Teachers Union Rejects Brizard Pay Raise Plan

If you have kids... do yourself a favor and move to the burbs if you wish to partake in public schools.

Because a well funded education is a privilege that only those who can afford to live in more comfortable neighborhoods should enjoy.

I don't believe a word that comes out of Emanuel's mouth on this subject. Not a one. It's like his recent claim of "putting 500 more cops on the street." It's simply disingenuous. To see the words so eloquently and earnestly delivered for the cameras is actually impressive. If anyone is exploiting The Children © it's the mayor. This is more about power and control. It's an easy, sound-bite-friendly move. But it has no substance. It sounds nice, but the only positive thing that will come out of it is that kids will be in a safer environment than the street for an extra 90 minutes. To insinuate that teachers are putting their own interests ahead of The Children © is ignorant and ridiculous. It reminds me of the blathering tantrum Daley thew about The Children © when people opposed the relocation of the Children's Museum.

The schools suck. The CTU has not made a single proposal addressing that issue. Instead they (a) blame the parents, (b) blame the "tests," and (c) blame the administration. I have some sympathy for all three points, but not from the CTU leadership.

So, how about this: the status quo doesn't work. When that's true people with bad ideas have more support than people with no ideas. So, if the CTU wants to bitch about a 2% raise while the mayor floats flawed proposals, I guess I will ride with him, since the alternative is more failure with failing failures.

Notice, none of this has to do with the actual teachers actually teaching. I think the teachers have terrible leadership that is incapable of exploiting even obvious points in their favor. The best thing that happens to teachers may be having the current union destroyed and replaced with more competent leadership.

When that's true people with bad ideas have more support than people with no ideas.

True, especially when the Bad Idea People are highly skilled at delivering their message. Rahm is very good at making people feel like he cares about their children while his end goal is to close their schools so their kids can be taught by teachers at charter schools because they don't cost as much.

The schools suck.

Some do. Some are good. This is a problem that's never going to go away unless parents become more involved and demand more of schools. One of my friends taught at a school that had interactive white boards in every classroom (funded by a grant secured by a parent-formed non-profit) but the principal wouldn't let teachers make xerox copies -- none! Parents can be very powerful. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Until then, the rich and middle class folks who can afford it will keep sending their kids elsewhere (or move elsewhere) and the schools will be populated mostly with poor kids, some of whom walk through the door bringing far more challenges. It's not just this way here. A friend of mine teaches in an all-white rural area and the kids with challenges there almost always come from poor and broken homes. Chicago's packed with them and has the added influence of gangs.

What creative solutions are teachers supposed to come up with? I mean, in between the time they spend teaching, doing lesson plans, grading, teaching the test, adhering to all the stuff the bureaucracy requires, acting as social worker, psychiatrist, mediator, friend, mentor, nerd, disciplinarian, inspiration?

What's really discouraging to me is how leadership is adversarial to CPS teachers. Forget about the CTU for a minute. I understand that the mayor and CTU will always have somewhat of an adversarial relationship. But the mayor is waging outright war on teachers. He has insinuated that they are greedy, lazy, unqualified, self-serving and (worst of all) somehow responsible for the poor performance of kids with a shit-ton of social problems and challenges.

So next we get the sound bites:

We will have a longer school day of instructional time
and a longer school year so the kids of Chicago
aren't cheated as they are today.

Oh for fuck's sake ... really Mayor? This is what it's come to? Blatantly divisive rhetoric for the cameras instead of working with teachers? How does he expect to retain good teachers in such an environment?

I totally agree with your last paragraph, by the way. I think one thing they should have exploited was Rahm's choice of schools for his kids. It could have gone something like this:

The mayor's choice of school for his children is his personal decision ... but it is also a timely issue that highlights one of the city's biggest challenges. Restoring faith in a public education. We teachers can't do it all by ourselves. We need resources and support from the community and the mayor. Not rhetoric and easy solutions.

Got it. The problems are too big. The teachers shouldn't be expected to move the process. Good parents make good schools.

So, charter schools it is. More parental control, no union rules to overcome. Cheaper to boot.

Where are you going with this? How is this pro-teacher at all? What are you people thinking when you post these things?

You're certainly within your rights to go to sent your children to a charter school and if they aren't discipline problems or special ed they may receive a decent education there.  However, nationally only 17% of charter schools perform better than public schools and in Chicago it's even worse

http://www.chicagonewscoop.org...

I'm a teacher.  I love to teach.  The money is an insult, but we get insulted a lot.  It's less than I spend on supplies for my classroom in a year.  I can deal with it.  What I want is to know that if I'm giving up teaching my improvisation comedy class after school, I will no longer be able to tutor students after school, and I will have to find a way to find the time to plan for 90 more minutes of class time that the extra time will be worthwhile.  If it's 90 more minutes of drill and kill test preparation count me out. 

We have a contract.  It was an agreement we signed.  It is in place for one more year.  If you want me to willingly give up that much extra time, you need to show me that the time will be well spent.  The city has not done that.

Good parents make good schools.

The wealthier the children/schools the better the results.  Funny how simple that is.  Maybe we should stop funding schools with Jim Crow style methods.  It's funny to tell people about property tax funding from other countries who can't even fucking believe it and are horrified.  We're the shame of the world.

"The wealthier the children/schools the better the results.  Funny how simple that is.  Maybe we should stop funding schools with Jim Crow
style methods."

Yes! And as sociologist Prudence Carter said some people are born on third base and think they hit a home run. Wealthier students get better results because the standards of schooling are created by people just like them, giving them years of familiarity even before school starts. Wealthier parents also have no problem questioning the professional authority of teachers whereas other classes of people do, and in some cases questioning authority can get you killed. In this regard the dominant ways of schooling are also Jim Crow-esqe. Until the standards of schooling are relevant to all of the students that attend public schools there will be large discrepancies in success. Longer school days will probably just push kids out earlier.

Oh, OK I see ... apparently you want to argue (simplifying, exaggerating and twisting away). I don't. Not everything on this site needs to be a goddamn argument. The CTU sucks, I get it. I agreed with you.

It's not an argument, it's my kid's education. You know, one of The Children © that you so flippantly mock.

As I said, self-inflicted wounds.

Ha ha! Yes, I was mocking children.

The Children ©
Res ipsa loquitur

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

It's too bad the only time this place ever gets a lot of comments is when there's an argument usually involving a combination of three or four commenters who have each commented over a thousand times. People like arguing and complaining ... I do it too. But it's really gotten old here and I think it's why very few other people bother to comment. DC is a much smaller city but DCist gets ten times the comments that Chicagoist does, and while there is arguing, there doesn't seem to be as much of it.

You know what. You're right. Chicagoist hasn't been worth my time in a while. 

Chicago has the shortest instructional day.  This is not the same thing as the fewest instructional hours.  Because of a problem in the 1970s with open campus, teachers were asked by administration to move their lunch to the end of the day and get out 45 minutes earlier.

Chicago has 1039 instructional hours per year, New York has 995, and Los Angeles has 904.  Houston has 1170.  This move would move Chicago up to about 1350. 

Chicago teachers aren't objecting to a longer day.  We do wish to be fairly compensated for it and to know that it will be valuable time and not time spent doing drill and kill in preparation for testing.  A 2% raise is actually less than I spend on my classroom in a year and it's about $3.50 an hour for me.

I'm sure I'm living high on the hog in my apartment and driving my 2001 Ford Focus.  However, I worked in the private sector for 10 years and I know this is harder than what I used to do.  I also know that the joy of teaching has evened things out for me.  I don't get social security and I have no faith my pension will be there.  For me, I can still go back to my old field.  However, I have no doubt that if this administration has its way, the only people teaching will be those who literally can't do anything else.

Let's also be clear - many teachers get a pay raise every year because they have another year of service and thus are one notch higher on the pay scale. Their original contract called for a 4% raise on top of that increase in pay scale - for teachers with less than 20 years of service, that's around a 9% raise. Teacher salary schedules: http://goo.gl/aB7yE

So, wait. Is Lewis implying that the teachers in all of the other cities with longer days DON'T meet with parents etc. etc.? I'm pretty sure they do. What does their pay look like compared to CPS? I mean, she might have a point, but she certainly isn't able to make it herself.

"We’ve been quite an earful," -- I hope that is a misquote, otherwise I lost a lot of respect for her.  It sounds like she's not "edumicated."