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Chicago Teachers Rip 'Big Money Interest Groups'
theodp writes "The striking Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is holding a massive 'Wisconsin-style rally' Saturday as ongoing negotiations try to bring an end to the strike that has put education on hold for 350,000 of the city's schoolchildren. 'The 30,000 teachers, school social workers, clerks, vision and hearing testers, school nurses, teaching assistants, counselors, and other school professionals of the Chicago Teachers Union are standing strong to defend public education from test pushers, privatizers, and a national onslaught of big money interest groups trying to push education back to the days before teachers had unions,' explains the CTU web site. 'Around the country and even the world, our fight is recognized as the front line of resistance to the corporate education agenda.' Some are calling the strike — which has by most accounts centered on salary schedules (CPS salary dataset), teacher performance evaluations, grievance procedures, and which teachers get dibs on new jobs — a push-back to education reform that has possible Presidential election implications. The big winners in the school strike, Bloomberg reports, are the city's largely non-union 100+ charter schools, which remained open throughout the strike. Charter school enrollment swelled to 52,000 students this fall as parents worried by strike rumors sought refuge in schools like those run by the Noble Charter Network, which enjoys the deep-pocket support of many wealthy 'investors.'"
"U.S. Department of Education: 79% of Chicago 8th Graders Not Proficient in Reading." Teacher evaluations are a must. It is time to get rid of the ineffective teachers that are protected by unions.
... Because that worked so well in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, the result of the protests were:
* The teacher's union being flat out broken. The state won.
* A failed recall effort.
* A complete loss of support from many parent for the teachers. Demanding more money when people are struggling is never a hit.
-- $G
Unions have a lot of money and political pull too.
In many ways they have more political pull per dollar. Because the Unions in the US need just as much reform as the business system does.
Why am I paying out of my paycheck to something that will use for political campaigning for a party I may or may not believe in.
That money should be used to pay for a small staff of legal experts, and for operations. The rest of the money should be held to pay for strikers pay during a strike.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
How do you know a teacher is underpaid and overworked? Don't worry, they'll tell you.
Idk how it is your area, but in my state, property owners pay for the bulk of the funding of the schools. My parents have their own house and a rental house, and to pay the property and much larger school tax bill on the rental property alone, they need to collect slightly over 3 months rent a year before they see a penny of revenue. It is not unusual for the school to demand and be handed 10-12 increases in budget each year. Just sustainable over the long term...
Our teachers get paid more than they do, starting at around $40k and going up as much as $120, depending on tenure and degrees - the attainment of higher ones past bachelor's, which once hired, is also paid for. They get a pension after 20-25 years. They get the caddilac of health plans for their entire families. They get a host of sick and vacation days during the year, those days roll over into the next year and so on, and any left over at the end of their career are paid out in full. They have the summers off (mostly) and often attend a conference somewhere which is usually a 1-2 hour a day work excuse in order to go someplace nice paid for by the taxpayer. Oh, and unheard of job security. There's nothing quite so cushy in the private sector for low level employees.
The professors in the local community college, in the same county, get much less than the HS teachers do.
HOWEVER, I realize this is mostly taking place in the richer suburbs of America and is not everyplace. I'll grant that. But even with all that, our kids aren't doing extraordinary.
In the words of Comptroller General David M. Walker, Healthcare and Education is where America spends way more than 1st world country, often 2x as much, for worse results and with no outcome testing of any type.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcWrdM-a_Uo
A 16% increase over 4 years works out to be 4% a year, which just happens to be a little lower than the average inflation rate over the last 4 years (yes, it's lower than that at the moment). Which means, in terms of spending power, its just maintaining the status quo.
As for "merit-based" performance metrics, they don't measure the teacher's performance; they measure the students. What that will mean is that teachers will be competing to teach the students more likely to meet the metrics. The good teachers will get those postitions, and the teachers who don't make the cut will be relegated to the difficult students. So the students who get the worst teachers, will be:
* Poor students, who don't have access to tutors or other extra curricular methods of learning
* Students with disinterested parents (parental involvements is one the major predictors for academic achievement)
* Students in classes of disruptive people
And the teachers who teach them will be stuck in a position of no advancement, because their students are consistently out-performed by other demographics.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
merit-based suggestions
In other words, the plan where teachers who work in tough environments where students have not decided whether they want to graduate from high school or become criminals are punished. "Merit based" evaluations of teachers are not all they are cracked up to be; teachers cannot magically affect improvement if parents and cultures are not working with them. There is also the question of what basis is used for evaluations -- do you really think scores on tests show how well teachers are doing in their classrooms?
Palm trees and 8
Ten posts in, and I already see the guy chomping on the high-salary-bit modded at +5. Before that becomes the focus of these posts, let me add something to reflect on.
There is not only a very strong negative correlation between the percent of a school's low-socioeconomic-status students (measured by a school's free-and-reduced lunch rate) and test scores*, but there has proven to be causation as well. Now, urban Chicago has some of the highest poverty rates in the state of Illinois. Creating a system where half of a teacher's evaluation (and, ergo, the chance they keep their job) is based solely on test scores is simply setting up teachers to fail. Teachers know this; when they (or anyone else, for that matter) are put into a position where their evaluation likely will be poor, due to circumstances far beyond their control, resulting in dismissal from their job, it will negatively affect their performance in the classroom. Then, with high teacher turnaround, the quality of new hires will just suffer precipitously.
This evaluation system was never meant or designed to improve teacher performance. It was designed to set schools up to fail. And Chicago Area Teachers have every right to stand up and stop it. Anyone who tries to complain about salaries is merely throwing a red herring into the discussion.
* source: The Star Tribune. It appears that, sadly, they removed the free-and-reduced lunch data from this year's test results. In previous years, I ran simple correlation calculations between a district's free-and-reduced lunch percentage, and the percentage of students who were proficient on the tests. The correlation coefficient was -.87 for math and -.92 for reading.
This is the most ridiculous thing I've seen in a while.
Are you telling me scientists should have no way to determine what science policy should be?
If the politicians aren't listening to teachers about what education policy should be, then how do politicians have an informed opinion on such things? Oh yes, that's what lobbyists are for.
In the US, food and fuel is specifically exempted from determining the amount of inflation.
Yes, that's exactly why that politically motivated figure is meaningless.
If you could exist merely by purchasing iphones, for food, energy, and shelter, then the inflation figure would matter. As it is, its merely a measure of how much the govt has already decided to raise social security payments.
We do the same game with unemployment. Someday, in the American workers paradise, none of us will have jobs anymore while reported unemployment will be 5%, and inflation will always be 2% even if the price of a cup of coffee is doubling every month.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Why? This is (or supposed to be) a free country, you should be able to join any organization you want.
It is illegal for a group of CEOs to join an organization dedicated to fixing prices. Or did you think that was a bad idea too? Both concepts undermine competition and are bad for everyone except those in the organization.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Public sector unions are in a unique position whereby their members operate important or vital national infrastructure. The police in many places are forbidden to go on strike, in recognition of this fact. The bottom line is that if you have unions with often effectively unsackable members in charge of things like water and power, you're going to get bent over a barrel.
Public unions should not be permitted because these guys are sitting on both sides of the bargaining table. They have massive clout and can influence local elections. This means they'll get a sympathetic ear elected, and when it comes time for contract negotiations, it's them and the guy they basically put in charge.
You can see how this turns out. Public unions reaping all sorts of benefits that aren't found in the private sector, cities literally bankrupt yet still being coerced into giving public employees raises.
Who represents the taxpayer in all this? Nobody, that's who. The main entity that funds all of this doesn't get say, and that's why it should be prohibited for public employees to collectively bargain.