As CPS prepares to close a record number of schools, the fate of students and communities is in question.
Join the conversation
We encourage our readers to leave comments and engage in dialogue about our stories. But before you do, please check out our "rules of the road."
Recent Notebook Entries
Right Now On Notebook
By:
By:
Subscribe to catalyst-chicago.org by e-mail
Other Blogs
catalyst-chicago.org feeds
Current Issue
In the News: Karen Lewis' moment in the spotlight
By: Cassandra West / September 20, 2012
CTU President Karen Lewis has emerged "as a union rock star," the Sun-Times says in introducing an exclusive interview with her. Lewis also joined Amy Goodman on "Democracy Now" to talk about the strike, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and what the strike meant for education reform across the country.
"We’ve been micromanaged into doing things that we know are harmful for children," Lewis said.
The state agency that investigates unfair labor practices related to educators issued a complaint against CPS on Wednesday, and a hearing is scheduled next week that could ultimately force the district to pay some raises that teachers expected at the beginning of the school year. (Tribune)
Details are emerging that seem to indicate teachers gained modest concessions during the strike, and actually earned many of the significant wins before the strike began Sept. 10. According to contract summaries from both sides, the union's gains during the strike were incremental improvements from offers already on the table. (Tribune)
The Chicago City Council's Progressive Caucus issued a statement on the CTU's agreement with CPS that said: "We believe that from the very beginning Chicago's teachers wanted what is best for their students and for our schools. Their experience and knowledge should be the basis for future improvements to the Chicago Public School System. They deserve to work in an environment that respects their work as educators helping to ensure that every child has an equal chance to succeed." Eight aldermen signed the statement.
Chicago Public Schools teachers returned to their classrooms Wednesday with pay raises on the horizon after a seven-day strike, but details on how the cash-strapped district would pay for them remained scarce.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he would not rule out a property tax increase to pay for the double-digit raises laid out in a tentative agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union, but he chose to focus on unidentified cost-saving measures that he said would pay for the deal. (Tribune)
How Chicago’s children were educated by the strike. (Diane Ravitch's blog)
Diane Ravitch writes about two visions for Chicago’s schools. (The New York Review of Books)
Chicago students back in class, broader reform issues remain. (PBS Newhour)
IN THE STATE
The Illinois Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit by two homeowners challenging the state’s school funding system. (State School News Service)
IN THE NATION
The United States is increasingly a multiracial society, with white students accounting for just over half of all students in public schools, down from four-fifths in 1970. Yet whites are still largely concentrated in schools with other whites, leaving the largest minority groups — black and Latino students — isolated in classrooms, according to a new analysis of Department of Education data. (The New York Times)
St. Louis schools and union pledge unity for provisional accreditation. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
The Cincinnati school board Wednesday unanimously approved a new teacher evaluation policy that grades teachers on their students' academic growth. (Community Press & Recorder)
Thank you Karen Lewis!
Dear Karen Lewis,
I would like to publicly thank you for whatever role you played in calling attention to the film, DYING TO TEACH: The Killing of Mary Eve Thorson, “Educators Who Bully,” and for providing information on the CTU website regarding its premiere in June of this year. The documentary was based on events which led to the tragic death of an Illinois teacher whom was allegedly bullied by school administrators/educators in district 169. Since the film’s premiere at the Beverly Arts Center, it was also introduced by the Save Our Schools organization at their convention this summer. I would like to think that Mary’s sacrifice for bullied teachers was the catalyst in your decision to fight for an anti-bullying provision in your recent contract. This is wonderful! I am asking that you would take things a step further, and implore teachers to sign the petition asking Congressman Daniel Lipinski to sponsor an Anti-Bullying Bill in Mary Thorson’s name. I believe that this is necessary and proper. Mary left behind a 6 page suicide letter which spoke to the abuse of the teachers, its adverse impact on the children, and the poor condition of the institution. The outcry from teachers throughout the state of Illinois in response to the Chicago Tribune article written about Mary’s death was massive. And, in my research during the making of the film, I found that Mary’s sacrifice touched the lives of teachers in other states. Mary Thorson deserves to be honored by having this Bill in her name…I hope you agree. I am supplying a link to the change.org petition. Congratulations on the Anti-Bullying provision...and thank you Mary Thorson for dying to protect bullied teachers.
Myra Richardson
https://www.change.org/petitions/congressman-sponsor-anti-bullying-bill-...
"Cash strapped" CPS to borrow another $750 million Tuesday
I know your do this stuff about the CPS budget because you don't bother to read the budget, let alone the CAFR, and are lucky to figure out what Tim Cawley's talking about when he launches into the latest Power Point fictionalization on the CPS financial picture, but at least read the Agenda for Tuesday's Board meeting and tell me how a "cash strapped" entity can get away with paying $4 million for privatized building management services and approving the borrowing of another $750 million (without any public meeting of its "Audit and Finance" committee), plus plus plus.
That fairy tale Catalyst repeats about CPS "deficits" (going back now 20 years or so) is not only stupid, but in the present context dangerous.
George
Does cawley still live outside the district
Karen Lewis for Mayor!
Karen should really consider running for mayor. She has shown she is willing to fight what she knows what is right and not just what is right for her. She understands what the everyday citizen has to endure. Karen Lewis running for mayor isn't that far feteched. The former president for the teachers union in New York City is running for mayor after Bloomberg's term is up. I think that's why Rahm felt the need to put out those self serving ads. He realized he might have blown it with a large chunk of the citizens of Chicago who just so happen to be teachers. And police officers. And firefighters. And other union city workers.
Tim Cawley's residence is in Winnetka
Answer: Yes. Real public school teachers can be fired for "residency fraud," and every time a teacher's kid goes to the wrong school, CPS issues a collection notice for thousands of dollars. The CPS "Inspector General" has a simple job: harass teachers and other low level workers in CPS, spy for the bosses, and from time to time go after a principal or higher administrator who gets on the wrong side of the latest iteration of Pharaonic absolutism.
But there is one set of laws for the Plutocrats and their myrmidons and minions, another for the rest of us.
What's been pointed out for a long time is that today's ruling class has made the laws to suit them (and their M&Ms). The mess of the past couple of decades has not been the result of what has been illegal (although delightful, like Bernie Madoff), but what is "legal". Cawley's residency thingy is just a tiny example thereof.
Karen Lewis for Mayor!
A city of public union employees and welfare recipients. Who will she blame? More importantly, who will she tax?
Keep working it CTU. You can have the dream of Chicago all for yourselves.
Really??
Teachers union president/mayor umm just a little difference people!! She needs to run for one thing.. The gym!!
Intellectual Cipher
It is so refreshing to hear such a stimulating, well-argued rebuttal of Karen Lewis's opinions as Anonymous above (Really??) So happy that she/he didn't sink to childish, petty insults. Idiot.
the OIG is supposed to release a statement on TC's
residency in January 2013. Wonder what it willsay?
Really really!!
Well I may be an idiot.. And who is childish? But since you are a big Karen Lewis lover.. Before you start making comments about me sending her to the gym to run.. Maybe you should find out who you are supporting... Making fun of someone's lisp because she can't think of anything else to say is beyond childish.. Go back to the ghetto Karen! Leave the city behind!!
Chicago Mayor Karen Lewis is a scary thought. The union boss has repeatedly demonstrated that the financial welfare of the CTU and its members are her top priority, not students or citizens.
Lewis forced city officials this fall to sign a new contract taxpayers can’t afford by holding the Chicago public education system hostage with a teachers strike. She’s been recorded at education conferences in expletive-laced rants discussing her history of drug abuse and mocking U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s lisp.
Wow!
So you've gone from making comments about her weight to insulting her because she is black! Class act all the way!
Try to focus on actual facts next time rather than insults based on appearances, race and poorly thought out anti-union prejudice.
Anonymous Rudzinski's obsession strikes again
It's kind of fun to watch the cowards who love to be Trolling as "anonymous" and then get their feelings hurt when we out them, but as most regular readers of the Cowards' Blogs (any that take "anonymous") know, the guy who is obsessed with Karen Lewis in that way is Kris Rudzinski, who betrayed his buddies at Orr High School until the collapse of the "small schools" iteration of corporate reform left him out in the cold.
Obviously, Catalyst is going to continue promoting this form of libel by its "anonymous" policy. What amazes me in this Post Petraus era is that anyone with an Internet address can believe he can remain truly "anonymous" this way.
"Making fun of someone's lisp
"Making fun of someone's lisp because she can't think of anything else to say is beyond childish." Apparently, my fellow anon., you didn't understand that Lewis was doing a stand-up routine and that her point was that full-service public school offer speech therapy, which might have assisted Duncan when he was a child. Also, you lived through the '70s, right?
Add your comment