As CPS prepares to close a record number of schools, the fate of students and communities is in question.
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Quinn signs bills to make Illinois competitive in Race to the Top
Governor Pat Quinn signed two education bills into law Friday that stand to make Illinois more competitive for the Race to the Top grant, just weeks before the first application is due. Illinois, competing for as much as $500 million of a $4.3 billion pot, now will require school districts to work with their unions around teacher and principal evaluation and to allow non-profits to offer alternative teacher certification programs.
Governor Pat Quinn signed two education bills into law Friday in an effort to make Illinois more competitive for the Race to the Top grant, just weeks before the first application is due.
Illinois, competing for as much as $500 million of a $4.3 billion pot, now will require school districts to work with their union around teacher and principal evaluation and to allow non-profits to offer alternative teacher certification programs.
The teacher evaluation piece is controversial as it sets the stage for at least a part of teacher evaluation to be based on student achievement.
Quinn signed the bill at Wells Community High School surrounded by education advocates. They were enthusiastic about the new laws.
“Illinois has been weaker in the ‘great teachers and leaders’ area of the criteria that the government is looking for,” said Fuzz Hogan, director of communications for the advocacy group Advance Illinois. “This legislation will make Illinois stronger in this category because of the union participation. There will be a statewide unity in education organizations that other states won’t have.”
State senators James Meeks of Chicago and Kimberley Lightford of Maywood joined the governor and spoke of the need to rise to the challenge for that the Obama administration has set forth.
Legislators and organization representatives focused their remarks on confidence in the state’s Race to the Top bid, but added that regardless of whether the state receives funding, the two new laws will greatly improve the state’s schools.
“The state needs an enforceable accountability system for teachers,” said Janel Forde, director of stimulus programs for CPS. “Even if we don’t get the money, this legislation is very important.
Wells Academy Principal Ernesto Matias said that it is extremely important for teachers and administrators to be held accountable for providing quality education to local children. He also supports the legalization of non-profit organization’s certification programs.
“Teachers come from all over,” Matias said. “It doesn’t matter if they followed a traditional path or a different option in getting their certificate. What matters is their commitment and passion for educating the kids.”
Dominique Baser is an intern for Catalyst Chicago.
Quinn signs bills to make Illinois competitive in Race to the To
I agree that everyone should be held accountable but I would like to see legislation making the principal and higher administrators accountable too. If teachers are going to be held accountable for student's test scores then principals need to be held accountable for school-wide scores and the Board needs to be held accountable for system-wide scores. If teachers can lose their job if students don't improve then principals should lose their job if the school doesn't improve and the Board should lose their jobs if the system-wide scores don't improve. After all, accountability should start at the top. Likewise, if the Union wants to support this legislation then they should share the accountability and there should be some accountability (maybe a % of their salary) if scores in the schools that they are working with don't improve. Students' progress is affected by many things--home life, instruction, community problems, etc. and the teacher should not be alone with accountability.
Quinn signs bills to make Illinois competitive in Race to the To
Catalyst
Can you identify these laws by name/number so that readers may find them online?
Quinn signs bills to make Illinois competitive in Race to the To
Check out Senate Bills 315 and 616
Quinn signs bills to make Illinois competitive in Race to the To
Don't forget that students learn the most when they have minimal vacation. Year round schooling (with short breaks, obviously) allows students to learn more, forget less, and do better in testing. CPS goes to school 180 out of 365 days (49.3%) where Asian countries go to school 240 days (65.7%). Is there any doubt why the United States is at the bottom of education?
Screw the unions. Hire new teachers, or teachers who are willing to leave the union. My union isn't even a year old and I already hate what it has done to the school community. If anyone in the teachers' union gives a single iota of care about students, they will recognize what needs to be done. I'm guessing that most teachers DO care and the CTU is run by and supported by loud mouths who don't care.
Times have changed. The unions can adapt or get out.
Quinn signs bills to make Illinois competitive in Race to the To
don't forget,
you're such an appeaser giving in to teacher demands for salaries and time off! i recommend you continue your fight for what's right by calling for a new paradigm in education:
- teachers must be volunteers and work for no pay (only those who truly care will do it, weeding out the greedy undesirables)
- teachers will work 12 hours a day, seven days a week (vacation time diminishes student learning, after all)
you can start by working in accordance with the above rules to protest the current system imposed by those nasty unions. IF YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT STUDENTS, then you'll jump at this opportunity.
Quinn signs bills to make Illinois competitive in Race to the To
Yeah... see... The way you write and speak, it's obvious you aren't recognizing the real problem at hand: extremists.
No one is asking teachers to volunteer or to work 12 hour days or to sleep in the school under their desks. Your outrageous reply shows that you, like anyone who is a giant union supporter, will take the extreme, rather than seeing a moderate, common sense approach. Replacing a 2 month summer vacation with 4 or 5 small 2-3 week breaks does not require the teachers to work any longer or harder. It is better for the students and better for learning, and easier for teaching.
If YOU really cared about the students, you'd recognize that it is ridiculous to put 400,000+ students at the mercy of the CTU and its 32,000 teachers (including people who are RETIRED!). The students deserve better and the CTU won't allow them to have better.
It's an outrage. Everyone else has to face the fear of unemployment or cut salaries -- except teachers. Instead, teachers can wreck havoc on hundreds of thousands of students every year if there isn't a proper salary increase. Their collective selfishness penalizes the students. It needs to stop.
Quinn signs bills to make Illinois competitive in Race to the To
The union basher(s) is/are incredibly uninformed.
First of all, students in year-round schools do not go to school year-round. "Don't forget" doesn't seem to get this, since he/she/it brings up Asian schools going 240 days per year. (If you want to lengthen the school year by 33-1/3%, then you should be willing to pay school taxes that are 33-1/3% higher.)
Second, research on the effectiveness of year-round schooling is inconclusive and contradictory. Often the reason for going to a year-round schedule is overcrowding, not increased learning. At any rate, students in year-round schools perform no better than those in traditional schools.
"Paradigm shift" isn't an extremist. S/he is just saying that people who expect teachers to work longer hours and more days without a commensurate increase in their salary should be willing to do the same, too.
Further, you should know that Chicago has a good number of year-round schools (more than 150). The teachers at those schools are Chicago Teachers Union members. The CTU supports year-round schools, just as it supports traditional schools.
Not all teachers want to work in year-round schools. (I, for one.) And many parents do not want their children in year-round schools. Yet, there are plenty of options for those teachers and parents who do, and the Mayor has indicated he wants to see even more year-round schools next year.
I'm not sure what has brought about your hateful teacher- and union-bashing speech. Try and be a better person.
Quinn signs bills to make Illinois competitive in Race to the To
I've written 2 posts on this, and I'm actually NOT an uninformed person. In my reply, I specifically mentioned you can break down the school year into chunks, with small breaks. I've worked at a year-round school and it was a fantastic situation for students. Yes, I'm a teacher. Yes, I'm a union member (unfortunately). I find the union to be crippling to the students. Had my small network of schools been run by competent individuals who didn't treat the teachers like dirt, there would never have been a need to unionize. Unfortunately, now the new administration is not able to make any decisions without the handful of union supporters (everyone else realized what a bad mistake it was) freaking out and screaming at the principal in the middle of professional development activities, or running to call the lawyer.
I really believed that by unionizing, we'd be able to better help our students by protecting our jobs, sanity, and ultimately the students' education. But now that the deed is done, it's obvious what the goal was: money. Everyone got a pay raise, a substantial one. But nothing has been done to better the learning environment. The extra money is nice, but I would have rather seen everyone's pay raise to go the students.
It has nothing to do with being a "union basher". Just simply someone who understands the major repercussion of what a union does to the learning environment.
Quinn signs bills to make Illinois competitive in Race to the To
you should donate your pay raise to the students then. go for it! it's the right thing to do.
Quinn signs bills to make Illinois competitive in Race to the To
Wow,
Thanks for your thoughts. I'm intrigued by your perspective. I'm a Union teacher in a neighborhood school and I feel similar frustrations. I know I can win the daily battle for education with my students. But my trouble doesn't come from my Union (though they are idiots just the same). The crippling inadequacies I see are created by the Board of Education and our state legislators are where my frustrations lie, not with my Union:
a) class sizes in the 40s (an issue state legislators barred from the bargaining table only for District 299),
b) a seriously crumbling infrastructure (holes in the floor, no a/c, no heat, major leaks),
c) lack of instructional space (I teach a class in a hallway),
d) poor technology availability,
e) minimal to no funding for teachers to run after school programs,
f) mandated curricula (unfunded),
g) not enough security to even cover all of our floors/hallways,
h) selective enrollment schools (magnets and charters) damaging neighborhood school learning communities,
i) wildly disproportionate funding for charters and Ren2010 schools,
j) etc., etc., etc.
I empathize with your small network of schools being run by incompetent individuals who treat teachers like dirt. In an ideal world employees wouldn't have to deal with that junk. I too wish a Union wasn't necessary. But I've learned some things by reading through the Contract between the CTU and the Board. It was enlightening. (We should be very clear that it is an Agreement - not a set of conditions forced upon CPS by the Union.) The contract is full of amazing tidbits. For example...
More than once the Agreement calls for the Board to provide various types of employees with chairs and desks. Now why do you suppose those articles exist? They exist because the Board refused to provide chairs and desks to these employees. Seriously. Or - the contract requires telephone access for counselors and truant officers. Why is that in the contract? They weren't getting it. Or - teachers are to be paid equal amounts every two weeks on extended pay. Guess what? CPS wasn't paying people regularly or accurately. (Of course this one's even been a huge problem the last two years despite contractual requirements.) Or - duplicating machines shall be made available. Really? Teachers need to duplicate materials? Pretty basic stuff, huh?
I often wish my Union was not necessary and I understand your frustration. But Union's do not just pop up out of the blue for no good reason. Unions are created in response to direct mismanagement, intentional misconduct, and employer abuse. When is the last time you heard of a Union being created at a company that treated its employees really, really well and handled its professional responsibilities accordingly? I can't think of one. As much as I hate to admit it, as much as I dislike my Union, as much as I love my students, as much as I believe teaching in the city is extremely important, every year I'm in the classroom it becomes more and more clear to me that there are few corporate management teams as incompetent as CPS.
Quinn signs bills to make Illinois competitive in Race to the To
Arne Duncan and his sad self are Bribing States into signing onto his regressive requisites before getting the money. Anaheim School District told Arne where to go!
Advance Illinois is a canard. Teacher bashing is part of their schtick. Blame the quality of teachers. If Advance Illinois had any integrity, they would close shop! It is incredulous to hear these Advance Illinois folks who are so far from the classroom make suggestions without hitting hard on the people who are the leaders. Without strong, honest and knowledgeable leadership the larger organization cannot function as best as it could. Daley should be called out by Advance Illinois for not hiring the best possible person to run CPS. Huberman is far from the answer and it shows. Why doesn't Advance Illinois call out Daley for a blunder that is digging CPS into a bigger hole. You don't hire a Huberman who has no experience running a school district. He can't lead since he hasn't earned it. Huberman is making things up as he goes under the umbrella of innovative business strategies (Performance Mangagement) Funny, how Huberman doesn't put himself and his Performance Management team under the microscope. Huberman should not be running to privatization experts but looking at high performing school districts and seeing what they are doing.
http://www.srnleads.org/press/prs/nsdc_profdev.html
Advance Illinois has NO Integrity! Until they have the courage to call out Daley and the Governor (Blago did the worst to ISBE) on getting real with education by hiring the best and brightest WITH experience on running a state School Board and Chicago School District 299 and by putting money into supporting schools as professional organizations instead of pouring good money after bad.
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