catalyst-chicago.org

First agenda item for new CTU president Karen Lewis: Confront CP

You bet. NCLB as it currently stands will be looking for 100% perfection by 2014. Horray for ill-funded education systems demanding educational perfection! Sounds like a winner to me. That is why education reform in CPS has been soooo effective and successful. I mean, look at those ISAT scores going through the roof for the past 10 or so years.

Following a model like this, the US will be near the bottom of the list of industrialized nations in educational attainment and achievement by 2014, if not sooner.

CORE's Karen Lewis wins CTU election

Yes. I am also positive about this. This proves that the people still have a voice. We are not the downtrodden teachers we have been made out to be!! Please read Sun Times analysis to understand why organization sheets were not revealed until after the election. Marilyn sold us out!!!!

First agenda item for new CTU president Karen Lewis: Confront CP

CORE believes in strength and unity, and "No man is an island, entire of itself: every man is a piece of the continent of the main..." By John Donne

First agenda item for new CTU president Karen Lewis: Confront CP

"We energized the grassroots," he said. "This is something Stewart didn't understand."

Sure, I guess a bunch of public sector white collar professionals with master's degrees still qualifies as grassroots.

First agenda item for new CTU president Karen Lewis: Confront CP

The new president needs to acknowledge that too many of her members are not doing a good or even adequate job of educating the students in front of them, and until they do, the calls for alternatives to regular public schools will get louder. It's true that good teachers are underpaid, but too many of the rank and file are just babysitters, and poor ones at that!

First agenda item for new CTU president Karen Lewis: Confront CP

The press release on the upcoming emergency board meeting states the resolution as such: "Resolutions concerning the Board’s ability to fund contractual wage and salary increases with CPS union members in fiscal year 2011." My read is that the resolution (I have not seen it) will state that the board does not have the ability to pay the salary increase. I could be wrong and I will make the change in the article so that it is more ambiguous.
Of course Danny is right... Karen Lewis is the president-elect. I am sorry if my article was confusing.

First agenda item for new CTU president Karen Lewis: Confront CP

Neighborhood schools are set up to not perform as well as they could. The onus on the problem is that fact that CPS has schools organized using the antiquated "factory model" which not the way high performing school districts organize their school day (with more instructional time) and real embedded time for teacher collaboration, which is about building professional capacity in the organization. Again, it is a serious work place issue. The problem starts at the top. That is what happens when you Daley hires a mediocre ( I am being generous) city hall manager to run a school district. The problem is that the students are paying for the lack of experience and leadership at the top, Daley and Huberman.

First agenda item for new CTU president Karen Lewis: Confront CP

Sarah Karp

The agenda for Tuesday's Board meeting can be found here: http://www.cps.edu/About_CPS/The_Board_of_Education/BoardAgenda/Pages/Up...

I haven't seen the press release. It's certainly possible the PR and the agenda have dissimilar wording.

I think some of the confusion on this matter is the way its worded in the contract. The raises are NOT automatic. The Board must pass the resolution that they have a "reasonable expectation" to be able to afford the raises for them to take effect. If the Board doesn't pass such a resolution, then presumably, the raises would not become effective. Most people assume it works in the reverse.

First agenda item for new CTU president Karen Lewis: Confront CP

Huberman and Daley are committed to paying the raises only because a) they are contractually obligated to do so, and b) CPS is not interested in opening its books to scrutiny if they don't. Providing for the 4% raise and firing thousands will make teachers appear greedy despite the fact that neither firing teachers nor foregoing the raise is necessary. The Board's budget priorities simply do not support the best interests of students. That is what needs to be changed.

Not in the best interest of students:

Firing thousands of teachers
*High stakes testing
*IDS (expensive mandated curricula)
*Leaving communities with NO neighborhood schools
*Poor in-school administrators
*Corporate moguls running the Board of Ed
*Feeding children slop for breakfast and lunch
*Elimination of sports and extracurricular activities
*Cars and chauffers for administrators
*A horrendously restrictive Acceptable Use Policy
*Ineffective, old-technolgy grade and student information software
*The Board deciding not to raise taxes when it could
*Hiring cheap, short-term teachers as a renewable resource (via Teach For America)
*Systematically eliminating veteran and minority educators
*Hiring nearly as many 125 S Clark administrators as are "cut"
*Failure to advocate for spending TIF money on schools
*Providing embarrassingly poor professional development to teachers
*Illegitimate formulas for determining teacher to student ratio
*Allowing massive school overcrowding in many parts of the city
*Firing outstanding veteran teachers en masse in poverty stricken, difficult schools
*Demanding principals reduce suspensions by ignoring the Student Code of Conduct

The list goes on and on...

First agenda item for new CTU president Karen Lewis: Confront CP

me@me.com,

I should have been more clear. There has been a significant reduction in African-American teachers due to the Renaissance 2010 initiative. This shift in the demographic of the workforce may not be intentional, but a disparate impact would be a violation of various laws. That is why the EEOC is looking into it. School closures and turnarounds, while still effecting thousands of teachers, impact a different group of teachers than your school.

The budget cuts are a different story, as you have seen in your building. The teachers laid off due to budget cuts and classroom size increases are relatively new teachers who tend to be caucasian; that is the recent hiring trend in CPS, also due, at least in part, to Ren2010.

Ultimately you are correct - there is a massive purge of teachers taking place all over the city and state. We are all on the chopping block.

17 dollar solution

If teachers gave up 12 dollars a month in salary and every parent gave 12 per student per month in tuition our school would have 66million dollars per year??? Suburban schools ask for it...why cant we? Maybe the union could tighten its belt and allow 12 bucks to be taken off our dues and taken off our paychecks for cps savings and a lot of jobs???

Simple idea? But it would work...no sacrafice from anyone??

400000 students x $17 x 9 months = 60,000,000
40000 teachers x 17 x 9 months =6,000,000

that would = 66 million dollars. this really isnt asking much of anyone???

First agenda item for new CTU president Karen Lewis: Confront CP

i would be careful on any organization that is "connected" to state funding..and CPS...once they get their way with Ren 2010? What will it be Ren 2020? Only fund schools who agree to pay teachers 15 dollars an hour?? Who knows?????

First agenda item for new CTU president Karen Lewis: Confront CP

I was a teacher in CPS for 10 years before I left. The treatment of teachers by some administrators is goes beyond unacceptable, it is inhumane. I agree with Gracey 110%. I hope CORE can make a difference in the working conditions for CPS teachers, they really deserve better.

Trib's Karp

I don't subscribe or read the Trib. Never have. Never will. But I do remember when they had one or two competent ed reporters. I get that Karp was too busy with her own kids and blew it, but the fact that she asks why the Mayor and CPS are willing to fund the raises blows my mind. If her understanding of that provision of the Agreement is so shallow, certainly all her work must be suspect. Unbelievable.

First agenda item for new CTU president Karen Lewis: Confront CP

If there is time and I can get on the speakers list tomorrow Access Living will be making the following statement:

Access Living of Chicago Opposes CPS Amending its Current Policy on Class Size

Presented to the Chicago Board of Education at a Special Meeting Held on June 15, 2010

My name is Rod Estvan and I am the Education Policy Analyst for Access Living of Chicago, which is a disabilities rights organization. I am here today to speak in opposition to Board Report 10-0615-PO1 which allows the CPS CEO at his determination to increase class sizes for regular education classrooms up to 35 students for FY2011 and FY2012. This policy exempts class sizes for self contained special education classrooms which are determined by ISBE Rules and Regulations.

I speak to the adverse impact of this potential increase on students with disabilities who are educated in general education classrooms for the majority of their school day. Increasing the average size of classrooms increases pressure on general education teachers who are often required to modify curriculum for students with disabilities in these classrooms and to improve the academic skills of these students. As members of this Board are aware CPS has signed on to the Illinois Race to the Top application and has agreed to implement very major reforms in how teachers are evaluated, the State has also adopted the Performance Evaluation Reform Act of 2010 ("PERA") (Public Act 96-0861). Both of these development require that at least 50% teacher evaluations rating be based on student growth. Our fear is that general education teachers faced with larger class sizes will concentrate their efforts on remediating students most likely to show growth and hence impact their performance evaluations.

Moreover, we have real concerns over this pressure forcing some students with disabilities into segregated educational settings and reversing positive trends the CPS has experienced over the last ten years. The Individual Education Plan (IEP) for CPS students currently in place are based on the presumption of existing class sizes for the time they are in regular education classrooms. The proposed alteration of the existing class sizes raise real concerns for those of us in the advocacy community as to whether what may take place will constitute a massive violation of existing IEPs.

Access Living fully supports CPS and the State of Illinois in holding teachers accountable for effectively educating students with disabilities, something which has not often been done up to now unless CPS has been litigated against. But it is not just teachers who are accountable, it is the Board of Education which is also accountable for providing the conditions where success and improvement can be realized. The 35 student classroom does not lay the foundation for such success.

Access Living would urge the CPS to look at other alternatives than simply what is stated in the proposed class size policy, which is that unions agree to major contract modifications including eliminating agreed upon salary increases. Among the alternatives not discussed in any presentation up to now, are increasing property taxes to the maximum allowable by law, eliminating the summer bridge program, and radically curtailing expenditures for turnaround programs for several school years. The maximum amount of savings from this class size increase proposal is only $160 million based on power point presentations CPS gave earlier this year, there are other paths to this $160 million savings that CPS has yet to critically examine.

Access Living is fully aware of the State level crisis in education funding. In fact we have worked effectively and collaboratively with CPS in Springfield during the last session of the General Assembly. But at least for now, that well has run dry, and CPS needs to examine all sacred cows, including property taxes to prevent this proposed increase in classroom size. Taking away salary increases from teachers should only be on the table once all other options have been exhausted beyond the budget reductions CPS has already implemented.