Teachers on Strike: Classic or Dud?

Klein analysis interesting, but again, this is apparently not really about money. I'm really curious about what kind of middle ground the two sides can find, because there really doesn't seem to be any. Teachers want the right to rehire laid off teachers, presumably a power they want before a rumored 100 further schools are closed. But those schools are apparently at 50% enrollment, due to socio-economic factors beyond the control of both the city and teachers. Should empty schools be kept open? Dunno. Arguably the best option is that you roll those leftover students into other schools, including some charter schools. What other option is there besides opening more schools, which seems counter-intuitive? Or I guess significantly expanding existing, full schools and hiring more teachers, which is probably close in terms of the dollars spent to the same thing. Obviously education is vital, and investment in education essential. Yet all along the high school graduation rate here is hovering around 60% (a significant improvement!) and graduates subsequently completing college in five years or less something pitiful, like 6%. That's not the fault of teachers, or the city. It's the fallout from broader problems that have been left unattended for decades, problems that no strike can solve. It's a mess.

Obviously education is vital, and investment in education essential.

IMO not as obvious as all that

arne is the fucking biggest tool ever

Should say, basic high school readin', writin', 'rithmatic is vital. Or at least should be. But if kids can't be arsed to learn that stuff, then they should just forego high school and do what they were planning to do when they didn't graduate, anyway.

Join ILX?

walked through the protests yesterday, they were using occupy strategies for crowd communication

also saw a few signs that said The Revolution Will Not Be Standardized, which i thought was rather cleverl

not nearly as many people as that photo upthread but still had a few blocks cut off. good to see.

from what i've gathered, as josh says, the salaries are almost moot at this point.

i think the two big things are giving ex-CPS teachers first priority on new teaching jobs and reducing the weight of standardized test scores for evaluating teachers as outlined in the city's proposal. my sense in being there for a minute yesterday was that the latter point is a pretty serious issue.

there's also some minor stuff, like making sure every school has air conditioning (2012!) and making sure that the city doesn't gut support staff at the schools (guidance counselors, therapists etc)

My kids - do any of you have school-aged kids? - go to school in Oak Park, a nice innter-burb with good schools, and virtually none of the elementary school classrooms, at least, have A/C. Kids and teachers deal. Though for all I know everyone will change their mind and go on strike next week.

"support staff" is often code for cushy patronage positions. I will defend teachers to the death, but guidance counsellors are largely scum. And every one of these superfluous counsellors, assistants, "out of classroom" teachers, etc. = one less teacher = larger class sizes.

My understanding is that they want the support staff and more teachers and smaller class size. With a lot of that determined by the power to make hiring/firing decisions, which is asking for a lot, as an entire package. Plus other comfort stuff, like A/C and more money. Which maybe they deserve and maybe they can get, but I don't see it.

Heard a reporter suggest this is a chickens coming home to roost scenario, since by and large Daley gave the teachers whatever they wanted to forestall exactly what's going on now.

Sounds like they might be asking for too much, but tbf so are "reformers" who think we can improve the system and slash funding at the same time.

I think they see slashing funding (ie closing schools) as an improvement.

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/13824/director_of_private_school_where_rahm_sends_his_kids_disagrees_on_standardi/

Unlike occasional teacher union opponent Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel does not send his kids to public schools. Instead, Emanuel's children attend one of the most elite prep schools in Chicago, the University of Chicago Lab School, where the annual tuition is more than $20,000. (Emanuel has repeatedly refused to answer questions about why he eschews public schools for his children, telling reporters that it is a private family decision.)

The conditions at the University of Chicago Lab Schools are dramatically different than those at Chicago Public Schools, which are currently closed with teachers engaged in a high-profile strike. The Lab School has seven full-time art teachers to serve a student population of 1,700. By contrast, only 25% of Chicago’s “neighborhood elementary schools” have both a full-time art and music instructor. The Lab School has three different libraries, while 160 Chicago public elementary schools do not have a library.

“Physical education, world languages, libraries and the arts are not frills. They are an essential piece of a well-rounded education,” wrote University of Chicago Lab School Director David Magill on the school's website in February 2009.

i love how everyone gets to have an opinion about what teachers do and don't need, and feels the right to be super vocal about it.

"support staff" is often code for cushy patronage positions. I will defend teachers to the death, but guidance counsellors are largely scum. And every one of these superfluous counsellors, assistants, "out of classroom" teachers, etc. = one less teacher = larger class sizes.

― look at this quarterstaff (Hurting 2), Wednesday, September 12, 2012 12:21 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, idk. you're also talking about social workers, psychologists

I am married to a public school teacher, so yeah, I have an opinion about it.

I know. I'm not talking about anyone itt -- I'm just generally talking about the national attention this is getting. Ezra Klein looking at salaries, etc. Just an observation. Not being a dick.

Is there any question that private schools are better than public schools, at least in terms of amenities and staff and extracurriculars and whatnot? Like, duh, $20,000 a year per student buys you a lot more than piddling property taxes pay for. I bet Rahm drives a better car than most, too. Besides, politicians - like celebrities and other public figures - rarely (if ever?) send their kids to public schools for obvious reasons.

If the reasons are so obvious, why do people continue to give them a hard time about it, I wonder? Honestly I feel bad for any mayor's kids in any city because they are forced to answer questions that most kids don't really even think about answering, yet people continue to ask the same questions.

The only reason I posted that is because the director of the school is disagreeing philosophically (partic in terms of evaluation) with one of the school's most prominent supporters, which should give at least some weight to the striking teachers' concerns beyond salaries and stuff that people seem to stick on.

Amy Carter went to public schools.

Good memory!

Is there any question that private schools are better than public schools, at least in terms of amenities and staff and extracurriculars and whatnot?

I think this is entirely dependent upon where you live; for example, my old public high school has a fully-functioning machine shop, a cable-access television studio, a 400-seat amphitheater, an Olympic-sized pool, a gymnasium that holds 4 full-sized basketball courts, an agriculture building and an Olympic-sized track. This facility is now the middle school and we have a new high school sitting on 100 acres of land that has multiple pools, an Olympic-sized indoor track that surrounds (iirc) 6 basketball courts, touchscreen electronic dry erase boards in every classroom, multiple computer labs, etc etc etc, I mean there is actually a BRIDGE inside the school connecting the front entrance to the classroom area that crosses over the cafeteria area. The whole thing is just nuts.

It's a nicer facility than some 4-year colleges I've seen.

what the hell

one thing i was struck by when i started living in the midwest is how fucking massive high school campuses are

my HS school in del mar was like that too

hurting 2 otm

some support staff, particularly the special ed ones, are crucial to the school

but a lot of support staff jobs - like counselors and data analysts - are kinda parasitical to the school

and district staff are the worst

i mean i'm sure they're not actually "scum" or bad people, but they suck up $$$ out of proportion to what they give back

100% parity between private schools (and wealthier public schools) and public schools in poor areas may not be achievable, but the debate is really about what the baseline should be. We have a lot of doubletalk about certain areas of education being "inessential" (for your kids) and "essential" (for my kids) going on, is the point of that excerpt, I think.

xpost: No, most of the guidance counsellors I ever had were LITERALLY bad people.

It's a nicer facility than some 4-year colleges I've seen.

Shit is fucking huge. I knew a guy who literally took the bus from one class to the next (classes were at opposite ends of the complex, guy went outside to the city bus and said, "Hey, can you just drive me to the end of the block?" -- did this for a whole year)

In seriousness, yeah of course they're not bad people, but there is a culture in public schools (at least in NYC, which is all I can speak to) of creating half-jobs for people and letting them kind of lounge in them for decades. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect everyone on the payroll to actually be contributing something of significance to the school. I'm not talking about the art teacher or the gym teacher, I'm talking about veteran teachers being given "enrichment" positions that involve little more than going to classrooms a few periods a day and reading stories to kids. I'm talking about having an administrative person whose sole job is basically to hold onto the key to the copier, so that other people need to go through her to make copies. I'm not making these up.

xpost Dan, what kind of property taxes did your parents pay? Because where I live, which is not some all mods con utopia, there are many who easily pay upwards of $20,000 a year in property taxes. I know we pay something close to $8000 a year, and we're hardly living large in some palace.

But anyway, xposting further: "Physical education, world languages, libraries and the arts are not frills. They are an essential piece of a well-rounded education" can both be a fundamentally true statement, if idealistic, yet also underscore why the public schools are falling short. All those things are expensive, and across the country they're getting cut left and right. Doesn't make them less essential, simply explains why public schools (in cities, at least) are getting worse, not better: they're missing something essential, which those with means can afford to replace elsewhere. The same holds true for countless things across America. Those with money can afford the things those without cannot. No news there. The debate then shifts to what a public school education should be required to provide beside the bare minimum, because while the absence of PE, world languages, arts and even libraries are bad things, they're pretty far down the list on why Chicago public schools are considered failures. If those things are "essential" for a well-rounded education, what does that make reading and math, which Chicago public schools (for, again, numerous socio-economic reasons) are having enough trouble teaching? That is, the lack of those programs does not seem to be the crux of the problem here.

Except when you cut services and & offerings you're telling kids that they're not worth those things, which kind of IS the crux of the problem?

otm

support staff problem even worse for higher ed

And I'm all for spending smarter -- no question that public schools need to do this. I just don't think we're going to spend smarter AND less AND get better results all at the same time, which seems to be either (1) the prevailing neoliberal belief or (2) cover for a hidden neoliberal belief that these kids aren't really worth it.

spend smarter AND less AND get better results all at the same time

this is liberal?

neoliberal =/= liberal

what (or who) do you mean by neoliberal

I am mostly tired of the "we can't just throw money at failing schools" canard

YES YOU CAN, DUDE

― ilx user 'silby' (silby), Monday, September 26, 2011 5:27 PM (11 months ago)

it's not like we ever threw money at poor schools. it would be nice to try it once before turning against it as a measure.

― horseshoe, Monday, September 26, 2011 5:28 PM (11 months ago)

Ha yes. That's my stock response to "we can't throw money at a problem." Let's try once and see!

― pullapartsquirrel (Jenny), Monday, September 26, 2011 6:00 PM (11 months ago)

Dan, what kind of property taxes did your parents pay?

I have no idea what my parents paid in property taxes while I was growing up. Looking online, I see that off of 12 acres of land, they have a 2012 tax bill of about $2.4K. I also know that in FY 2012, education spending is the single largest line item on the overall MN state/local budget at $16.1 billion:

https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?cht=p3&chs=600x200&chf=bg,s,e8e8ff&chd=t:7,20,29,0,10,7,8,3,12,3&chl=Pensions%207%|Health%20Care%2020%|Education%2029%|Defense%200%|Welfare%2010%|Protection%207%|Transportation%208%|General%20Government%203%|Other%20Spending%2012%|Interest%203%&chtt=State%20and%20Local%20Spending%20for%20Minnesota%20-%20FY%202012

The ridiculous, massively impressive super high school was built in 2001.

Alex Pareene has had enough of people's shit on the issue of teachers:

Alex Pareene ‏@pareene
Fun fact: pundits supporting test-based teacher evals work in a field with no professional consequences for making readers stupider

(I didn't even get into the auditorium, which I think seats 1K? and has built-in partitions all over the place to reconfigure the stage, including bits that can be raised or lowered, or the new soundproof practice rooms in the choir area with the awesome reverb technology that let you set the acoustic of a space the size of a large cubicle to have the reverberation of a large concert hall, etc etc.)

I see that off of 12 acres of land, they have a 2012 tax bill of about $2.4K.

Good lord. My 2012 property taxes are $4,253 and I have a roughly 1,600 sq ft house on a 125'x50' lot.

alex parene brings the 100 megaton truth bomb

HeadStart seems to have worked out well, that was "throwing money" at poor or disadvantaged areas (I was in one when they created it).

I have several friends who are walking picket lines with the CTU. A colleague of one of them wrote this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rusin/whats-happening-in-chicag_b_1876734.html

in a nutshell

We are on strike because we refuse to accept a system where the mayor and his appointed school board can systematically lower scores on teacher evaluations in order to justify the privatization of education.

Wait, are they accusing the city of rigging teacher evaluation scores to make teachers look bad so that can be fired?

i think the implication is that by putting more weight on standardized test scores, the city is setting up the teachers to look worse on evaluations

I just couldn't resist making a Buffy joke, it is actually in North Dakota...IN HELL.

bad news for some ppl: I was a Natl Merit Scholar

good news for everyone who likes watching ppl bicker tho

specially selected corps of deaf navy seals

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e66/LimitedLiabilityGirl/Deafseal.jpg

is that fella listening for nuclear subs

"Preventing conflicts is the work of politics; establishing peace is the work of education" - maria montessori

hippie

that's me

sigh

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/27/the_corporate_education_agenda_behind_wont_back_down/

I also met an entrepreneur who tried to convince me that the future of education was 3-D. He was in the conference vending hall repping his firm, Elixir XES 3D, which specializes in glassless 3-D video monitors. “With this technology we can bring dinosaurs or presidents or whatever to life!” he said. “Learning can be fun, just like a video game or a 3-D IMAX movie.” He then handed me a paper titled “3-D: The Technology Brought a Pot of Gold to the Motion Picture Box Office. It Has the Potential to Bring ‘Golden’ Learning Back to Our Schools, at Warp Speed.” The paper, which seemed simultaneously geared toward investors, advertisers and school board officials, explained that his super-exciting XES 3D technology is currently in 10 school districts and counting, bringing benefits to both students and advertisers.

what's next, this fool's TED talk?
smdh

industry rule #4080, textbook people are shady, same as it ever was, these bloodsuckers have been around since the day textbook companies and promethean boards were invented

teaching is already in 3D iirc

It has real potential for music class

*3-D trombone slides you*

We start one-day rotating strikes this week across the province. We'll probably be legislated back if a second day for any one board is imminent.

Waiting around for a decision from the Ontario Labour Relations Board tonight on whether our one-day walkout tomorrow is a) a political protest, b) an illegal strike, or c) neither, because they rule against us and we cancel. If it's the second, the Premier says fines or jail time are options. If I go in for some hard time, please, tell the world my story.

We're all still in limbo. Ontario high school teachers have been advised by their union to resume extra-curricular in exchange for...no one's sure, so I was glad to hear today that many of them will continue to boycott. If they buckle, we (elementary panel) surely will in short order.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ydqjqZ_3oc

Good job.

All that creepy jargon on political round-tables--getting your message out, winning the news cycle, etc.--seems more urgent when you're on the wrong end of it in your own life.

We're on work-to-rule right now. We appear to be heading towards something major next fall, but for now, relatively small stuff around provincial testing and report cards. There was a big development concerning the latter today--there won't be any, just a form promotion letter--and as I listened to the way it was being reported on the way home, it was infuriating to hear the other side's position being presented as fact, with nothing from us. What we should be saying seems incredibly obvious to me, but no response, not yet. I'm going to do something tomorrow I've never done in the close to 20 years I've been doing this--call the union and see if I can talk to someone. Basically I want to say, "You need to get someone in front of a camera, and here's what they need to say--you need to do this right away."

I wish I'd written this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/cayla-hochberg/tdsb-teacher-report-cards_b_7576696.html

I'll have to keep that in mind next time something's not being said that needs to be said.

So get in front of a camera and say it again. Or whatever you need to do!!

If a TV station stuck a mic in front of me tomorrow, I'd speak up. None outside my house right now--easier said than done. I do get a little nervous commenting about this stuff. Not here, but I just responded to the link above on Facebook, and that little voice in my head was saying "Be careful." I'm not sure if I'm more nervous about how my employer would react to public discussion of this or my union.

surprised this wasn't updated after the WV and OK strikes.

BREAKING: Arizona teachers vote to walk off the job in the first-ever statewide strike to demand increased school funding.

— The Associated Press (@AP) April 20, 2018

surprised this thread wasn't bumped, i mean. anyway, arizona teachers join the fray!

I brought it up a few times in the US politics threads to limited traction. anyway, right on, solidarity, etc.

oh, i mentioned the previous strikes a few times there, too. not exactly the best thread for it, though.

btw: CLASSIC

Have all or any of the strikes (wv, Oklahoma ...) been formally settled yet?

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/los-angeles-teachers-protest-ahead-of-likely-strike.html