anticipated. The Chicago Teachers Union
has flipped the script on Michelle Rhee, Democrats for Education reform
and other backers of school privatization and showed how a teachers
union can be a militant advocate for the right of students to have a
school experience which includes music, art, sports and class sizes
small enough to receive individual attention. There is no guarantee
that the strike will achieve its major goals, but it has already
succeeded in giving America's teachers a huge emotional lift and in
forcing the media to recognize that teachers voices cannot be
marginalized and suppressed without significant consequences


Mark D Naison
Professor of African American Studies and History
Principal Investigator
Bronx African American History Project
640 Dealy Hall
Fordham University
Bronx, NY 10458

 Newark Teachers:

ALL OUT THIS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13!

Parents and community members at 13th Avenue/Dr. MLK Renew School have organized a rally to say NO to school closings! 

Come together to support them and public education.  

At the same time, send a message that we support the Chicago Teachers Union Strike!

Schools are being closed in Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, Newark, and many other cities.  Teachers are being laid off, forced to work harder for less pay, evaluated with illegitimate observation tools, and blamed publicly for all social ills.  The Chicago Teachers Union is on the front lines of these battles.   It's time to unite with the Newark community and show solidarity with our brothers and  sisters in Chicago.  

                                                                         

                                                                Where: 13th Avenue/Dr. MLK Renew School (359 13th Ave.), Newark, 07103

                                                                When: 4:00 pm                                                                         

                                                                What: Bring signs!  "NO to School Closings, NO to School Privatization,"

                                                                                             "We Support Chicago Teachers,"                                                                                                      

                                                                                             "Parents, Students, Teachers Unite, Same Struggle, Same Fight!" 

ALSO:

                                   The NEW Caucus has written a letter to the Chicago Teachers Union, and are taking up a collection.  (letter is attached)

    Next week, the NEW Caucus will mail this letter and donation to the CTU.  See a NEW Caucus member to donate to the CTU solidarity fund.  

In Solidarity,

Newark Education Workers Caucus

WSJ and NYT On Karen Lewis

Ms. Lewis "has thrown down a national gauntlet, of sorts, and said mayors and other reformers won't define teaching—teachers will define it," said Barbara Radner, director of the Center for Urban Education at DePaul University. "This is about the soul of teaching and who is going to define it going forward." -- WSJ

This is a good report from the WSJ and does a better job than the NY Times. The national press is getting the message that this is no typical teacher strike and is as much over ideology and the soul of teaching as anything else. They are also getting the message that the public supports them. You don't see any of the astroturf groups out there protesting the teachers. That is due to the amazing work in the community the union has done.

One thing the press isn't reporting is Karen Lewis' salary. When she took over the new union leadership cut salaries severely and at one point Karen was making less than the old guard field reps. They managed to close an almost $4 million deficit left by the old Unity style corrupt UPC. Basically, Karen earns a teacher salary plus the equivalent of per session pay to cover all the extra time she puts in. It's less I bet than a 100 people in the UFT.

Many of us here in NYC are very familiar with the people running CORE.

See NY Times on Karen: Teachers’ Leader in Chicago Strike Shows Her Edge


The press loves to emphasize the leader and ignore that there is a real force behind Lewis and in fact she is the person out front. That is not an easy place to be but she was chosen because she can handle it. There are so many other strong voices in CORE. And she is responsible to them. CORE is so different from Unity and has given those of us working in MORE a model to work from. If you watch the Al Ramirez (one of the 2 originals in the group that became CORE) you will see the leadership and organizing abilities they bring to the table.

MORE Chicago Solidarity Event - Aug 23 2012

I have a great Ed Notes exclusive video of Karen appearing as a speaker at the AFT Peace and Justice caucus in Detroit which I will put up. You get Karen unfiltered through the press. (I also taped Karen in Seattle in 2010 just a few days after CORE took over the union - if I can find that I can put up an edited piece).

In Chicago, Standoff Built Over Two Years

By STEPHANIE BANCHERO

CHICAGO—A teachers strike that shut down the nation's third-largest school district for a second day Tuesday had its roots in the election two years ago of union head Karen Lewis, who harnessed growing teacher anger over school reform efforts here that were targeting teachers' performance and closing poor-performing schools.
With rank-and-file support to launch Chicago's first teacher strike in 25 years, Ms. Lewis, a high school chemistry teacher, has positioned herself as a champion of resistance to the national education-reform movement, making Chicago a central battleground over control of U.S. public schools.
Enlarge Image

Zuma Press

Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis, in Chicago on Tuesday, harnessed growing teacher anger over school reform efforts in the city.
Thousands of teachers picketed Tuesday, staging boisterous rallies at the Chicago Public School headquarters and calling for Mayor Rahm Emanuel's ouster. City leaders said the two sides were close to agreement. But union officials said dozens of issues in the contract negotiations remained unresolved.
Parents struggled to juggle children and work. Many fretted over the disruption. Krystyna Sobek, a maintenance worker in downtown Chicago, said she had to ask her parents to watch her 11-year-old daughter.
"I feel that she should be in class," she said. "I'm thankful because I do have my mom, and without her, where would I take her? Pay for day care? That would be hard for me."

Related Video

• Watch More Video From the Chicago March

Chicago teachers take to the picket lines for the first time in 25 years in dispute over Mayor Rahm Emanuel's longer school day, job security and class size. WSJ's Caroline Porter and Douglas Belkin report. Photo: AP.
Other parents joined picket lines. Erica Clark, a member of Parents 4 Teachers, brought her 16-year-old son. "The main point is that parents, teachers and communities are rallying together, doing what they need to do," she said.
City officials said 18,000 of the school system's more than 350,000 students had attended more than 140 schools staffed to provide basic activities and serve meals on Monday. The city announced it would extend the program to six hours a day to make it easier for working families.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the 1.5 million-member national group that includes the Chicago union, joined the heads of other public-sector unions, including those representing nurses and police, in an appearance Tuesday to show support. The leader of a union that represents some school custodians said his members might start striking Friday in solidarity.
"To say that this contract will be settled today is lunacy," Ms. Lewis said, dismissing opponents as "rich people who think they know best."
Mr. Emanuel said Tuesday the strike was unnecessary. "It's not about getting rid of people, it's about raising the standards, raising the qualities in the schools," he told a news conference.
Ms. Lewis, the daughter of teachers, had been little involved in the union over two decades of teaching. In 2008, she joined the fledgling Caucus of Rank and File Educators.

Teachers on Strike

View Slideshow

Jean Lachat/Reuters

Teachers walked the picket line outside Anthony Overton School in Chicago Monday.
The group felt union leaders were doing too little to fight the overhauls favored by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley and Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan, who is now President Obama's Secretary of Education, including the expansion of charter schools and closing low-performing public schools.
Ms. Lewis took the top union job in June 2010 with a mandate to take a more adversarial role. She has since reveled in the spotlight, with a cheeky and sometimes aggressive style.
Reform efforts by Mr. Emanuel and others to tie teacher salaries and tenure to student test scores were unfair, she said, and didn't address larger problems created by poverty, poor curriculum and a shortage of counselors and social workers.
Ms. Weingarten, while showing solidarity with Ms. Lewis on Tuesday, has embodied a more collaborative approach to national school reform. She has supported teacher contracts—including one in Cleveland—that effectively weakened tenure rules and linked teacher evaluations to test scores.
The Chicago teachers' previous contract, negotiated by Ms. Lewis's predecessor, gave teachers a total wage increase of 19% to 46% over the contract period from 2007 to 2012, according to a fact finders report issued in July. Chicago's average teacher salary is now $71,000 a year, according to the city.
But some teachers were angry because they felt the union didn't do enough to prevent the closure of dozens of poorly performing schools and increase the number of charter schools, which generally hire nonunion teachers.
Advocates say schools that are too dysfunctional should be closed so students can go elsewhere. They say charters offer an important alternative to low-performing public schools and can experiment with new teaching approaches without the constraints of union contracts.
Campaigning in early 2011, Mr. Emanuel pledged he would institute a longer school day at Chicago schools, which he said was among the shortest in the U.S. Once elected, he appointed a district chief with a track record of challenging unions, and appointed a school board whose first vote was to rescind a 4% raise slated for last year.
Ms. Lewis derided Mr. Emanuel's longer school day as "baby sitting and warehousing."
Earlier this year, Ms. Lewis orchestrated rallies and sit-ins across the city, including one at Mr. Emanuel's home, to protest the mayor's policies. In June, when their contract expired, teachers voted to authorize union leaders to call a strike.
To address teacher anger over the longer school day, Mr. Emanuel in July agreed to rehire more than 400 laid-off teachers.
The city is now offering teachers a new four-year contract that includes salary increases of 3% in the first year, and 2% annually for the remaining years. In addition, teachers are eligible for raises based on years of service.
Union leaders have said salaries aren't a sticking point. They said they were fighting over proposals to change teacher evaluations, and the union's call for job security for dismissed teachers—as well as other issues including more school counselors and more air-conditioning.
Ms. Lewis "has thrown down a national gauntlet, of sorts, and said mayors and other reformers won't define teaching—teachers will define it," said Barbara Radner, director of the Center for Urban Education at DePaul University. "This is about the soul of teaching and who is going to define it going forward."

—Caroline Porter contributed to this article.

Write to Stephanie Banchero at stephanie.banchero@wsj.com
 

Karen Lewis: Why We're Striking in Chicago

Published on Monday, September 10, 2012 by Common Dreams

'Join Our Fight for Education Justice,' says CTU President Karen Lewis

by Karen Lewis

Teachers, paraprofessionals and school clinicians in Chicago have been without a labor agreement since June of this year. Following the inability of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to reach an agreement over benefits, the role of standardized tests in teacher evaluations, and physical improvements to schools that teachers say are harming both teacher and student performance, the CTU has announced that a city-wide stirke will begin today -- the first teachers strike in 25 years. Pickets are expected at 675 schools and the Board of Education. The following are remarks from CTU President Karen Lewis.

 

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis speaks at a press conference Sunday night. "We have failed to reach an agreement that will prevent a labor strike." ( E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune / September 9, 2012 )

Negotiations have been intense but productive, however we have failed to reach an agreement that will prevent a labor strike. This is a difficult decision and one we hoped we could avoid. Throughout these negotiations have I remained hopeful but determined. We must do things differently in this city if we are to provide our students with the education they so rightfully deserve.

Talks have been productive in many areas. We have successfully won concessions for nursing mothers and have put more than 500 of our members back to work. We have restored some of the art, music, world language, technology and physical education classes to many of our students. The Board also agreed that we will now have textbooks on the first day of school rather than have our students and teachers wait up to six weeks before receiving instructional materials.

Recognizing the Board’s fiscal woes, we are not far apart on compensation. However, we are apart on benefits. We want to maintain the existing health benefits.

Another concern is evaluation procedures. After the initial phase-in of the new evaluation system it could result in 6,000 teachers (or nearly 30 percent of our members) being discharged within one or two years. This is unacceptable. We are also concerned that too much of the new evaluations will be based on students’ standardized test scores. This is no way to measure the effectiveness of an educator. Further there are too many factors beyond our control which impact how well some students perform on standardized tests such as poverty, exposure to violence, homelessness, hunger and other social issues beyond our control.

We want job security. Despite a new curriculum and new, stringent evaluation system, CPS proposes no increase (or even decreases) in teacher training. This is notable because our Union through our Quest Center is at the forefront teacher professional development in Illinois. We have been lauded by the District and our colleagues across the country for our extensive teacher training programs that helped emerging teachers strengthen their craft and increased the number of nationally board certified educators.

We are demanding a reasonable timetable for the installation of air-conditioning in student classrooms--a sweltering, 98-degree classroom is not a productive learning environment for children. This type of environment is unacceptable for our members and all school personnel. A lack of climate control is unacceptable to our parents.

As we continue to bargain in good faith, we stand in solidarity with parents, clergy and community-based organizations who are advocating for smaller class sizes, a better school day and an elected school board. Class size matters. It matters to parents. In the third largest school district in Illinois there are only 350 social workers—putting their caseloads at nearly 1,000 students each. We join them in their call for more social workers, counselors, audio/visual and hearing technicians and school nurses. Our children are exposed to unprecedented levels of neighborhood violence and other social issues, so the fight for wraparound services is critically important to all of us. Our members will continue to support this ground swell of parent activism and grassroots engagement on these issues. And we hope the Board will not shut these voices out.

While new Illinois law prohibits us from striking over the recall of laid-off teachers and compensation for a longer school year, we do not intend to sign an agreement until these matters are addressed.

Again, we are committed to staying at the table until a contract is place. However, in the morning no CTU member will be inside our schools. We will walk the picket lines. We will talk to parents. We will talk to clergy. We will talk to the community. We will talk to anyone who will listen—we demand a fair contract today, we demand a fair contract now. And, until there is one in place that our members accept, we will on the line.

We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters throughout the state and country who are currently bargaining for their own fair contracts. We stand with those who have already declared they too are prepared to strike, in the best interests of their students.

This announcement is made now so our parents and community are empowered with this knowledge and will know that schools will not open on tomorrow. Please seek alternative care for your children. And, we ask all of you to join us in our education justice fight—for a fair contract—and call on the mayor and CEO Brizard to settle this matter now. Thank you.

Karen Lewis is the president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).

Schmidt Takes Down NY Times Coverage of Chicago Strike

UPDATE: Ravitch Slams NY Times Editorial attacking Chicago Teacher Union:

New York Times’ Editorial on Chicago: Still Clueless

George Schmidt smashed NY Times reporting.

Only The New York Times was unable to locate Karen Lewis, Jesse Sharkey, Kristine Mayle or Michael Brunson on September 10, 2012. An amazing feat of reporting.....As The New York Times finally recognized that something big is happening in Chicago's public schools with the Teachers Strike of 2012, their reporters managed to get most of the story wrong — beginning with the notion, in their lead paragraph, that this strike is some kind of surprise. (It is only a surprise for those who use people like Rahm Emanuel and his ten closest friends as sources).---- Substance

I love NY Times bashing, especially since they dumped Winerip and Anna Philips, people who actually had a clue as to what is going on. Now they are a total joke and there should be a law prohibiting the Times from covering the Chicago story -- or any education story, for that matter. Outsource the work to India. George goes to town  -- hit his link to read the Times story.

MEDIA WATCH: 'All the news that fits [the ruling class version of reality] we print'...New York Times gets it wrong on first try at reporting the Chicago Teachers Strike of 2012 as 'news'

George N. Schmidt - September 11, 2012
One of the problems intelligent people face is when they let themselves be brainwashed by ideological versions of reality posing as fact... Over the years, a disturbing trend has developed, as professors who don't do their own street work have been given a free hand to quote any story published in The New York Times as factual....
The New York Times made a great effort not to quote any of the officers of the Chicago Teachers Union for its first "news" coverage of the Chicago Teachers Strike of 2012. Above, CTU vice president Jesse Sharkey speaking to reporters at the union's strike operations headquarters on Saturday, two days before the strike. Contrary to the implications of the New York Times's version of news, the officers and communications staff of the union were not in hiding on September 9 and September 10, 2012. Substance photo by Sharon Schmidt. Before reading the following story, consider the facts: (a) The New York Times preens itself as America's newspaper of record and sports the motto "All the news that's fit to print." (b) for many people the world over, this is the first inkling they have of what is going on in Chicago.
Had the following story been submitted to Substance (or in one of my journalism classes before I was blacklisted by CPS 12 years ago), would have demanded that the reporters find one of the union's officers before putting up the story. Only The New York Times was unable to locate Karen Lewis, Jesse Sharkey, Kristine Mayle or Michael Brunson on September 10, 2012. An amazing feat of reporting, when you consider how important this story is.

READ

 -------

This came in from a CTU media contact:

Hello all,

You should all follow @DriXander on twitter. She is really in the loop when it comes to Chicago politics. Earlier today, she tweeted the list of 33 aldermen who signed the anti-strike letter. One was Aldermen Joe Moreno of the first ward. He paints himself a progressive and blogs for Huffington Post where his deal is that he reframes chicago machine behavior as being "progressive." He gives Rahm cover. When 2 dozen teachers were fired from Clemente HS after the IB announcement, he claimed it a victory. He refused to comment on the firings. He fashions himself a hipster and hangs out at indie bars. One of his major hipsterisms is that he's proud of his social media presence. Please leave a message to @alderman_moreno or "Alderman Joe Moreno" on FB.

Be creative, but here is a sample tweet --

@alderman_moreno Union busting is not a #ChicagoValue, please stand with @ctulocal1 #FairContractNow #CTUstrike

or

@alderman_moreno Our schools need strong teachers advocating for kids, not political games. Support teachers.  #FairContractNow #CTUstrike

Also, I've attached a pic of a guy who calls himself @rebelpundit. He's one of the Education Action Group Tea Party guys who harasses people at protests. If you see him, do not engage. He will goad you. Let people around know that he's Tea Party and he's working against us and with Rahm. Let him know that you do not want to be filmed. 

Feel free to warn people on social media about him. 

DSC_3180.JPG 2420K   View   Download

CHICAGO STRIKE ECHOES GROWING NATIONAL HIGH-STAKES TESTING RESISTANCE

Randi on the NewsHour. Why no Karen Lewis who can really defend the strike?

The strike is bringing so many issues to the surface. I know some people at AFT and UFT HQ are sweating it out.

“You have a situation where the teachers feel totally and completely disrespected,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the parent union of the striking teachers. In this case, she said she blamed Mayor Emanuel for an aggressive push to extend the length of the school day and for a promised raise that was later rescinded. “He created the seeds of a lot of frustration and mistrust,” she said.

Yeah, it's about respect - we ain't got none in NYC. The longer day  - Randi already gave that one away. A promised raise that was later rescinded by Bloomberg-- oops, where did that 4% raise everyone but teachers got go to? Wait a minute. Is Randi saying the same conditions exist here in NYC for a strike? No, Chicago has Rahmbo and we have mild-mannered Bloomberg.

Teachers also clearly saw the strike as a protest not just of the union negotiations in Chicago but on data-driven education reform nationwide, which many perceived as being pushed by corporate interests and relying too heavily on standardized tests to measure student progress....a teacher, said he believed the city was ultimately aiming to privatize education through charter schools and computer programs that teach classes online.

Shhhh, Randi, don't tell anyone what it's really all about.

FairTest                                            

National Center for Fair & Open Testing

for immediate release, Tuesday, September 11, 2012

CHICAGO STRIKE ECHOES GROWING NATIONAL HIGH-STAKES TESTING RESISTANCE;

EDUCATORS, PARENTS AND COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS SEEK

ASSESSMENT REFORMS NOT DRIVEN BY STANDARDIZED EXAM RESULTS

The Chicago teachers strike is the latest example of the growing national resistance to failed, top-down, test-driven educational policies, according to the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest).  

“Across the nation, parents, teachers, and school leader are rising up to say ‘Enough is enough’ to so-called reforms based on standardized exam misuse,” explained FairTest Public Education Director Bob Schaeffer. “From Texas to Long Island and Washington to Florida, people with first-hand knowledge of the damage being done to academic quality and equity are pushing back against the out-of-touch politicians and their funders who insist on doubling down on strategies that have not worked.“ Schaeffer is the author of “Resistance to High Stakes Testing Spreads,” the cover story in the current issue of District Administration magazine.

FairTest Policy Analyst Lisa Guisbond added, “The Chicago strike is the tip of the iceberg of teacher frustration with policies that blame educators for problems largely caused by the impoverished settings in which their students live and the city’s own misguided polices. Instead of punishing front-line teachers, policy makers at the city, state and federal levels must be held accountable for their failures to create conditions in which all children can learn." Guisbond recently wrote "New School Year: Doubling Down on Failed Ed Policy"

FairTest Executive Director, Monty Neill concluded, “The attempt to improve Chicago schools through increased use of high-stakes tests over the past 20 years has been a colossal failure. The damage is worst in classrooms serving the city’s neediest children. Mayor Emanuel’s scheme to evaluate classroom educators based on their students’ test scores, a technique independent experts say is severely flawed, is certain to make the situation worse.” Dr. Neill will be a speaking on a panel on “How do we measure teacher performance?” at the “Schools for Tomorrow Conference” on Thursday morning, September 13 in New York City. 

FairTest initiated the National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing, which was cosponsored by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries, and Chicago Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE), among other groups. So far, more than 400 organizations and 12,000 individuals have endorsed the Resolution.

The Nation: Chicago Teachers Push Back Against Neoliberal Education Reform

The rejection of the service model by CTU’s new leadership is reflective of a long debate in the labor movement—should unions serve their members, existing as an organization outside of the membership, or should the union be made by the members? This is partly why the media’s focus on Lewis is so problematic; her leadership is more of an anti-leadership. A central goal of the CTU now is to have members take control of their union and their workplaces.

This is one interesting article on the Chicago union leadership touching on the role of the strike in union building. Have you seen how many young, female teachers there are on the picket line? Have you heard stories of scabs crossing the lines? Is this a 100% strike? I love this closing line:

a spokesman for Stand for Children Illinois, a pro-education reform group that is a favorite charity of hedge fund managers, saying, “Teachers need to decide if they’re going to be part of this [reform] process or not.” They have, but it’s going to be on the terms of the 99%.

Featured are two Chicago CORE founders I know: Kristine Mayle and Al Ramirez. Al has been very helpful to us here in providing information on how CORE organized itself.

Here is a video I made of Al skyping along with another CORE member, Kim Bowsky, to the MORE Chicago solidarity event a few weeks ago.


MORE Chicago Solidarity Event - Aug 23 2012


The Nation piece is at this link. But I'm also posting.

As one email just came in that Matthew should be the ed reporter for The Nation instead of Dana Goldstein.
 

Chicago Teachers Push Back Against Neoliberal Education Reform 
by Matthew Cunningham-Cook

Picket lines can be sordid affairs. When a union is on strike or locked out—like the recent Caterpillar strike in Joliet, Illinois or the Cooper Tire & Rubber lockout in Ohio—the smell of receding worker power can permeate the air. The air in Chicago has none of that. At schools across the city, 29,000 Chicago teachers and education professionals are on strike—demanding both a fair union contract and a radically different vision of school reform than that propagated by nearly the entire nation’s political class. At the largest teachers’ strike in two decades, educators are fired up to fight for wraparound services for students, with more school social workers, counselors and psychologists; a holistic educational environment where all students have access to school libraries, world languages, art, music, physical education; and the preservation of the tenure system—because good teachers are made through experience in the classroom.

The corporate media’s initial dispatches on this fight have been disappointing. Instead of reporting on what the Chicago Teachers Union’s vision for education is (explained quite clearly here), they have instead zeroed in on the CTU’s demand for a 20 percent wage increase (which corresponds to a 20 percent increase in their workweek) and the so-called “personal feud” between CTU President Karen Lewis and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Along these same lines, media reports have emphasized the “dire” fiscal situation of the Chicago public schools—failing to note that the Chicago district spent $25 million on strike contingency plans, that the schools could gain $43 million if the city stopped providing slush funds for wealthy developers or that the state recently gave a $528 million tax break to the owners of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

This strike is the product of twenty years of “education reform” practiced on the backs of Chicago’s students and teachers. As the city witnessed the social destruction that accompanied high-stakes testing and mass school closures in neighborhoods already deprived of resources, a small group of teachers started fighting back against the reform agenda. As education historian Diane Ravitch observes, it was the first movement in the nation “where teachers have stood up to DFER [Democrats for Education Reform], Stand for Children [and] other anti-union, pro-privatization, anti-teacher groups.”

Al Ramirez was one of the co-founders of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE). “I was working on a movie about school closures, and we began posing the question, What do we do about it?” Ramirez’s group started book study groups, hosted public events with education activists and ultimately came to realize that the union was “ineffective at fighting back.” That’s when they began to ask themselves, “What kind of union do we want?”

The answer was a union founded on the principles of member-directed communal action, mutual solidarity and systemic analysis. CORE began having meetings on a consistent basis, including a biweekly potluck at Karen Lewis’s house, as well as doing the kind of organizing against school closures that the old-guard leadership of the CTU simply was not doing. The former CTU president, Marilyn Stewart, failed to appear at meetings where school closure decisions were made.

The policy of school closures for schools considered failing was a policy initially propagated by Mayor Richard Daley and his longtime schools chief and current Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The Renaissance 2010 program, as it was called, closed schools in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, especially where there was nearby competition from charter schools.

The current financial secretary of the CTU, Kristine Mayle, won election in 2010 on the slate led by Lewis. She had gotten involved as a result of a school closure as well—a thread that unites most of the original members of CORE.

“My school was set for closure, and we called our delegate, and she said ‘get your résumé together.’ We wanted to force them to stand up for us, and we realized we were better equipped to do it than they were. CTU back in the day used to be a fighting union, it had become a service model or company union, and we wanted to change that up,” Mayle said. The rejection of the service model by CTU’s new leadership is reflective of a long debate in the labor movement—should unions serve their members, existing as an organization outside of the membership, or should the union be made by the members?

This is partly why the media’s focus on Lewis is so problematic; her leadership is more of an anti-leadership. A central goal of the CTU now is to have members take control of their union and their workplaces. As a result of this strategy, back in June, 90 percent of the membership, including 98 percent of those who actually cast a ballot, voted in favor of authorizing a strike. Under the new leadership, an internal organizing department was created with seven staff members and the union’s House of Delegates was expanded to include at least one delegate from every building.

For too long at the CTU, the folks at CORE felt that union policy was directed by a tiny group of highly paid bureaucrats who had little connection to the actual conditions on the ground. What’s funny is that this directly correlates to the situation at Chicago Public Schools in general. Rahm Emanuel complains about teacher salaries, even though his own salary is $216,000 per year. Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard has never taught a day in a Chicago public school. The Chicago Board of Education president is a banker, and one of its members is the powerful billionaire Hyatt heiress Penny Pritzker.

On the picket line, there is a palpable sense that the teachers who created the fighting-est teachers union in the country are about to do the same to their school system. The city is awash in red, and honks in favor of the strikers are cacophonous. Reuters recently quoted a spokesman for Stand for Children Illinois, a pro-education reform group that is a favorite charity of hedge fund managers, saying, “Teachers need to decide if they’re going to be part of this [reform] process or not.” They have, but it’s going to be on the terms of the 99%.

Matthew Cunningham-Cook

September 11, 2012  

 ================

The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

What goes on in Chicago doesn’t stay in Chicago: Teachers Strike Against Obama Education Policies

My first column of the school year for The Wave (www.rockawave.com), the weekly community newspaper of Rockaway, now 119 years old. I was going to do "What I Did on My Summer Vacation" by recycling something I wrote in the 5th grade but this little Chicago thingie got in the way. One thing about writing for a different audience than reads this blog is that they are probably not really in touch with the Chicago story other than what they hear in a biased press. So I had to rethink the Chicago story from a different perspective. It will appear in this Friday's print edition.

What goes on in Chicago doesn’t stay in Chicago: Teachers Strike Against Obama Education Policies

Updated: Sept. 11, 4PM

By Norm Scott
September 11, 2012

The Chicago teachers strike has national implications, many of them not good for President Obama in terms of getting teachers, a major area of support in 2008, to support him.

Richard Kahlenberg, author of the favorable bio of Albert Shanker, said in a NY Times interview that teacher unions are “getting very little support from some Democrats. The Obama administration has adopted a center-right position on issues like nonunion charter schools and performance pay. The places where teachers’ unions used to look for support are no longer coming through for them.”

Mitt Romney showed how unqualified he was to be president when he jumped into the fray by trying to claim the strike was supported by Obama. Let’s see now, Mitt. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, known by the cuddly name of Rahmbo by Chicago teachers, just happened to be Obama’s chief of staff. And Obama’s educational secretary, Arne Duncan, a non-educator nincompoop who ran the Chicago schools into the ground for 7 years as the Joel Klein of Chicago, but even more clueless, is as much a focus of the strike as Emanuel.

Duncan has taken the Chicago model that began in 1995 when Mayor Richard Daley took control of the schools – adopted here in NYC by Mayor Bloomberg in 2002 – and developed it into a national model by offering monetary incentives to school systems that adopt pay scales for teachers based on standardized test scores using what is known as a value-added model (VAM) that rates teachers based on student growth (not height but might as well be). While the union and Rahmbo are in basic agreement on a pay raise rumored to be 16%, the union has turned that down the money, not asking for more money but contending that Rahm’s call for teachers to be evaluated 60% based on student test scores, a basic tenet of Obama’s Race to the Top (or bottom), is unacceptable. They are also asking for more social workers and other wrap-around services. Giving up guaranteed money to fight for bigger issues.

Let me point out that the UFT here in NYC would have grabbed that money in a NY minute even if in the long road the result was selling teachers down the river. The UFT has defended using VAM for 20% of a teacher rating which many contend can grow into 40% or more. Governor Cuomo has placed a January, 2013 deadline for Bloomberg and the UFT to come to agreement on how to implement this or lose significant state funding. Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE), the new UFT caucus challenging Mulgrew that models itself on the group running the Chicago union, is calling for a referendum of the membership on any agreement reached.

Unlike the UFT in New York, Chicago teachers point out that value-added is notoriously unreliable by a factor of 60-80% where the same teacher giving the test to two different classes or the same class two different times can end up being rated the worst or the best of teachers.

Diane Ravitch, Under Secretary of Education under George Bush 1, has written extensively on the failures of VAM. In a blog this morning she said:

“If you add the scores on standardized tests for five years in a row, can you tell who the best and worst teachers are? No. But that's the theory behind value-added assessment. The idea is that an ‘effective’ teacher raises test scores every year. The computer predicts what the test scores are supposed to be, and the teacher who meets the target is great, while the one who doesn't is ineffective and should be shunned or banished. But study after study shows that value-added assessment is rife with error. VAM is junk science. Bunk science. Just another club with which to knock teachers, wielded by those who could never last five minutes in a classroom.”

Obama’s education policies call for tying pay scales to the junk-science VAM results in addition to other merit pay schemes, all of which have a history of decades of failure. Rahmbo wants to implement these policies and in fact unilaterally cancelled the step increases for each year of teaching Chicago teachers have enjoyed for decades, as have NY teachers. There is a national move to eliminate the so-called seniority advantage using the excuse of paying “effective teachers” (based on faulty VAM) with the real intent of lowering the national wage scale for teachers. That would allow privately managed, profit-driven charter schools, also an Obama initiative, to avoid having to pay their teachers the prevailing public school wage scale and maximize their profits.

Chicago teachers have tied the fight against VAM to the impact on students and teachers of a high stakes test driven teaching where teachers whose job is in danger will teach to narrow-based tests, often a mind-numbing drill and kill exercise. This is a working and learning condition. The MORE caucus here in NYC has adopted the slogan: our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions.

And there you have one of the basic stumbling blocks that led to the strike. Another is class size. Chicago has no class size limits written into the contract like we have had here since 1969. One Chicago kindergarten teacher talked about her kids to the NY Times, “They are 5 years old,” she said. “They want their teacher’s attention, and there is one of me and 43 of them.”

Naturally, the anti-teacher, anti-union public and press have ignored the abuse of children by the people running the Chicago schools. Obama, Duncan and Emanuel all sent their kids to the top-notch schools where 43 in a class would be considered child abuse.

Obama is between a rock and a hard place. He can’t support the teachers, not only because the Republicans will jump on him but because the teachers are striking against his own education policies. On the other hand he can’t condemn them for the strike and turn off many teachers around the nation who not only vote but are activists in elections.

Obama will straddle the line as long as he can with statements from the White House press secretary:

“His principal concern is for the students and families who are affected by the situation. And we hope that both sides are able to come together to settle this quickly and in the best interest of Chicago’s students.” 

Sure, both Mitt and Barack are for the children.

One reason the Chicago teachers union had the audacity to hope a strike would hold the line against the Obama/Duncan/Emanuel onslaught is the amazing support they have had from parents, community and other unions, support they built over two years of outreach.

Naturally you don’t see those parents interviewed on TV, only the ones who shout, “How dare you strike?” The same ones never shout at Rahmbo, “How dare you send your children to schools with 15 children in a class while our kids are on overload?”

The union shocked the world when it got 98% of the teachers who voted (92% of all teachers) to say “Yes” to a strike. And you hear nothing at this point about teachers crossing the line. We never had that level of support here in NYC in any of the strikes. Really remarkable leadership by President Karen Lewis who until her CORE caucus took over the union 2 years ago, was teaching chemistry for over 20 years. Out of the classroom into the fire, unlike our union leaders here.

You don’t read stories like this tweet with the hashtag #FairContractNow for all city workers!

“Teachers went into 63rd street police station to use bathroom and got a standing ovation from police.” 

Wow, teachers as heroes instead of villains. Ooooh, is this a sign that Rambo and his pals Duncan and Obama are in hot water? As things play out, next time we’ll examine the similarities and differences between the union in Chicago and NYC.

Norm is back from his summer vacation and ready to rail at the ed deformers. Read him daily at ednotesonline.org

========
The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Analysis: Striking Chicago teachers take on national education reform

Diane Ravitch pointed the way to this analysis at Reuters.

Count on Stephanie Simon of Reuters to get the story that eluded every other reporter. She is the one that got the Inside story on Louisiana, TFA, and for-profit investors. Now she has the scoop on Chicago. The strike in Chicago is not about money. It is a national story. It's about the survival of public education. Read her story.

Analysis: Striking Chicago teachers take on national education reform

• Factbox: Chicago teachers dispute is over school reform, money
  10:34am EDT

Related Video

School is out in Chicago as teachers strike

12:44pm EDT

By Stephanie Simon and James B. Kelleher

Mon Sep 10, 2012 4:15pm EDT

(Reuters) - Chicago teachers walking picket lines on Monday, in a strike that has closed schools across the city, are taking on not just their combative mayor but a powerful education reform movement that is transforming public schools across the United States.
The new vision, championed by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who used to run Chicago's schools, calls for a laser focus on standardized tests meant to gauge student skills in reading, writing and math. Teachers who fail to raise student scores may be fired. Schools that fail to boost scores may be shut down.
And the monopoly that the public sector once held on public schools will be broken with a proliferation of charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run - and typically non-union.