Posted on 09/12/2012 2:11:03 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Chicago teachers arent striking because of pay. They are walking picket lines because theyre sick of so-called education reforms that dont address the real problems in the schools and instead emphasize privatization and rote testing.
Teachers point out shocking disparities in Chicagos education system, particularly the lack of resources in schools serving low-income black and Latino students. About 80 percent of Chicago students receive free and reduced lunch.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel sends his kids to a private school with three libraries and seven art teachers. But half of Chicago public schools dont have full-time art and music teachers, 98 dont have playgrounds, and 160 dont have libraries. Crumbling facilities sometimes have asbestos insulation poking through the ceilings. One teacher told me her South Side school shares a psychologist with four others. Students traumatized by a string of shootings this year join a growing waitlist to receive the healing they need.
Class size matters, too. Kindergarten and first-grade classrooms in Chicago are bigger than those in 95 percent of all Illinois schools. Emanuel says the city cant afford the smaller classes the teachers are demanding. But Chicago finds $250 million a year in tax breaks for politically connected developers.
Emanuel and his appointed school board say the best way to deal with struggling public schools is to close them or turn them over to private charter operators. Hedge fund managers seeking new investment opportunities love privatization. Charter schools can be lucrative investments, despite a spotty record. They do no better than traditional schools despite cherry-picking their students.
Emanuel didnt start this fire. The push to privatize began in the late 1990s. Arne Duncan, former Chicago schools chief and now President Obamas secretary of education, turbocharged it. He closed more than 100 schools, replacing them with charters. He and Emanuel say the solution is to use students standardized test scores to get rid of faltering schools and teachers. Teachers say the evaluations place too much emphasis on bubble-sheet tests, which are an unreliable and narrow measure of a students progress. A drill-and-kill curriculum has dulled learning.
Emanuel and many in the media are trying to demonize teachers as not caring about students or not working hard. In fact, a University of Illinois study says Chicago teachers work 58 hours a week, grading papers at home, tutoring students before and after school and meeting with parents. Teachers also often provide snacks and supplies to pupils who arrive hungry and ill equipped for class.
If you care about public education, you should stand with the Chicago teachers. Theyre fighting for an education system that works for kids in every ZIP code not just a few.
*****
Theresa Moran is in Chicago covering the strike for Labor Notes, a media and organizing project that supports unions. She can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.
Fire them all like Reagan did the air traffic controllers.
Voucher all the schools. Try something different.
Well since it’s not about the money, just take that raise issue off the table. Shouldn’t be any problem with that, right?
Over-paid people who continually produce an inferior product never want to have a measurable appraisal process.
I say fire all the teachers, turn the schools into buildings for small business owners, and teach kids through Khanacademy.org at home. My kid is 8 and already she’s learning algebra through that site and more incredibly she actually knows the difference between “lose” and “loose” unlike the majority of journalists in the media.
So they decided to forgo the 16% pay increase per the contract negotiations?
I thought not...
Charge parents $100mo per child for public school, and pay parents $100mo per child they home school. Then man the water cannons.
Not about kids—that’s a smoke screen—Its about money and power. the more they pay the teachers—the less teaching is done. I don’t know how many times my kids saw Star Wars in class—Lazy teachers Just flip on the TV and kick back.
Illinois August foreclosure rate highest in nation
BY FRANCINE KNOWLES
Business Reporter
fknowles@suntimes.com
Last Modified: Sep 13, 2012 10:38AM
Illinois had the highest foreclosure rate in the country in August as the number of homes receiving filings jumped 42 percent, compared with a year earlier, according to the latest report from RealtyTrac.
It was the first time Illinois recorded the highest rate since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.