Key disputed issues in the talks were teacher cost of living raises, additional pay for experience, job security in the face of annual school closures and staff shakeups, and a new teacher evaluation process that ties teacher ratings in part to student test score growth.
“Evaluate us on what we do, not on the lives of our children we do not control,” Lewis said Sunday, denouncing the online process by which teacher evaluators were being trained.
CTU officials contend that CPS’ offer of raises over the next four years does not fairly compensate them for the 4 percent raise they lost this past school year and the longer and “harder” school year they will face this school year, with the introduction of a tougher new curriculum.
The union also has pushed for improved working conditions, such as smaller class sizes, more libraries, air-conditioned schools, and more social workers and counselors to address the increasing needs of students surrounded by violence — all big-ticket items. CPS officials contend they are seeking a “fair” contract, with raises for teachers, but are limited by funding and the threat of a $1 billion deficit at the end of this school year.
THOSE MONSTERS.
The local press just cannot believe the effrontery:
They are mainly stuck on two issues: teacher recall and teacher evaluations. Emanuel said teachers cannot strike over either issue by law. They’re also still fixated on issues that cannot be resolved at the bargaining table, such as financial resources for schools and wraparound social service supports for students.
They are right to fight for these issues — but they are not ones that warrant keeping 350,000 students out of the classroom.
Well, how the hell else is anybody going to pay any attention? For as long as I have been alive these have been issues in public schools, especially those in poor/city districts, and for as long as I have been alive the only response of those in power has been to basically shrug, continue making cuts, and whine about overpaid teachers on TV.
I’m sorry, I can’t find it in my heart to have much sympathy for people whose entire argument is “other people’s lives suck, so you should stop resisting the suck in your own life and just lean into it:“
Average teacher pay in Chicago is already at $71,000 without benefits, while the average Chicagoan makes only $30,203 and the unemployment rate in the city is nearly 11 percent.
Liberals are the communists here? Somehow it always seems to be the wingnuts who are arguing that everybody’s pay needs to be dragged down to the same level, which is usually Charles-Dickens-poor, before anybody can ask please sir may I have some more.
If somebody else has it worse off, the answer isn’t to shut up until things get precisely that bad for you, too. The answer is to pull that other person up as well, by doing things like teaching them well, and fairly, in a school with air conditioning for 106-degree days, and textbooks that no longer mention the looming threat of war with the Soviet Union.
A.