By Steve Rhodes
“Rahm Emanuel started a fight with teachers that only he can finish,” Carol Marin writes in the Sun-Times.
“In his 2011 campaign for mayor, he took the Chicago Teachers Union on as an adversary rather than attempt to make them a partner. He opted for a blunt instrument rather than a finessed approach. In hammering home how he was ‘for the children,’ he left the implication that teachers were not.”
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“And then, shortly after his election, Emanuel went to Springfield to get Senate Bill 7 passed. Touted as education reform, it was really an anti-collective bargaining measure, setting up a 75 percent vote threshold for union members to authorize a strike.
“Jonah Edelman, executive director of the deep-pocketed, pro-business group Stand for Children, was caught on video gloating about its legislative victory, saying: ‘The unions cannot strike in Chicago . . . They will never be able to muster the 75 percent threshold.’
“Though Edelman later publicly regretted his bravado, his agenda clearly is on behalf of the privatization of public education. And of charter schools. Even though the metrics of charter-school performance mirror the highs and lows of neighborhood public schools.
“I ran the numbers when I was at CPS,” said Terry Mazany, former interim CPS superintendent and CEO of the Chicago Community Trust. “Charters, based on . . . being freed from restrictions of bureaucracy, should be knocking the socks off neighborhood schools. But they’re not. It’s a dead heat.”
Numerology
Rich Miller takes a crack at deciphering the salary figures being thrown around, even though that seems to be the least of the issues involved.
FOIA His iPod
Coldplay is next.
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Right in RedEye’s wheelhouse.
CTU Blueprint
The union’s version of reform.
Rahm’s Folly
Overpaid and unaccountable.
Hiring Power
Rahm wants principals to have the power to hire teachers instead of the central office. I haven’t researched this issue fully but I don’t see why the power would reside in one place or the other, instead of some sort of system where the principal takes the lead but must have choices approved by superiors – like in any other workplace.
But I do know that Rahm is wrong when he says this:
“It’s just like holding a coach accountable for a team’s results. They create the team.”
Just not true. Dale Sveum and Robin Ventura did not choose their roster, their general managers did.
And when the central office installs principals to carry out their whims, well, it seems like teachers should have some protections. To the media: Think about, say, the new assistant city editor who brings in their own reporters and shunts you aside regardless of performance.
Rahm is practically proposing a patronage system where those loyal to him and his surrogates will in turn be rewarded. See Social Justice High.
It might be different if Rahm would stay out of it instead of insisting on running the schools himself – along with the police department and the mayor’s office. But he’s poisoned the system by politicizing it so much.
Hell’s Angle
This is a weird frame for a story; no matter how this ends the teachers will be getting less pay and benefits than originally budgeted for, no?
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Schools communication chief Becky Carroll is quoted in this story but her now-deleted tweets are far more revealing.
And guess how much money she makes?
The Whole World Is Watching
This is what they’re seeing.
Cheaters Paradise
Derrick Rose can’t wait until students get back to school so they can cheat on their tests the way he did.
Editors Agree . . .
. . . Chicago’s Teachers Are Wrong.
Magic Solution
This press release just in:
With the Chicago Teacher’s Union strike in its third day, Chicago Magician, Edd Fairman, has devised a novel plan to eliminate the boredom of CPS students being home when they should be at school and to help relieve some of the stress of caregivers.
“I was thinking of all these kids stuck at home and probably climbing the walls and their poor parents, grandparents, and baby sitters pulling their hair out,” says Fairman. “Of course, what I do, being a magician, could really help in a situation like that. So, I devised a crazy plan. I am offering my show on a per child price of only $7.00.” When asked why he choose $7.00 he said, “I figure it’s a price that almost everyone can afford and it helps to cover my gas, etc. I couldn’t do it for free, though I would love to. I’m a full time professional magician and I need to offset my costs, even if just a little.”
Song of the Moment
“Chicago Teacher” by Rebel Diaz.
Of Mice And Money
“A few of our classrooms had to stop taking a standardized test because mice were running around,” one teacher tells Catalyst. “A kindergarten teacher added she had 38 children in her class and no aide. And, so far this school year, books and other supplies haven’t arrived.
“At Bowen High School, union delegate Denise Forbes said the school has more than 500 students and only one computer and music teacher.”
Ministry of Misinformation
The Emanuel administration sure made it seem like an agreement was near when teachers went out on Monday. That’s the basic conceit behind the notion that this is a “strike of choice” that could have been avoided by staying at the bargaining table for a few extra hours instead of going off half-cocked.
It turns out that was just propaganda designed to make the teachers look unreasonable.
Charter Support
Unions lift the wages of all workers; without the CTU these charter teachers would be paid about as much as Walmart greeters.
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See also:
* Teachers Strike Notebook 1: Textbooks and A/C.
* Teachers Strike Notebook 2: Obama vs. Sveum.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on September 12, 2012