Chicago Teachers Tell the Rich to Back Off

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is calling for a march and protest on December 18 to “Tell the Fat Cats:  Get Your Paws Off Our Public Schools.”

While I could make many of the same criticisms of this that I have of the Occupy Movement (see here and here), I would rather call this a step in the right direction. (Plus, I really like their graphic for the protest).

(From the CTU website)

Certainly this is a reformist demand that lacks a meaningful critique of capitalism or public education’s role in bolstering it. Yet a mainstream craft union is unlikely to ever do this anyway. At least the CTU is placing some of the responsibility for their district’s crumbling infrastructure and their members’ declining working conditions directly on the backs of the rich—who have been tripping all over themselves and Chicago’s children in the race to convert CPS school sites into charter schools—rather than the usual vague union complaints about poor funding and belt-tightening by everyone.

The biggest problems with public education are not due to any defect in the schools or teachers. Rather, poverty and the wealth gap are the primary causes of the achievement gap. No reform that is currently on the table even attempts to address this. Certain social reforms, like those of the New Deal and the Great Society served to reduce poverty and close the wealth gap, and graduation rates climbed to their highest levels in response. But these economic gains have largely been reversed over the past 40 years, with an accompanying decline in wages and living standards for the majority of Americans.

Much of this decline has been due to a restructuring of the tax code, allowing the wealthy to keep a greater percentage of their wealth, causing a net decline in the revenue available for social services, like public education.

We are not likely to see the unions demanding an end to capitalism or even a reduction in poverty (though this reform would likely do far more to solve public education’s myriad problems than all the other current pseudo-reforms combined). However, it is not unreasonable to think that other teachers unions might start following the CTU’s lead and at least push back against the corporate-led “reforms” that are weakening the unions, deskilling the teaching profession and undermining the quality of education just so they can make a quick buck.

Chicago Schools CEO Brizard Out After 17 Months

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Just like the CEO of a private company that fails to act aggressively enough to maximize profits or to suppress worker discontent, Chicago Public Schools CEO, Jean-Claude Brizard, is out after only 17 months on the job. He is leaving by “mutual agreement,” the Chicago Sun-Times reports. In all likelihood, however, he saw the writing on the wall (the mayor was pissed off) and, like a good capitalist soldier, took a dive for the team.

Brizard had been handpicked by Emanuel to push through the his corporate education agenda, including the massive conversion of public schools into private charters, the unilateral imposition of a longer workday without commensurate pay, evaluations based on student test scores and merit pay. The teachers, not surprisingly, resisted, launching the city’s first teacher strike in 25 years and successfully rolled back some of these reforms. In short, Brizard failed the mayor and made him look the fool.

Brizard will be replaced by Barbara Byrd-Bennett, a former teacher, principal and Cleveland schools CEO. She had also been filling in as Chicago’s interim chief education officer for the past six months, helping to negotiate the deal with the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) that ultimately got the teachers to return to the classroom. The final terms of Brizard’s departure have not yet been disclosed, but are expected to include a year’s salary of $250,000, according to the Sun-Times.

The Chicago Tribune reports that business leaders told Brizard that the mayor would blame him if the struggle with the CTU got out of hand (i.e., not crushed quickly with a decisive victory for CPS). Not only did Brizard fail in this, but he enraged the mayor by going on a family vacation just prior to the strike and he was absent during much of the contract negotiations. The teachers’ ability to spin the strike as a struggle against standardized testing and privatization was certainly an embarrassment to the mayor and he likely blamed this on Brizard, as well.

Byrd-Bennett is not planning on filling the position she vacated to become CEO and is expected to serve both roles, thus consolidating her power and sending the message to the teachers that her rule will be autocratic and decisive. This is important for CPS and Emanuel, as many teachers are already grousing about the rotten deal they got with their new contract (e.g., the raise doesn’t cover the extra hours they’re being required to work and 25% of their evaluations will now be based on unreliable and inconsistent student test data). Furthermore, the district has been withholding pay from teachers who participated in the strike and it is doing little about the dilapidated facilities, including many schools that lack air conditioning. The new contract also gives principals greater leeway in hiring outsiders and ignoring the pool of recently laid off CTU members.

The last thing Emanuel wants is a renewed strike or an escalation of discontent. Yet he is setting the teachers up for this with his new pension plan (see accompanying article below), which would cut benefits, delay the retirement age and increase employee contributions, thus further eroding teachers’ take-home pay and living standards.

Chicago Teachers Penalized by CPS and CTU

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Teachers who participated in the recent 10-day strike in Chicago saw smaller October 5 paychecks. Some received no pay at all. Yet the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), which did not extend strike benefits to the teachers, continued to collect full dues from them, according to the WSWS.

While many hailed the strike as a victory, noting that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) dropped its demand for merit pay and did give the teachers a raise, the new contract accepts student test scores as a substantial portion of teachers’ evaluations. Considering that these test scores have little to do with teacher quality and that they provide unreliable and inconsistent data, they have no place at all in teacher evaluations. The new contract also accepts a longer school day without compensating teachers fully for the extra time they will be required to work.

According to the WSWS, the CTU told members they “will pay a temporary penalty this week . . . For now, however, they will continue their sacrifice in defense of quality public education, as they draw from the savings they set aside in preparation for the strike.” The CTU also told members they “may” be eligible for personal loans from the United Credit Union. During the strike, instead of offering strike pay, the union’s parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), offered low-interest loans.

It is noteworthy that the Chicago teachers went on strike at all and that they were initially opposing the corporate reform agenda, including merit pay and the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers. It was particularly significant because unions have all but given up labor actions such as strikes as a means of achieving their goals, focusing more and more on lobbying and political campaign funding, which are far more expensive and less effective than job actions. It is interesting, but sad, to observe that the AFT was unwilling to support the Chicago strike or to use members’ dues to provide strike pay, yet they readily coughed up $31 million on electoral campaigns last year.

Report Calls for More Teacher Support and Less Testing

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

If California wants to improve student academic performance, it needs to emphasize recruiting, educating and retaining teachers, according to a new report by a state task force, the Los Angeles Times reported on September 9. The task force also rejected making any links between teacher evaluations and students’ standardized test scores.

This latter finding is particularly salient in light of the recent Chicago teachers’ strike, in which the union (CTU) aggressively resisted attempts by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to require a substantial portion of teachers’ evaluations be based on such test scores. Disturbingly, just days before this study was released, the CTA (the state’s largest teachers union) and state legislators agreed on an evaluation “reform” bill that would require student performance data be used to evaluate teachers. The agreement does not exclude the use of student standardized test scores, though it does give local bargaining units the right to collectively bargain what portion of teachers’ evaluations, if any, will be based on the scores, thus opening the way for many more battles like the one in Chicago.

While the task force’s findings regarding teacher recruitment and training make a lot of sense, the state has been moving in the opposite direction through budget cuts that have forced districts to slash or freeze wages, add furloughs, increase class sizes, decrease benefits, increase workloads, and numerous other “stopgaps.” These may help close budget deficits, but they also reduce the ability to recruit and retain the best quality teachers by deteriorating their working conditions and remuneration.

The Task Force, which was created by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing, was co-chaired by Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond and included researchers, academics, elected officials, district officials, labor leaders, parents, teachers and principals. Its report repeatedly emphasized that more and better support for teachers was needed throughout their careers, not only to improve their effectiveness, but to decrease attrition and improve recruiting potential. It also called for new laws that would ensure schools have “expert principals who provide support for instruction, time for collaboration and planning, collaborative leadership, reasonable class sizes, a trusting collegial environment and involvement in decision-making at the school.”

Many principals are already doing some of these things. However, the collaboration time is often taken up with unproven snake oil reforms and pet projects of district administrators that are imposed on teachers, rather than allowing teachers themselves to decide how to collaborate. Furthermore, to really be effective, teachers need more than an hour or two per month, which seems to be the norm in the districts that have built-in collaboration time.

Teachers’ Working Conditions are Students’ Learning Conditions

While all of the above factors would dramatically improve the working conditions for teachers, improve their status, and decrease their job stress, they would also vastly improve the quality of education for children. For example, the report called for smaller class sizes, noting this is in the best interests of the students. Fewer students decreases the workload for teachers by decreasing the number of assignments to read and grade, giving them more time to provide meaningful feedback on the ones they do assign. Fewer students allow teachers more time to provide one on one attention to children during class time. Smaller classes are easier to manage, allowing teachers to better monitor and intervene in the case of accidents, injuries, teasing or disruptive behavior, thus improving safety.

Despite these obvious advantages of smaller class sizes, most districts have been increasing class sizes due to budget cuts that have forced them to lay off teachers. Additionally, the task force noted that lower salary school districts had 20% larger class sizes on average than higher salary districts, again highlighting the positive correlation between teachers’ pay and working conditions and students’ learning conditions.

With respect to test scores, the task force was not simply buckling to pressure by teachers unions or the influence of the teachers on the task force. Rather, its report identified studies showing that student test data, when used to evaluate teachers, produce results that “are very unreliable and often inaccurate at the individual teacher level.” Yet when pundits, business leaders, philanthropists and politicians like Obama, Arne Duncan and Rahm Emanuel demand that evaluations include such unreliable or meaningless data, they not only demean teachers and undermine their status as professionals, thus harming districts’ ability to attract and retain the best teachers, but they force districts into the untenable position of having to layoff teachers en masse, thus harming students and districts’ very existence. In Chicago, for example, CTU president Karen Lewis has argued that the new evaluation system Emanuel wants to impose on teachers could result in 6,000 teachers, or 30% of the entire teaching staff, could lose their jobs over the next two years.

Chicago Teachers Vote to Continue Strike

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) House of Delegates voted Sunday to reject the latest contract proposal and continue their strike, in a challenge to both the leadership of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the leadership of their own union, who had negotiated the tentative agreement.

The leadership of CTU is seen by many as a progressive, fighting leadership, willing to go toe to toe with their powerful parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), led by Randi Weingarten, as well as powerful Democratic Party leaders like Rahm Emanuel and even President Obama. Indeed, the CTU leadership challenged all of these individuals with their initial rejection of the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers.

Yet their most recent compromise tentative contract agreement with CPS sold their members out by permitting student test data to account for as much as 30% of teachers’ evaluations, the WSWS reported today. Any use of student test data is unacceptable, even as little as 1%, because student test data is an unreliable and inconsistent proxy for teacher ability. It can lead to false positives and false negatives, and result in good teachers getting bad reviews and possibly even laid off as a result.

The tentative agreement also gives principals considerable discretion over hiring, eviscerating recall rights for recently laid off teachers, while also slashing layoff benefits in half. (The details of agreement were released Sunday evening).

Bargaining teams and unions often justify compromises with bosses or legislators that harm former or future employees, arguing that their role is to protect the interests of their existing dues-paying members. Not only does this strategy lack compassion, it is also stupid since it undermines the union’s own power. Thousands more Chicago teachers will be laid off in the next five years under the city’s plan to shut down up to 120 schools, resulting in fewer union members. Of those who get rehired by one of the 60 new privately-run charter schools slated to open in that time, most, if not all, will lose union representation.

In an indication of just how far the CTU leadership is willing to go to end the strike and make peace with the bosses, CTU President Karen Lewis plans to force through another vote on the same tentative agreement this Tuesday, without engaging in any further negotiations with CPS. This implies that she intends to ignore the delegates’ concerns and criticisms of the tentative agreement and pressure them to vote against their members’ own interests. She is counting on mounting criticism by the press and the threat of fines and jail to coerce delegates into accepting a bad deal.

Mayor Emanuel responded to the rejection vote by threatening court action against the teachers. According to the WSWS, he said he would “not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union,” implying that both CPS and the union leadership are the only reasonable parties in the dispute, while the House of Delegates and general membership are crazy for rejecting the tentative agreement. His threat to obtain a court injunction against the teachers suggests that he has lost faith in CTU President Karen Lewis’ ability to keep her members in line.

Emanuel has called the strike illegal (teachers in Illinois can strike on wage issues, but not evaluations) and a threat to the safety of children. This latter argument is particularly cynical considering the district has done little to repair dilapidated facilities and broken air conditioning or to reduce class sizes to a safe and healthy level. He has overseen and encouraged school closures that have only exacerbated staffing and class size problems, thus jeopardizing the safety of children.

His argument that the strike is illegal is only partly true. They are striking over wages, and they happen to be unwilling to make any compromises on that issue as long as the district plays hardball on other working conditions and safety matters.

The issue of the strike’s legality has much broader significance. The ruling class can take away workers’ rights any time they think they can get away with it, as they did in Wisconsin and continue to attempt throughout the nation. Workers’ power lies entirely in their ability to withhold their labor, not in making alliances and compromises with politicians, particularly considering that the politicians are members of the ruling class and have far more in common with other wealthy members of the ruling elite than they do with workers.

Not long ago, unions had no legal standing and any strike could be declared illegal. Workers were often imprisoned, beaten or killed for participating in strikes, yet they continued to use this tactic and win improvements in working conditions. Workers today have the choice to disobey unjust laws and resist oppressive demands by their bosses or continue to see their wages and working conditions deteriorate.

Unions today, however, have a great distaste for strikes and the risks they entail. There have been very few large teacher strikes in the last few decades. The CTU strike is unique in this respect. Still, the CTU leadership has an interest in ending the strike quickly. The leaders do not want to spend time in jail or receive fines or lose their status and influence. They do not want to challenge unjust laws or corporate giveaways or the district’s “right” to shut down schools and give them away to private charter school operators, even if these undermine the union’s power in the long term. Furthermore, they do not want to burn their bridges with their allies in the Democratic Party or their parent organization, the AFT, even if that means accepting less power as a result of privatization and layoffs.

Chicago Teachers, Just Say No

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) are were very near a deal by the end of last week. Last minute negotiating today, it is hoped, will lead to a compromise that both sides can accept, allowing teachers and students back in the classroom by Monday. The 800 members of the CTU House of Delegates would have to approve the contract and then teachers would have to ratify it.

The details of the proposal have not yet been made public, but speculation by the mainstream press suggest that it will include the use of student test data in teacher evaluations, but these scores will not count as much toward teachers’ overall scores as CPS had hoped. If this is true, then it is a terrible contract and Chicago teachers should just say no to it.

The test scores are an inconsistent and unreliable proxy for teacher quality. They lead to many false positives and false negatives (also see here, for more on the unreliability of Value Added models). Teachers who are doing everything right in the classroom can still have students who do not progress sufficiently in their test scores, which are correlated far more strongly with students’ socioeconomic backgrounds than with their teachers (see here, here and here). Furthermore, any use of test scores to evaluate teachers will encourage teaching to the test, while also giving tacit approval to the state’s wrongheaded mania for testing.

For all of these reasons, teachers unions across the nation must oppose the use of high stakes tests, period. They are virtually worthless as a tool for assessing teachers and they are destructive of the learning process for children.

The Chicago Strike and the Rebirth (or Death) of Unionism

The current Chicago teachers strike is the first major teachers strike in years. Indeed, there have been few major strikes in any industry over the past decade, with a general trend of declining job actions and union membership over the past thirty years and a corresponding downward spiral in wages and living conditions. In Michigan, for example, there were 454 teacher strikes between 1967 and 1980 (an average of 35 per year), resulting in substantial wages gains, but only 18 per year in the 1980s, according to William Boyd, David Plank, and Gary Sykes. The National Educators Association (NEA) has lost over 100,000 members since 2010.

In contrast, during the post-World War II era, strikes were common in the U.S. In the period from 1945-1946, 400,000 miners and 750,000 steel workers went on strike in the largest strike wave in U.S. history. At one point during this period there were 1.6 million workers simultaneously on strike. By the end of the year, more than 4.5 million workers had engaged in strike actions. (Sources: Daily Kos, New York Times, Marxists.org, Counter Punch). The Chicago strike is the largest strike in the past year.

The “death” of unionism, or its declining membership and influence, is generally blamed on union busting politicians (e.g., Scott Walker, Wisconsin, or Reagan’s mass firing of the PATCO air traffic controllers), or outsourcing and downsizing by the bosses, (which reduce the number of union jobs and thus the number of unionized workers). Indeed, the Taft-Hartley Act (1947), which made the General Strike illegal, was a serious blow to workers’ power (there hasn’t been an effective General Strike in the U.S. since then). However, another major cause is the unions themselves, which have, for the most part, relinquished their most powerful weapon—withholding labor—in exchange for increasing reliance on political action (e.g., lobbying, initiatives, phone-banking for candidates) and behind-the-scenes deals with the bosses.

It is important to recognize that job actions are a form of direct action in which the workers have direct control over the action, how long to continue, how aggressively to pursue it, and what kinds of compromises (if any) to accept. Political action, in contrast, requires that they give up their power and control to second and third parties. The union bosses, not the rank and file, generally determine which campaigns and candidates to support, even though the campaigns are funded with the dues paid by the rank and file. Once a candidate has been chosen, it is not a sure thing that that candidate will win and, even if he does, there is no guarantee he will do anything the union wants. In fact, because the politicians’ interests are more closely aligned with those of the capitalist class, it is unlikely the politicians will do much at all in support of workers other than a few modest reforms that allow them to maintain social and economic hegemony and continue reaping huge profits.

One particularly refreshing aspect of the CTU strike is that teachers are not just fighting for increased pay (which they certainly deserve). They are also fighting against deplorable working conditions (dilapidated and unsafe facilities, large class sizes, inadequate health and social services for their students) and an abusive evaluation system which would cause teachers to be laid off en masse because their students’ test scores didn’t rise sufficiently. And they are engaging in this fight even though the president of their parent union, Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers, has cut deals with politicians to allow similar evaluation “reforms” in other school districts.

Likewise, the fight against using student standardized tests to evaluate teachers is a direct challenge to the Obama Administration, which has been pushing for similar “reforms” across the nation, and to the leadership of both the NEA and AFT, which both gave early support to Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, despite his support of high stakes exams, privatization and charter schools.

Strikes are, of course, a risky endeavor. If you lose, you could find yourself worse off than before or even jobless. They are difficult to organize and maintain (e.g., strike funds generally cannot sustain workers for long; scabs might be brought in to do the work and keep the system functioning, thus undermining the effects of walking off the job). Public sentiment can be manipulated to oppose the workers and support the bosses’ goals.

This is particularly challenging for those in the “helping” fields, like teachers and nurses, where walking off the job can easily be spun to seem like a selfish and greedy act that harms their constituents (i.e., students and patients). Indeed, many in the “helping” fields, particularly teachers, see themselves first as advocates and benefactors for their students and only secondarily, if at all, as workers. This tendency makes it very hard to get teachers to walk off the job and it leads many to accept declining pay, benefits and working conditions so long as the bosses claim these concessions are necessary for the wellbeing of the students.

Yet teachers are workers. The overwhelming majority rely on their paychecks to put food on the table for their families. They do not go to work solely because they want to help children, though this may be why they teach rather than something else. Teachers, like all workers, necessarily have an adversarial relationship with their bosses, even when those bosses seem nice or appear to have similar interests (e.g., the wellbeing of children).

This is because they do not truly have the same interests. For one, the administrators have the power to fire teachers and to impose demands on them. Teachers do not have this power and must make considerable sacrifices and compromises to appease their administrators or risk losing their jobs and the ability to feed their families. Teachers are, like all other workers, dependent on their salaries for their own survival and thus are wage slaves.

Our Working Conditions Are Your Children’s Learning Conditions

• While teachers’ interests often do not coincide with those of their administrators and school boards, they often do coincide with those of their students. Here are just a few:
• Decent pay helps attract and retain the best quality teachers, which is certainly in the best interests of students. While everyone wants to get the best deal for their money, including the taxpayers, one needs to consider the quality they are getting. Better quality almost always costs more. If teachers are not paid a decent wage they will look for work elsewhere.
• Evaluation “reforms” that emphasize using student test data are terrible for kids since the scores have almost no meaningful or consistent correlation with teacher quality. Teachers who work with low income, special education and ELD students tend to get lower average student test scores. According to Karen Lewis, president of the CTU, the Chicago plan for making student test scores worth 25% of teachers’ evaluations could result in 6,000 teachers losing their jobs over the next two years. By anyone’s calculations, this would be a disaster for kids. How can CPS find 6,000 highly qualified teachers in two years?
• Smaller class sizes make it easier for teachers to give individualized one on one attention to students. Smaller classes means fewer papers to grade, which means teachers can put more time into each paper, providing more detailed and useful comments. Smaller classes are easier to manage and thus are safer for students. This is particularly important in physical education, science and some of the industrial arts course.

There's a lot at stake for teachers and other workers with the current strike in Chicago. A victory could provide the confidence and momentum for other unions to start resisting the standardized test mania, demanding wage increases, and fighting for better working conditions through job actions. A loss for the CTU would likely lead to even fewer teacher strikes in the future and a further evisceration of the teachers unions.

Chicago Teachers Strike Update

• Support by parents is still fairly strong. A Chicago Sun Times opinion poll on Monday found that nearly half of parents support the teachers, while only 39% oppose the strike. This could change, of course, particularly if the strike drags on and parents are forced to hire babysitters or stay home from work to care for children.
• Custodians plan on joining the strike this week, KOAM TV reported. The more classified (non-credentialed staff) that join the strike, the greater the pressure on the board and CPS and the more likely they are to cave.
• CPS is planning on extending the length of time the 147 scab “Drop off” centers will be open from 4 hours to six starting on Thursday. These schools are being kept open ostensibly to provide lunch and other services for low income students. However, they are staffed with uncredentialed district staff and volunteers from religious organizations who have little or no training in education or childcare. The scabs have been told by CPS (See Fred Klonsky’s Scab Toolkit) to bring pencils, stickers, puzzles, games and magazines (so the kids have something “productive” to do during the day), be firm and respectful to students and don’t yell at them, as well as other useful tidbits of guidance. They have also been told to be prepared for classrooms without A/C or functioning clocks, which ought to make the scabs want to join the strike if only to help teachers fight for safe and functional classrooms for the children.
• Though Illinois law currently prohibits teachers from striking over the recall of laid-off teachers and compensation for a longer school year, CTU does not intend to sign an agreement until these matters are addressed, according to union president, Karen Lewis.
• Jesse Jackson tried to mediate today, but gave up, claiming both sides were too "dug in" to even "hear each other," which is to say he expects the teachers to compromise and believes that CPS has valid or reasonable expectations (which they do not).

Chicago Strike Update

Yesterday, the first day of Chicago’s teacher strike, 35,000 teachers and their supporters (including hundreds of students) picketed in front of their schools and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) headquarters. 578 schools held pickets, according to “On The Line,” the CTU’s strike website. Today, CTU asked all members to picket at one of the 144 school sites that CPS is trying to keep open. These sites are being run by people from the district office, with scab support from members of religious organizations.

What are the Issues?

1. The proposed contract put forth by CPS provides a nominal pay increase that does not adequately compensate teachers for the extra work required by the implementation of the Common Core Standards (CCS) and the new evaluation system, let alone cover the cost of inflation. Furthermore, CPS is not offering sufficient teacher training to implement the new curriculum, forcing the teachers to do all the training on their own and at their own expense.
2. A new evaluation system is being imposed from the top down that is based heavily (25%) on student standardized test scores. This system could result in 6,000 layoffs over the next two years, causing a severe teacher shortage and the loss of thousands of excellent teachers.  Student test data correlates very weakly with teacher ability and even then it is only consistent when averaged over three years and only for teachers at the extremes of quality (the very best and the very worst). For the majority of teachers the data is inconsistent and meaningless. If used yearly or every two years it would likewise lead to inaccurate results, causing many good teachers to get bad reviews and some mediocre teachers to get good ones.]
3. The contract provides no additional resources for the health and safety of the children. The board has disregarded teacher concerns about air-conditioning and inadequate staffing levels. It should be remembered that 750 people died from dehydration and heat stroke during the Chicago heat wave of 1988. Some Chicago teachers have documented classroom temperatures soaring into the 90s.
4.  A fair recall procedure needs to be codified in the new contract so that teachers who were laid off over the past few years get rehired to cover the longer school day. CPS imposed a 90 minute longer school day and backed off demands that existing teachers work those extra 90 minutes without compensation. Instead, they agreed to rehire laid off teachers, but have yet to propose a fair and reasonable system for doing this.

Why the Chicago Teachers Strike Should Matter to You

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) were pretty close to agreement on salaries. CPS backed down on forcing teachers to work an additional 90 minutes without pay, agreeing to rehire laid off teachers to cover the extra time in the school day. The remaining big negotiable issue is evaluations, with CPS demanding that student standardized test scores be a significant factor.

This is terrible for both teachers and students. Student test scores depend far more on students’ socioeconomic backgrounds and other factors outside of school than on teacher skill. Furthermore, even the small influence teachers have on student test data is difficult to measure accurately and requires three or more consecutive years of data to provide consistent results. And even then, the data is only reliable for teachers at the extremes (i.e., very poor and superb teachers). Results are unreliable for the vast majority, who fall somewhere in the middle. Thus, the use of such data will likely result in many good teachers getting bad reviews and being laid off, which is both unfair to them and their students. Many mediocre or incompetent teachers, likewise, could slip through the cracks, particularly if the data is used yearly, instead of every three years.

Many teachers unions have already caved in to similar demands to use student test data to evaluate teachers. Randi Weingarten, head of the AFT, has helped broker deals in which student test scores play a significant role in teachers’ evaluations. The CTA has embraced a deal in California that requires student performance data be used to evaluate teachers, in a sellout compromise they have called a victory because the locals get to collectively bargain how such data will be used (but not whether such data will be used). Therefore, it is inspiring that the CTU has taken on this fight, when its brethren across the nation have given in.

CTU is also asking for smaller class sizes, another battle that many unions have long since given up. In California, classes of 35 or more have become the norm. In Chicago, teachers have been demanding reductions down to 23. It is perplexing why anyone would think that a class of 35 is acceptable, safe or good for children, yet it has not only become the new normal, but some districts have tried to increase class sizes well above this (e.g. Detroit’s financial manager imposed a contract allowing class sizes of 61).

A loss for Chicago teachers will embolden districts and states throughout the U.S. to mandate that student test data be used to evaluate teachers. Indeed, it is already a part of Obama’s education plan and a carrot for those states hoping to win one of his Race to the Trough grants. Similarly, a loss in Chicago could harm teachers in other regions fighting for smaller class sizes.

The battle lines have been drawn and the teachers have some powerful enemies. The Obama administration not only has strong ties to the Chicago establishment, but also has large stake in tying student test data to teacher evaluations. Obama cannot afford to lose this fight, as it will make him look weak on education and labor. Furthermore, he has already taken the union vote for granted and the unions have, for the most part, embraced his candidacy, despite his numerous anti-labor policies. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who some see as a future presidential candidate, likewise has a lot riding on this struggle. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is already coming down hard on the CTU and attempting to connect Obama with the selfish, greedy teachers, essentially egging him on to intervene on behalf of Emanuel and the Chicago school board.

According to KPFA (Letters and Politics, 9/10/12), CPS has already enlisted scabs. In this case, members of religious organizations were volunteering to work at some of the 140 schools that remained open for low income students to take advantage of the free and reduced lunch program. While this could be seen as merciful to low income students it is also an indication of the readiness of some to sabotage the wellbeing of the majority of students (and teachers) for the illusion of helping the needy. Indeed, some teachers are calling these schools holding pens, which is essentially what they are since they do not have credentialed or trained teachers and the students are not getting any type of meaningful education. They are basically fed and corralled there for half a day to make the district look like it has things under control.

Chicago Teachers Strike is On

The Chicago teachers strike is officially on, with thousands of teachers walking off the job today in Chicago’s first teacher strike in 25 years. It is also the first major American teacher strike in years.

The stakes are high for all sides. In some ways, the strike is a test case for the labor movement, particularly among public sector workers. A loss for the teachers would motivate anti-union officials across the country to increase their attacks on public sector workers, giving them the confidence that the unions are just too weak to mount an effective counterattack. There is also a lot at stake for Democrats, particularly Obama, as the strike is in his old stomping grounds. Republicans would certainly take advantage of a teacher victory to claim that Obama and Rahm’s education and labor policies have been a disaster.

Emanuel called the strike “wrong, avoidable and unnecessary,” according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Of course the strike would be unnecessary if CPS had bargained in good faith, offered a decent raise, lowered class sizes, and abandoned their abusive evaluation policy. However, considering the district’s recalcitrance, the strike is not wrong for teachers or students. Low pay and abuse evaluation systems will drive away the best teachers, thus harming students, while the overwhelming majority of studies indicate that students benefit from smaller class sizes.

The new teacher evaluation system relies heavily on student test scores, something that measure students’ knowledge and test taking abilities, not teachers’ skill in the classroom. The test scores are influenced far more by factors external to school (e.g., students’ socioeconomic backgrounds) than by teachers. CTU President Karen Lewis said the new evaluation system could cause 6,000 teachers to lose their jobs over the next 2 years. Many critics have accused the district of implementing the system to get rid of its most experienced and highest paid teachers in order to save money and weed out its most vocal opponents.

Most Chicago schools were closed, but the district vowed to keep 140 open to provide food for low income students in need. The police chief vowed to take officers off of “desk duty” and place them out at the schools, to “protect” the children and to “deal” with teacher protests.

Chicago Teachers to Strike on Sep 10

Chicago Public Schools has made another offer to the Chicago Teachers Union and the union has rejected it, saying that the strike set for September 10 is still on, according to the Chicago Sun Times.

CPS have moved away from their demand that raises be linked to merit pay, a small concession to the union. However, they are still only offering 2%, which is not enough to keep up with inflation and rising health care costs. Thus, even with a "raise" on paper, the teachers would be accepting declining take-home pay and spending power in the long run. CPS is also still holding strong to their plan to end step increases for experience.

Chicago Teacher Strike Deadline Set

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Last Wednesday, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) House of Delegates gave President Karen Lewis authority to issue a 10-day strike notice. 90% of all CTU teachers (and 98% of those who voted) approved a strike back in June. According to Illinois state law, the union must also give the school board a 10 day notice before walking out.

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has been trying to lengthen the school day from 5 hours and 45 minutes to seven and a half hours, while also trying to close a $655 million budget deficit that is expected to reach $1 billion by next year, according to the New York Times. Initially, CPS tried to impose the longer workday on teachers without compensation, a ridiculous demand that has since been toned down. CPS agreed in July to fill the void created by the longer school day by rehiring laid off teachers, instead of making existing teachers work longer without pay. However, the union is still concerned about wages, job security, evaluations and other issues like smaller class sizes and increasing the number of social workers, counselors and nurses, reports Labor Notes. Much of this seems unlikely with the district slashing programs in hopes of closing their budget deficit.

CPS has also been bargaining in bad faith by violating the existing contract while new contract negotiations continue. For example, they have forced some teachers to take on extra duties during their prep periods, according to Labor Notes, which is a violation of their contract.

A CTU strike would be the city’s first teacher strike in 25 years. A strike date has not yet been set, but the soonest they could legally call for a strike would be September 10. Some teachers, whose school year had not yet started, have already been out on the picket line engaging in informational picketing in front of their schools. The school board, for its part, has taken the typical tact of bosses by approving $25 million for “alternative” arrangements, should a strike occur. Ironically, this $25 million, which will likely go to scabs, could have gone a long way toward closing the gap between teachers’ demands and those of the district.

Chicago Teacher Strike Looming?

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Students begin classes Monday at the roughly one-third of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) that are on a year-round schedule. Meanwhile, Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) president Karen Lewis is saying that a resolution of contract negotiations before then is virtually impossible, the Chicago Sun Times reported on Friday. Lewis went on to say that they hadn’t even started talks on compensation because they have been focusing on the smaller items during their 41 bargaining sessions. CTU is warning all teachers to prepare for a strike, as contract resolution may still not occur by September, when the rest of the schools are set to open.

A work stoppage on Monday would necessarily be a wildcat strike, however, as the union is required to give a 10-day warning to CPS and they have been forbidden from striking before August 18.

CTU is not going to sanction an illegal strike, especially with an interim deal still on the table. The interim deal would include the much touted longer school day for students, but not for teachers. This would require the hiring of many more teachers and bring many of the recently laid-off teachers back to the classroom.

The deal was a smart move by CPS, which has been demanding numerous concessions from the teachers. The longer work day may have been the most onerous of these concessions, as the district was demanding a 90-minute longer work day from teachers without extra compensation. It was also an easy one to give up (at least for the short-term), as an arbitrator recommended the district give a 20% raise for the longer hours. Thus, the district can spin itself as being reasonable and fair. It is hoping this compromise will convince teachers to accept the other concessions and avoid a strike—not an unreasonable expectation considering how averse to strikes teachers and especially unions have become.

One of these other concessions is CPS’ demand that student test scores be used in teachers’ evaluations and job security, something all teachers should oppose as the scores are unreliable and correlate much more strongly with students’ socioeconomic backgrounds than with teacher skill (see here, here and here).

Arbitrator Recommends 20% Raise, CTU Likely To Reject

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) imposed a longer school day on teachers in violation of their contract. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) demanded a 30% raise over the course of the next two years to compensate their members for all the extra work. An arbitrator has recommended that CPS increase teachers’ salaries by 15-20% for the first year of the new contract (the Chicago Tribune reported today), which both sides are likely to reject since the only way CPS can afford to do this is by laying off teachers and increasing class sizes. (CPS has a $665 million deficit next school year that will deplete its cash reserves).

CPS originally offered a 2% raise for working a 20% longer day. In January, CTU took a strike authorization vote in response. The Chicago Tribune article has implied that CTU now has the difficult task of convincing its members to reject a raise that is ten times greater than CPS had offered.

Yet what is so difficult about it? The plan would lead to mass layoffs and who wants to lose their job, particularly with the job market still in such terrible shape? It would lead to larger class sizes and probably a decline in course offerings, as well. This would not only cause teachers’ working days to be longer, but it would force them to do considerably more work per hour, as they would have increases in student interactions, assignments and tests to grade, and parent contacts. It would also be terrible for students, as they would get less one-on-one attention from their teachers and more canned assignments, while safety would be compromised by having too many students sharing lab and shop equipment. Teachers care passionately about their students’ safety, wellbeing and learning environment, often making large personal sacrifices to improve these things. Few teachers will voluntarily accept larger class sizes.

While the arbitrator’s recommendation is nonbinding, both sides must consider and accept the recommendation to move forward. If either side rejects the raise, they must still continue to hold talks for another 30 days before a strike can legally occur.

Members of the consortium of private businesses and district administrators that crafted the longer school day “reform” had insisted on having an arbitrator involved in the process, assuming that an arbitrator would necessarily sympathize with their perspective. Ironically, many now feel betrayed.

CPS has suggested that the arbitrator has ignored the fiscal reality of the district (i.e., the $665 million deficit). Yet CPS does not have to go forward with its plan to lengthen the school day. This is, in fact, the only simple way to resolve the conflict. Dumping its plan to unilaterally impose a longer work day and returning to the status quo would end the district’s attempt to eviscerate the teachers’ contract (which requires negotiation and mutual agreement on increases to the work day). It would also end the district’s attempt to force its employees to work these longer hours for a negligible stipend (i.e., 2% raise for 20% longer hours).

If they push through the longer school day with only a 2% raise, a strike will be the teachers’ best option and one that would hopefully be supported by mass support and solidarity by other educators and workers as the struggle has deep implication for all workers.

Forcing people to work 20% longer while providing only 2% more in compensation is tantamount to forced servitude—teachers would be working 18% more without any compensation at all. While most workers in the U.S., including teachers, have been experiencing increasing workloads and productivity as their real wages have declined, this would be a disturbing escalation in that trend. All a public sector employer would have to do to justify unpaid labor is to say it’s in the public interest and the money for compensation is not available.

It is also union busting, plain and simple. If the city of Chicago can impose longer working hours on teachers in violation of their contract, then their contract is virtually worthless and could easily be violated in numerous other ways, too.

Chicago Teacher Strike Vote Today

Chicago teachers are taking a strike vote today. While the vote will not necessarily lead to a strike, it is the next step required before a union-sanctioned and legal strike may begin. It is also likely to pass, as strike votes are generally preceded by straw polls to gauge members’ readiness for a strike.

A strike is also the necessary and correct next step for Chicago teachers, who are being required by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to work a 20% longer day for only 2% more in wages, according to ABC news. CPS also wants to bring in merit pay, larger class sizes and 60 new charter schools over the next five years, which would dramatically weaken the union as charter schools are rarely unionized.

The teachers’ contract ends this month. The results of the vote are expected by the end of the week. If successful, a strike action could begin at the beginning of the fall, 2012 school year. The last major teachers’ strike in Chicago was in 1987.