As CPS prepares to close a record number of schools, the fate of students and communities is in question.
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As teachers cast votes, CPS wants access to ballots
By: Rebecca Harris and Sarah Karp / June 06, 2012
As Wednesday’s strike authorization vote began, a battle began brewing between the district and the Chicago Teachers Union over the voting process itself.
CEO Jean- Claude Brizard’s team asked the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board to issue an emergency order to have the union secure election material and provide the IELRB and the district access to them. The district wants 20 different pieces of material from a copy of the ballot to the “educational flyer provided to each member explaining the reasons for the strike authorization vote” to information on the messenger services retained to deliver ballot boxes.
In a letter to the IELRB, district lawyers argue that because Senate Bill 7 sets out a process for how a strike should occur, the labor relations board has the power to monitor it.
“We want to make sure there is integrity in the process,” Brizard said.
CTU President Karen Lewis countered that CPS has no right to the material. Union officials already said they planned to have local clergy observe the vote-counting and will preserve the ballots.
“They are fishing, and we don’t participate in fishing expeditions,” said Lewis. She and other union officials made high-profile appearances at their former schools to cast their ballots.
A spokeswoman for the labor board said both the Chicago Teachers Union and CPS had filed documents with the board in recent days, but she declined to make them available without a Freedom of Information Act request. Law firms for the parties involved did not respond to requests to release additional documents.
The conflict underscores the importance of the strike authorization vote and the high stakes of the outcome. Brizard walked a fine line on Wednesday, saying that on one hand, regardless of the results, CPS and CTU will continue negotiating toward the goal of reaching an agreement before school starts in the fall.
But Brizard also emphatically argued that teachers should delay the vote and allow an independent fact-finder to issue a report on July 16.
“Teachers are being asked to vote on inaccurate information,” he said. “This is a serious process.”
He added that teachers only get one vote. Once teachers authorize to strike, they can’t reverse that decision, added spokeswoman Becky Carroll. (The vote, however, does not require the union to call a strike.)
Lewis and other union officials countered that the new process for calling a strike and requiring 75 percent approval makes it critical that the vote take place before school lets out for the summer. Once teachers disperse for the vacation, it would be difficult to get enough members to participate, union officials said.
Lewis said Wednesday morning she was confident that she can get enough members to authorize the strike. Showing the union can reach that threshold and that a strike threat is real will speed up the negotiation process, not thwart it as Brizard has maintained, she said.
“We want to get there [and reach a contract settlement] before August 27. We don’t want to wait till then,” she said.
Out in schools
Early Wednesday morning, Lewis went to King High School to cast her ballot. Lewis, who taught at King before taking the helm of the CTU, was greeted with hugs from students, teachers and even the police officer stationed at the school.
Throughout the morning, King’s teachers unceremoniously picked up their ballots in the main office, filled them out, stuffed them in envelopes and went back to their classes. Students were taking finals on Wednesday.
Many of the teachers wore red shirts to show their support for the union. Social studies teacher Andrew Lambert had donned a blue shirt, but said he did vote to authorize a strike. “I am young and didn’t do the laundry,” he said. “I think that this vote is more important for young teachers because we have to live with the consequences for our entire career.”
Still, it was unclear whether King would get 100 percent participation or approval this first day. David Robbins, one of the union delegates, said that 59 of 70 members of the staff participated in a survey last month that was meant to be a dry run for the vote: 56 of 59 responded that they thought the union should reject the existing CPS contract offer.
Robbins said there’s a mix of reasons why people might sit out a vote, which essentially will mean they are casting a “No” vote.
But at other schools, delegates expected 100 percent of union members to vote in favor of the strike. CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey appeared at Senn High School at 7:30 a.m. to cast his vote and talk with teachers. “People said, ‘What are you doing here? This building’s 100 percent (in favor). Go somewhere they need your help,’ ” he said.
At Ray School in Hyde Park, teachers were eager to cast their ballots. By 8:30, all but 15 of 60 teachers had already done so. Teachers also contributed to a pot-luck breakfast, and a table nearby was heavy with donuts, coffee and other treats.
Union delegate John Cusiack said he expects everyone will authorize the strike.
Like other teachers interviewed on Wednesday, he said that the overall direction of CPS, and education reform generally, is what teachers are voting against. He said he is against efforts such as firing tenured teachers and replacing them with new staff, which happens in turnaround schools.
“In some schools they have done that several times and it is still no different,” he said.
Therese Wasik, who is retiring from Ray this year, said she was glad she got a chance to vote. Her first year in the district, she worked one day and then went on strike. She said she remembers being nervous that her job wasn’t safe. Because she’s retiring, she has no such concerns.
“I have been in the union for more than 30 years and I know what I would want if I were here,” she said.
At Gale Elementary in Rogers Park, Head Start teacher Maxine Gladney – who has been with the district since 1968 – said that CPS’ treatment of veteran teachers had persuaded her to vote for the strike authorization.
“It’s something we should be doing, or we’re going to end up like Wisconsin, like a lot of other places, and we’re going to have nobody to protect us,” Gladney said. “We are blamed for things we are not responsible for, decisions [CPS] makes that are not up to us.”
Joseph Hill, a special education teacher, said that he supports the vote as well. “We are the only city employees that are asked to work longer for free,” he said.
He is not optimistic that a vote will pressure CPS to cave in to the union’s demands. “They’re not going to give us a pay raise. We’re just going to need to go on strike,” he added.
But parent volunteer Tameka Leonard, who has three children at Gale, said she was unhappy about the vote. “I think it’s too early to be talking about a strike. It’s summer break. You’ve still got time to negotiate,” she said.
And, she noted, she’s pleased with Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s initiative to extend the school day because of the number of kids she sees running around the neighborhood with nothing to do after school.
[Photos by Marc Monaghan]
sb7
They should have crafted all these demands into SB7 when they had the chance. The law simply states 75% of all membership. Now Brizzard wants another layer! Brizzard....doesn't he realize it's more than the money? We are sick of being treated like robots! We never asked for 30% raise. We just want our 4% you owe us and some consideration or compensation for working 20% more each day.
Rahm and Brizbo have been bashing and making our lives difficult from DAY ONE. Now they think we are being unfair????????????/
Chicago
I know people talk of CPS being like Aprartheid. However, Brizzards attitude and tactics are starting to sound like Gdanks back in the Polish Communist Days (Allow trade unions that are controled by the state). Now what sens does this make???? really rahm......you are leaving Brizzard to do your dirty work while you use soviet style tactics!!
Brizzard is slowly falling apart.......
Brizzard has got on my last nerve with the daily emails and warnings that the CTU is all wrong. Jerk sit down!! His begging amd pleading makes him look extremely weak. He's nothing but a puppet and Rham has his hand right up Brizzards a$$. What's really funny is his pilgrimage to the south side today. Why are so many of the ads and propoganda directed at the black communities?? Even the black radio stations were inundated with radio ads. He'd better watch the northside, that's where the real shocker is going to come from.
Oh yeah, did I say Becky Carrol was an idiot??
"Once teachers authorize to strike, they can’t reverse that decision," added spokeswoman Becky Carroll. Duhhhhh!! Please fire her!!
one for the books...
The APPOINTED school board requests information about the efficacy of our VOTING to AUTHORIZE a strike... really? Can someone explain democracy in action to Brizard and the other appointees? Can we go into private session please!
The Appointed School Board
Urbanteach makes what I think is a central point--the School Board in Chicago is appointed. This is very undemocratic and should be changed ASAP! Are Boards elsewhere appointed?
CEO Brizard, Thank you for sharing your concerns about the
upcoming CTU strike authorization vote. I think a teacher perspective may help you better understand why we will overwhelming vote yes to the authorization this week.
Though you often tell me how much you respect me and how much you support me, Board policies and CPS contract proposals do neither. If I felt respected and supported, in actions not words, if the thousands of other CTU members felt respected and supported, we would be at a very different place in our relationship, wouldn't we. Unfortunately, the fact that you feel that you and CPS respect and support teachers and staff only serves to highlight how massively disconnected CPS leadership and the Board of Education are from classroom teachers, career service personnel, and the students we serve every day.
When my CEO cannot be bothered to attend a single session in negotiations, a process for which dozens of teachers and career service employees have gladly volunteered, I do not feel respected or supported.
When selective enrollment schools serving 1% of CPS students receive 24% of TIF funding spent on schools and I work in a neighborhood school, I do not feel respected or supported.
When CPS contract proposals indicate that experience, education, and training are unimportant or even undesirable, I do not feel respected or supported.
When 4% of my pay is taken (for the rest of my career - not just for one year) even though the Board budgeted for it, I do not feel respected or supported.
When charter schools dump their least desirable and least successful students into my neighborhood school, I do not feel respected or supported.
When CPS attempts to mandate a scripted curricula that has nothing to do with the needs of my students, I do not feel respected or supported.
When CPS closes 100 schools since the start of my career with threats to close 100 more, I do not feel respected or supported.
When privatized, non-union charter schools receive a disproportionate share of CPS capital funds and I work in a neighborhood school, I do not feel respected or supported.
When entire swaths of the city of Chicago are left without access to a neighborhood school, I do not feel respected or supported.
When Board policy terminates or pushes out the door thousands of our most valuable and veteran teachers (I'll be one of those some day), I do not feel respected or supported.
When CPS completely ignores my Union's positive agenda and its vision for publicly funded public education (The Schools Chicago's Students Deserve), I do not feel respected or supported.
When CPS takes enormous pension holidays and then complains about later balloon payments required to make up for it, I do not feel respected or supported.
When the Board asks me to invest 15-20% more mandatory hours in exchange for 2% more pay, I do not feel respected or supported. (By the way, a recent U of I study found that Chicago teachers average about 58 hours of work per week.)
When students coming in to my high school have never had the opportunity to take a music class in elementary school, I do not feel respected or supported.
When my field trip request to a CPS sponsored event is rejected by CPS, I do not feel respected or supported. (Yes, this has actually happened.)
When I am paid inaccurately over and over and over again and invest hours and hours into getting it corrected, I do not feel respected or supported.
When CPS has offered teachers for years an embarrasingly meager 250 MB of online storage and a decades old communication and collaboration platform I do not feel respected or supported.
When I cannot access GradeBook or Impact for hours on end, or I wait 13 minutes for a computer to boot up, I do not feel respected or supported.
When wave after wave of unproven education reform initiatives du jour are foisted upon teachers, I do not feel respected or supported.
When the temperatures hit 100 degrees on the third floor of our building at the beginning and end of the school year and over the summer, I do not feel respected or supported.
When the district is so unstable it cannot even keep its most senior leaders in place much less retain outstanding teachers, I do not feel respected or supported.
When grades are due a week before school ends, or we spend days on end on high stakes exams, or when other large portions of learning time are wasted but CPS wants to extend the school day and year without improving it or funding it, I do not feel respected or supported.
When counselors and special education teachers are woefully overworked with caseloads far beyond those recommended by respective professional organizations, I do not feel respected or supported.
When the Board dictates without discussion decisions on important issues like a longer day, a longer year, the number of classes I teach, the number of students I teach, class sizes, narrow test-prep curricula, etc., I do not feel respected or supported.
I am sure other teachers and employees could add on to this short list and make it a long one, but for the sake of brevity I will stop here.
Thank you for your respect and support and for sharing your concerns, but I have no choice but to vote yes. Though I expect to be fired or have my school closed or turned around or privatized or transformed or whatever else CPS intends to do to neighborhood schools next, I am confident I will still be teaching in CPS long after you and your team have moved on to greener pastures.
Sincerely,
A CPS Teacher
CPS lawyers everywhere and no money for the students-Right!
Turn-about is fair play CPS. You are one nasty bully, undemocratic and when you are not wnning, you flip the table. How dare you think that parents are so stupid that you go ahead and go after the CTU ballots?
You are boardering a mental illness hear.
Meeting to start the process
Meeting to start the process for an ELECTED school board will be Sat. 9th at 10am at Luther Church, 2500 w. Wilson. Sponsored by CODE .
Elected School Board
30-yer vet,
Please explain a bit more about the CODE folks and who they are. Thanks!
Dear Crimanuel and Jean Fraud..........
thank you for uniting us.
CTU
Vote Count and Integrity
CEO Brizard,
I am one of the teachers, clinicians and PSRPs in CPS that you have so much respect for. I am also a CTU delegate and district supervisor. One of my responsibilities as a district supervisor is to count ballots in the strike authorization vote. All district supervisors are CTU members that work in the schools. Again the teachers, clinicians and PSRPs that you have so much respect for.
I find your comment, “We want to make sure there is integrity in the process,” quite insulting. Those of us that counted votes last night took on these leadership roles in our union because we believe in CTU and believe that we are the ones who must hold our union and its leadership accountable to the membership. We do have integrity.
My fellow district supervisors and I are some of the most active and vocal members in CTU. We have supported our leadership but we have also challenged our leadership to remember that CTU is about its members not just four officers.
The vote count last night, observed by several members of the clergy of Chicago, was a clean count. I counted about 1000 votes myself and only 19 of them were no votes. For you to insinuate that we would not report true results by saying the process lacks integrity is disrespectful and insulting to all of us.
Our membership, the teachers, clinicians and PSRPs are sending you a very clear message. We are tired of being disrespected and not being treated as professionals. You should have some integrity and realize the situation for what it really is.
To Teacher/CTU Delegate/District Supervisor
Thank you. I was quite offended myself by Brizard's "integrity" comment, as well as the ongoing mantra (recited ad nauseum) that we don't understand what we are voting about. He says he gets it, but he doesn't get it. Thanks for all of your hard work.
Brizzy and where is rahm
He keeps harping on how he is from a family of teachers....If he loves teaching SOOO much! Why did he go into administration?Is it just me or is RAHM quiet about all this???
So Much for Integrity...
Doesn't having a fair election require you to keep vote tallies secret while the voting process is still going on?
Dear Integrity
The vote is secret. That "district supervisor" above could be an 11 year old kid sitting in Denton, Texas looking for something fun to do after school. One never knows in anonymous-world.
This Strike Authorization Vote
looks as though it is going to pass with flying colors. As a clinician I work south side elementary schools that appear to have voted for the authorization with no dissenters. I predict we'll get close to 90% pro-authorization citywide.
Remember, Rahm is used to telling the president of the United States what to do, so he didn't lose a minute of sleep (until recently) about Karen Lewis and her CTU leadership team. His most important mistake, however, was to underestimate the teachers and support staff of this city, who are sick and tired of platitudes, principals who are not leaders but merely managers, "initiatives" that go nowhere and have no follow-up, and watching children who can and want to learn being neglected for years.
A Letter to Parents
June 6th, 2012
Dear Parents,
I am writing this letter to you to in response to a letter from our CPS CEO, Jean Claude Brizard.
It is true that teachers at this school, and all of CPS, are in the process of voting for a strike authorization. However, I feel the letter from Mr. Brizard is misleading on several points.
First, and foremost, a vote to authorize a strike is NOT a vote to strike. It is a vote to open that option if, and only if, negotiations do not yield a compromise in July. An additional vote will be taken at a later date, once the process of negotiations has progressed, to decide with certainty on the necessity of a strike.
Second, teachers do NOT “want” to strike. When teachers strike, we do not get paid for that time. We lose our benefits. We interrupt what is the primary goal in our profession- continuity of learning.
Why then, the strike authorization vote?
The fact-finding process of our current contract negotiations is only debating monetary issues of compensation. It does not cover other aspects of educational improvement and safety nets we currently have in our contract that would be lost under the board’s proposals.
For example, one of these issues is class size. Currently, our contract sets recommended limits on class size. However, the board would like to remove all language regulating class size. In the past two years, we have had one kindergarten class of thirty-eight and a 4th grade class that began the year (and spent most of the first quarter) with over forty students. The current board says that they do not wish to increase class size, but in the same breath says that there is no correlation between class size and student success. This is not accurate, as smaller class sizes in grades K-3 have been shown to improve student success long term (summary of 80 different research reports). In addition, it is important to note that the administration of CPS has changed three times in the past three years- so what one administration promises might not be what is seen in following years.
The administration likes to dehumanize Chicago teachers as “the Union”; however, you know the teachers being accused of wanting to “harm your children.” They are the teachers that have supported your child through ups and downs, taught students how to respect each other while also teaching core subjects, and celebrated small victories with you while providing concrete ways to improve in the future. Your students recently wrote thank-you cards to their teachers (an 8th grade tradition), and they noted such things as:
• A teacher who taught a student to overcome terrible shyness and begin speaking up and participating in class, growing confidence and a sense of self-worth.
•Teachers that listen to problems caringly and provide a safe space to make mistakes.
•Teachers who taught students to never give up on themselves, and believe that they really could achieve their goals.
If you have any further questions about this debate, or anything else, you are always welcome to contact me directly.
Why are so many of the ads and propaganda directed at the black
Why are so many of the ads and propaganda directed at the black communities??
CPS views the African American community as their base in terms of facilitating charters and moving their privatization scheme forward. They have studied the culture of our people and have implemented a "Willie Lynch" styled education organizing campaign in the African American community. That campaign capitalizes of of an antiquated belief system handed down from generation to generation that African Americans are inferior. Therefore we see the emergence of campaigns on the South and West Sides to Give African American teachers E-3's, unsatisfactory ratings and bring them up on unsubstantiated charges in record numbers.
Yesterday I passed out literature at the House of Delegates meeting. Every delegate that represented schools on the North side indicated that they had NO teachers being E-3rd. However every South and West Side teacher reported several E-3's given out to teachers at their schools. At turn-around schools teachers are being given unsatisfactory ratings so they cannot go into the reassignment pool. since 97 of the 100 turn-around are in the AA community, teachers who are Black, White, and Hispanic ha work in these schools are effected. The sad thing is that even at schools where AA administrators preside, the majority of attacks on teachers are AA teachers even in the AA community.
Since AA teachers are only 19.5% of the teaching force and we lost 1/3 of our force since last year, dropping from 29.6 to 19.5 in one year, we can expect to drop down to 1bout 10-12% NEXT YEAR WITH 16 SCHOOLS CLOSING AND COUNTLESS OF TEACHERS E-3RD. NOW THERE ARE ABOUT 4,630 AA TEACHERS DROPPING FROM 54% OF 16,000 IN THE LATE 90'S. NEXT YEAR WE EXPECT TO BE 2,500 IF WE ARE BLESSED. WITH OVER 90% OF OUR STUDENTS BEING MINORITY AND
Brizard and Rahm know that THE ISSUES OF SELF-HATE AND SELF-LOATHING ARE PROMINENT IN THE AA COMMUNITY. They also know that most people believe that AA's are inferior and that no one will defend "BAD teachers. The problem is that the attack on the African American community is prominent even with children. 76% of the suspensions are AA students. System-Wide on all levels CPS has demonstrated a need to promote a hate filled agenda that capitalizes off of the weaknesses of a community. As CPS merchandises the AA community , using our "at risk" children as a means to make money until they are ready to to be expelled at 16. Then there goes the "Pipeline To Prison" where they will spend the rest of their lives being merchandised for corporate profit in the prisons.
As a parent volunteer for over 20 years , working for 12 years as the presidents of Kenwood, All Ciity- Booster Band Club, raising thousands of dollars to support our students, simultaneously working as a teacher who chose to work with our most difficult population of students, a graduate of the Teachers For Chicago Program and a parent of 4 CPS students and graduates, I have found that there's absolutely nothing that can be done in this Chicago School Community to get respect.
The same cloud of hatred that looms over African American Young men which allows them to be murdered and imprisoned with little fanfare, looms over AA teachers and they find themselves without proper representation and those who are supposed to defend their rights pass it on as not wanting to to associate with "Bad " teachers.
Even the contract language of the new CTU contract proposal fails to highlight the problems with CPS's racist attack on AA teachers. There is a provision in the contract that states that teachers should who are dismissed through "No Fault of their Own" should be allowed to be put back to work. However, there is no provision to address the assault on AA teachers by CPS.
As Reverend Jackson indicated, CPS is operating a system of Apartheid where the rules are different depending on which side of town you work on and the color of your skin. The demonetization of AA teachers is a part of the national agenda spreading through the country via Race To The Top. Corruption, Lies and the unconscionable use our most vulnerable students as witnesses against in their schemes are all part of a corporate sponsored agenda. By the way, the reason why so many educated African Americans ended up in the public sector is because of the racism that existed within the corporate structure, now that corporate America has taken over the public sector, they brought the same hate filled agenda to the public sector that existed for years in the private sector.
Finally, does it surprise me that corporate modeled CPS they have found a community so insecure and unorganized that they can implement a successful "crabs in the barrel" initiative ? The answer is no, they are simply taking their strongest stuff to the weakest community.
Rosita
I know that AA teachers may suffer. However, I have seen Hispanic Admin getting rid of "white" teachers. I have seen a White Admin get rid of Hispanic and AA. I have also seen anti Male Admins too (and they were male). I just saw the sad results of a white teacher being demeaned out of his job! Lets not forget the LOW LOW amount of males in the teaching world. I think it's lower than AA overall!
I think it really stems from CPS giving WAY TOO much power to principals (or maybe forcing them). Now they seem to have more power (or more pressure). Many people at my school have had their ratings lowered, and actually the AA was not affected. It's a mess. CPS is up to something...they are really lowering ratings...I think it's because the new Rating System that rolls out Next Year (Charlotte Danielson) will only be used on Satisfactory and lower ratings to start. Next year they can start the TESTING RESULT machine!
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