Even as CPS opens more new schools, children with special needs have a tougher time finding options. Placements in private therapeutic schools are scarce, and some charters are reluctant to enroll them.
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Huberman moves to lay off 'unsatisfactory' teachers first
By: Sarah Karp and Rebecca Harris / June 23, 2010
At today's meeting, school board members passed a resolution to lay off teachers based on performance, instead of
seniority.
At today's meeting, school board members passed a resolution to lay off teachers based on performance, instead of
seniority.
The move signals even greater challenges for Chicago Teachers Union president-elect Karen Lewis, whose members are already facing up to 2,700 teacher layoffs and class sizes of up to 35 students due to a $427 million budget deficit.
Under the new layoff plan, teachers who are under remediation, and those with job performance ratings of “unsatisfactory,” would be first to go. After that, layoffs would happen according to the seniority rules laid out in the teachers’ contract.
The language in the resolution states that the policy is changing “to comply with Illinois School Code.” It cites a 15-year-old section of the law that requires that “[layoff] criteria shall take into account factors, including but not limited to, qualifications, certification, experience, performance ratings or evaluations, and any other factors relating to an employee’s job performance.”
At a press conference before the board meeting, Huberman said the small number of teachers—only about 3 percent—who are rated unsatisfactory on their evaluations should be the first to go. “We have to do the best by our students,” he said.
However, he admitted that the school code is in “conflict” with the union contract, which calls for layoffs based on seniority. He said he believes state law takes precedent.
Lewis maintains that the move is illegal, and said at the board meeting that it is “diametrically opposed” to the process required by the current union contract.
Her group, the Caucus of Rank and File Educators, stated in a press release that “Illinois School Code Section 24-12 is crystal clear: the order of dismissal of teachers for budgetary reasons must be done according to tenure unless another method is established in conjunction with the union.”
But, she said, it is not clear whether the union has the right to strike over the issue. “I haven’t talked to the lawyers,” she said. “[But the layoffs] don’t need to occur, period. We can find the money [in other district expenditures].”
Faced with parents and teachers who cried and pleaded while demanding that budget cuts be shifted away from teachers, Huberman also emphasized that the layoffs are not a sure thing. “To the degree that the state puts money back in the budget, we are going to be in better shape,” he said.
Yet, changes in several of today’s agenda items may lend credibility to Lewis’ argument that more cuts can be made outside the classroom. Officials withdrew a plan to increase school computer equipment expenditures by $20 million, as well as a $1.1 million agreement to have the University of Chicago train teams of school administrators. They also nixed about $385,000 worth of consulting contracts.
It happened “in part based on feedback we had from the public,” board president Mary Richardson-Lowry said after the vote.
Earlier in the meeting, the speakers who castigated the board for its spending proposals included Katherine Hogan, a teacher at Social Justice High School. She said that the cuts would disproportionately affect small schools, and that her school was expected to lose one-third of its teachers.
“Would you purchase more fire detectors, after you’d just fired all the firefighters?” she said. “Would you purchase test equipment for planes in the military after you’d just fired the pilots to fly them?... We are cutting 2,700 chances of resiliency in kids.”
Huberman moves to lay off 'unsatisfactory' teachers first
Powerful letter to policy Makers and Teachers by Dr. Tim Tyson ( an excerpt)
When I became a teacher, and later a school administrator, I did so in a time and in several working environments that valued, even celebrated more than just cognitive achievement and skill building. I was so blessed to have had the opportunity to invest my best efforts in places that placed at least as much value on taking care of people, of being empathetic, of empowering others to flourish. I alluded briefly to this in the Middle School Journal last year. The middle school movement in the United States as well as the emphasis on a Liberal Arts education places at least as much importance on developing the whole person as preparing each person for gainful employment. What a rich heritage from which public education comes.
But times have changed. The corporate business model which formerly placed great value on taking care of dedicated employees (pensions, retirements, health insurance) has given way to a punishing eye on the bottom line with outsourcing to cheaper labor markets. Customer services has gone the way of advertising slogans and PR campaigns. The one thing that matters above all else isn't empathy or social justice but is margins.
To my great concern, I have seen the impact of this market place mentality driven solely by profits, by numbers, take needless, high stakes risks with our earth and with the people who live on it. This singular and systematic way of thinking, this razor sharp focus on the bottom line, on data, on margins has strangled our hearts, has crushed our emotive resonance, has debilitated our capacity for empathy. This new way of being has, like a cancer, eaten away our humanity.
http://drtimtyson.com/blog/archives/2010/06/an_open_letter_to_americas_e...
Huberman moves to lay off bad teachers first
Teachers, parents and all concern bodies may need to walk out or boycott CPS on the 2nd month after school begins. Let's see if Huberman can find 30,000 teachers to cover classrooms.
Huberman moves to lay off bad teachers first
By any metrics, he is making it up as he goes along. Huberman and his PM crew can't look at teachers in the eye because they have no clue. This is not a rant, since in a larger area meeting a couple months back, his head data jockey said they have not done school reform. Yes, it shows!
Huberman moves to lay off 'unsatisfactory' teachers first
Where do you propose the money for 30,000 teachers will come from? The tax payers' pockets?
Huberman moves to lay off 'unsatisfactory' teachers first
Open up the books. Even with a crises, there is a lot of money going into CPS. We need to know where ALL the money is going. The politicians can rejigger the TIF funding to bring dollars that should be rightly spent in the neighborhood schools. The TIF books and process should be opened up to the public since it is supposed to serve the public good in one way or another.
Huberman moves to lay off 'unsatisfactory' teachers first
It never fails that people can't keep the main thing the main thing. I ABSOLUTELY 1000% support firing the unsatisfactory teachers first. Number one, we're talking about 200 teachers - but more importantly, if you're in CPS, and managed to get an UnSatisfactory, you definitely should not be working with children. Unsatisfactory means that you are harming children.
The Union better not use MY dues to protect the same teachers, who in my school, disrupt the educational process, and then tell me that they are trying to protect me.
Tenure has caused too many good teachers to lose their jobs just because someone else has been there 5 billion years and refuses to retire. Let us all say good riddance! The UNION better know where to stand on this - and that is behind the good teachers in this district who are doing their jobs!
.
All teachers have the right to due process according to our contract, state law and federal law.
Juan Gardner for example is probably going to get Federal prison time for perjury in a termination case for providing false documents and lying to a federal judge.
I have worked with teachers (who won their jobs back) and have documents that show corruption and criminal conduct by administrators to falsify official records to illegally dismiss tenured "unsatisfactory" teachers. After winning their jobs back they are still not working because CPS refuses to comply with the State hearing officer's findings, in violation of our contract and IELRA.
Any-time you want to read the 240 page ruling (this does not include the 1000+ pages of testimony and evidence) just email me and I will provide it to you.
John Kugler
kuglerjohn@comcast.net
Defendant Gardner's apparent fabrication of evidence and submission of a false declaration, which this Court relied on in ruling on Plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction. (See 181, Mem. Op. & Order at 29-30.) Defendant Gardner's response to the rule to show cause (R. 184) essentially offers no direct response to this serious issue, and instead directs the Court to certain deposition testimony that was reviewed prior to the issuance of the show cause order. Upon review, the Court finds it necessary to refer this matter to the U.S. Attorney for investigation and any other action he deems appropriate in connection with Defendant Gardner's possible violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1623.
BRYANT v. GARDNER, et al., Defendants(CPS)
No. 07 C 5909
587 F. Supp. 2d 951
Huberman moves to lay off 'unsatisfactory' teachers first
It sounds good on paper...and I agree unsatisfactory teachers should be fired. But I know teachers whose files were found EMPTY when the new principal came to the building. The old principal was put on leave for "possible fraud". The teachers couldnt even get an evualuation becuase CPS didnt truste the old prinicpal.
Are we to believe his or her evalulations? Some of these principals are criminals!!!! Letting some of these princpals be trusted to making "unbiased evaluations" would be like letteing Adolf Hitler do character evaluations. I am not kidding!
I know a teacher whow was AWESOME for lack of a better word who was let go because of a hidden agenda by this same principal!!
I know people whose evalauations were lowered due to "test scores" when their TEST scores were the most imporved in the school!!!
ITS ALL SICK!
BTW who evaluates huberman???
Huberman moves to lay off 'unsatisfactory' teachers first
I the "teacher" troll never read the Ox Bow Incident in high school. Huberman's vigilante injustice is sickening.
Huberman moves to lay off 'unsatisfactory' teachers first
What if you are the victim of a tyrannical first year principal who is trying to run teachers out to fill their openings with friends and supporters? What if you had several years of superior ratings and your first year principal, who gets to rate you whatever they want, visits your classroom for twenty minutes and gives you an unsatisfactory, not based on anything pertaining to the children or teaching, but because you disagreed with their lack of honesty and morality in running your school? Who will determine if the ratings are even fair, honest, and appropriate? Huberman needs to consider more than just a rating when determining who to put on the chopping block. And why are there still $100K jobs still listed on the HR website for board positions? Just does not make sense.
Huberman moves to lay off 'unsatisfactory' teachers first
about-getting rid of the older, expereinced and successfull teachers. These Harvard types come from 6 week summer programs and then are told what to do by Hubie's minions and follow like sheep. The teachers and students suffer and LSCs are snowed by these new principal promises.
Huberman moves to lay off 'unsatisfactory' teachers first
What if you're a student in one of these teachers classrooms? Very few teachers get unsatisfactory - it is hard to believe that 198 of the 200 are victims of vicious administrators.
I have faith in administrators to evaluate just like the public has faith in teachers to give students grades. None of us should ever go down the road of making blanket statements about a group's professional judgment. If we can't trust administrators, then we can't trust teachers.
Just like the blanket statements on here about administrators - the same thing can be said about the way teachers treat students - giving grades and failing students for how much they like them or based on stereotypes that they have about those students.
Go down a productive road - not a destructive one.
Huberman moves to lay off "unsatisfactory" teachers first
Principals, who are paid handsomely, I might add, must follow clearly laid out administrative procedures when seeking to improve the performance of teachers who are deemed to be "unsatisfactory" when using CPS evaluative criteria. These teachers are then given the opportunity to improve those areas of weakness within specified time frames. These administrative procedures might appear to the uninformed to be measures designed only to protect teachers who are not doing their jobs. However, having been employed by the Chicago Board of Education for close to twenty years I've witnessed vindictive, arbitrary, irresponsible behavior by incompetent principals whose ratings of teachers have more to do with personal vendettas than an objective assessment of an individual's performance in the classroom. Even though I've received a "Superior" rating every year except my first, when I received an "Excellent" rating, I'm sure glad that Article 39-5 of the Contract exists because who never know who the next principal through the front door may be. After all, I am a CTU delegate and fodder for easily threatened, inexperienced principals.
If there are teachers within the CPS system with "unsatisfactory" ratings undergoing remediative procedures, the Board of Education has signed a legally binding document, the Contract, containing Article 39-5, which clearly lays out for the principals and other administrators, procedures and time frames to be followed. The Contract is a legal document signed by the Chicago Board of Education and The Chicago Teachers Union. As with all contracts, interested parties were given ample time to review all Articles carefully before the Contract become legally binding on July1, 2007.
Principals need to do their jobs and not perpetuate the myth that their hands are tied when it comes to getting rid of “unsatisfactory" teachers. Principals get paid a lot of money. They need to get out of their offices and become actively involved in what is happening in each and every classroom in their schools. But, understand, before a principal can recognize a "superior" teacher when he see one, he probably had to be one himself. Hmmmm.......
Huberman moves to lay off 'unsatisfactory' teachers first
This whole layoff mess and bunching 35 kids into a classroom is a scam by Mr. Huberman and the Mayor. They are dealing under the table. Chicago has messes p pension money; so they are firing old teachers and the retirement age for new teachers has been raised to 67. We all know that the new stock of teachers can't handle these disruptive children like the old battle axes. They are a wiser group; but they are also a weaker group. That 's lke having the new Principals who run away from discipline. Walk around all day with a book in their hands to report on performance; and the children are taking over the schools; the teachers aren't allowed to teach. Well, the schools are really going to be buck wild. New Principals; new teachers; 35 kids in the classroom. What will you have. A BIGGER disaster. More crime. Now all attention has directed to schools; and bad teachers. What about bad crime and all the shootings EVERY day in Chicago. Bad police? Are they being fired by having more seniority. Why all the picking on Chicago teachers. Ah Ha. It's Chicago used the pension money that the teachers let them slide on; and when it came time to pay; they have used it on something else; again. Maybe a new Bean downtown. The young inexperienced person who is messing everything up is Mr. Huberman. He needs to resign. He is from one bright idea to another. Whatever is dictated to him; he says it. I could not believe he walked off the stage the other day without answering those questions. And whatever the Chicago Board of Education says go; they announce; the Chicago Board of Education has just voted to let Mr.Huberman not let teacher's be laid off by seniority. The Chicago Board of Education has just voted to let Mr. Huberman fire teachers without paying them. The Board of education is working this as if it is a Department store or something; that DOES not have a union. Now you tell me that is not dirty dealing. There is a Union. There is a contract. until 2012. Teachers held off striking to pass this contract that was agree on by the Mayor. Now he is turning his back on his word. Guess what? When election time comes; he can count the Chicago teachers out. And young teachers please know your health won't let you work in those classrooms until yu are age 67. You could never make it. 35 kids. This is a BIG MESS. In the near future; Chicago will be looking for teachers. Who wants to work in a city infested with crime. Clean up the city and the schools so people CAN teach.
Huberman moves to lay off 'unsatisfactory' teachers first
All this money being charged for parking on the streets and at the beaches. Parents please add this onto placing 35 of your children into classrooms. You pay enough in this city to not let the Mayor use you and deem to child to not have a less stressed education; because he is balancing money owed teachers by his own faults. Yes a new car looks better; but if ;you hit it with a ball; it will dent faster than an older made car. That's the quality of older made teachers. Better stock. Look at it. They are trading quality for saving themselves money. That is the bottom line. Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes. Do you remember how a few months ago the Mayor was bragging about his teachers. And now. The older teachers are the worse ones in the country. States are not trying to cheat teachers out of their contracts. This slick Mayor sets an example of how to do crime. I forgot what about all that crime his family members has been caught up in; and now you don't hear anything else about it. Does he run this town legally. Seems like he dictates strange things and people enforce them. The Chicago Teachers have a Contract until 2012. A Contract is just that. The Mayor agreed to it in 2007. It is good until 2012.
Huberman moves to lay off 'unsatisfactory' teachers first
At my school; we have a new Principal. Why should I be one to be laid off and The Principal is putting $430,000 .00 into new Technology. Can he just freshly come into the school 3 months ago, and during a Budget Crisis ; get rid of teachers; bunch the kids into classrooms; and spend all this money on Smart Boards; Touch I pods; and new computers when this money could be spent on saving teacher's jobs and rooms to educate the students. He has a Technology Dream. Mr. Huberman should direct his new Principals to also not be spending all of this budget money on technology in his school. The Budget Crisis should be dealt with first. Teachers are under pressure because they know the technology dream should be on the back burner at a time like this. Hopefully some of that $20 million not being spent toward technology was some of the money that Principal was going to use. This Principal will deem his staff unsatisfactory; because he doesn't seem to be compassionate with his staff. Just wanted to get in there; and now he's building this big Technology Empire. If teachers doing laud computer technology and Touch Ipods; he becomes very angry with the staff. Please reevaluate technology purchases at some of these schools with new Principals during the budget crisis and layoff of teachers.
Huberman?
What really did happen to Huberman? I dont get it? He came in for like a 2 years....made everyone upset then he just left mid year after all his "Children first' comments? This to me is the epitomy of CPS policy. Come in and not finish your job? And who was he replaced with...someone who didnt finish his job in Rochester? Can some explain:
a) Where is huberman?
b) Is brizzard goign to be on the same schedule?
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