As the strike makes national news I am finding along with many teachers that many people are weighing in on the strike who really have no idea what is going on and are basing their opinions off a 2 minute news clip. Here are the talking points and explanation I will share with my family.
Dear Friends and Family,
As the Chicago Teachers Strike becomes national news it is important to remember a few things:
A) I am almost complete with my master’s in Urban Education Policy Studies. What this means is I have dedicated my entire post graduate degree to understanding how urban school systems work and what makes school systems effective and ineffective
B) Every Teacher in Chicago wants nothing more to be teaching our students. This is the career we chose so it is offensive to suggest that we do not care about or walked out on our students.
C) The media does a poor job of portraying the real issues that teachers in Chicago are upset about so I will try my best to explain and help you to understand the many misrepresentations being portrayed in the media.
Things you may have heard in the media or things to help you understand what we are fighting for:
1) Chicago Teachers turned down a 16% raise
We did not turn down a 16% raise. This comment is out of context. A teacher makes 16% more their 20th year teaching than they did their 1st year teaching. We did not turn this down (it actually hasn’t been offered). What we did turn down was 2% raise for this year. We are being asked to work a 4.5% longer school year. It doesn’t matter what profession you are in, working 4.5% longer for 2% is a bad deal.
2) Recall Policy
Chicago has a tendency to close schools for invalid reasons. We believe that if a school is struggling it should receive help, not closure. When a crime goes up in an area, more police are brought in, the station located there is not closed. In Chicago, they close schools instead of providing help. When a school is closed the entire school staff is fired no matter what (teachers, custodians, secretaries etc). We want a recall policy that gives priority to teachers who were let go due to these unjust closures and who had received good evaluations, to have first chance at getting new jobs.
3) Evaluation Policy
As teachers we always want to get better at our profession. Yet we do not want an evaluation policy that is based on student standardized test scores. Standardized tests do not prove learning (research proves this). We want to be evaluated and given feedback through observations from our administrators and we want them to have proper training on how to do this.
4) Step and Lane
We believe that teachers should be rewarded for the more years they teach. We understand this is not how it works in all professions, ours may be unique. We believe this because, research shows that teacher experience is one of the two most important factors in students’ educational growth.
We also believe that teachers should be rewarded for continuing their education through master’s and PhD programs in order to be better teachers.
5) Shortest school day
It is a lie that Chicago has the shortest school day in the country. This lie has been repeated over and over again and suddenly it is now believed to be true by many. This is not true and there is proof of this. The union proposed a way to make for a longer school day last fall, yet CPS rejected this offer. Simply by giving the teachers in elementary schools lunch and recess Chicago would lengthen the school day.
6) Better school
We want PE, Art, World Languages for every student in the city and we want these things every day.
7) Nurses, Social Workers etc
There are only 370 psychologists, social workers, and nurses for the 400,000 students in CPS. In my school for example we only have a nurse on Friday and only have a social worker on Monday and Wednesday. This is common across all schools. We find this unacceptable and offensive. Our mayor would not tolerate this for his children and we do not tolerate it for ours.
8) We want librarians and counselors
My school has 1 counselor for all 400 students and a library with no librarian. Again this in unfair and unjust.
9) You will hear that CPS does not have the money
One thing to remember is that a budget is a political document not a financial one. It is about priorities and CPS chooses to not place its priorities into public education. CPS is giving $100 million to charter schools even though research shows charter schools do no better than public schools.
10) We also are offended by having a school board with zero educators on it.
How do you explain the intricacies of education and make sure all the necessary things get put into a contract with someone who has never taught. There has been 50 contract negotiations since Nov. 2011 and CPS has not wanted to talk about anything important until now. Eventually we couldn’t wait any longer to do the right thing for our students, our schools, and ourselves.
So I please ask you to be respectful and know that a 1 minute news clip does not explain all that is going on in Chicago. I would ask you to watch a video clip that helps explain the issues.
The clip is Pauline Lipman a education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago explaining the situation in Chicago.
Once you have watched the clip and read my points I would be happy to talk in more detail about whether you agree or disagree with what we are doing. I am working to get a fair contract for my students, myself and my school. Teachers want to be teaching, so please take the time to educate yourself, before you attack me, my profession or my colleagues.
Is there any proof of this? If so, I’d love to stick it to a few friends of mine who have been running off in the mouth about teachers.
For information on the demands teachers are making through the strike, go to http://www.ctunet.com/for-members/strike-central.