Posts tagged ‘education’

Investors Seek To Profit From Privatizing Public Schools

by , posted on Friday, August 31st, 2012 at 9:45 am

from The Real News

Activists at “People’s Education Convention” demand an end to excessive testing

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Chicago Teachers Union Files Strike Notice

by , posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2012 at 6:57 pm

from the Chicago Teachers Union

For Immediate Release: August 29, 2012
Contact: STEPHANIE GADLIN stephaniegadlin@ctulocal1.com

Chicago Headed Toward First Teachers Strike in 25 Years

CTU files 10-day strike notice with labor board; strike date has not been set

CHICAGO – Today, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) filed a 10-day notice with the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board indicating more than 26,000 public school teachers, clinicians and paraprofessionals may go on strike in coming days. The notice is a legal requirement defined by state law. No date for a strike has been set by Union leaders. The House of Delegates will meet Thursday at 4:30 p.m. to talk next steps.

Should CTU members call for a work stoppage, this will be the first “teachers’ strike” in Chicago since 1987. “This is a difficult decision for all of us to make,” said union President Karen Lewis. “But this is the only way to get the Board’s attention and show them we are serious about getting a fair contract which will give our students the resources they deserve.”

“CPS seems determined to have a toxic relationship with its employees,” Lewis said. “They denied us our 4 percent raises when there was money in the budget to honor our agreement; they attempted to ram a poorly thought out longer school day down our throats; and, on top of that they want us to teach a new curriculum and be ready to be evaluated based on how well our students do on a standardized test. It has been insult after insult after insult. Enough is enough.”

CTU has been in contract negotiations with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) since November 2011. Teachers have been without a contract since June of this year after its five-year agreement with the District expired without a new agreement in place. Labor leaders have said they are negotiating for a “better day, job security and fair compensation for employees.”

Labor talks have been productive on some fronts such as winning provisions for nursing mothers, ensuring textbooks will be available on day one, teachers will have access to functioning computers and counselors and social workers will have appropriate, private workspaces to serve students. But the bigger issues such as wages, job security and evaluations are on the table and the two sides remain far apart. “We will have a contract,” Lewis said, “and it will come the easy way or the hard way. If our members are on the picket-line, we will still be at the negotiating table trying to hammer out an equitable agreement. There’s a larger picture here.”

Teachers, paraprofessionals and school clinicians have been vocal in their opposition to CPS’ draconian policies. In May, nearly 10,000 of them marched in downtown in preparation for a strike authorization vote which drew a 98 percent approval from CTU membership. Only 1.82 percent of CTU members voted against authorizing a strike. Member angst was driven by CPS’ overly aggressive push for a longer school day without indicating how the District would staff and pay for the program. Educators were angry that the Board made no commitments to offering students the much needed art, music, physical education and world language classes they needed.

In July, and much to CPS’ chagrin, a much anticipated “Fact Finder’s Report” recommended, in part, that CPS’s longer school day amounts to a 19.4% increase on average that teachers will have to work, and he determined that CPS cannot expect its employees to work nearly 20% more for free or without fair compensation. Accordingly, the Fact-Finder’s report recommends both a general wage increase and an additional increase due to the length of the school day: A general wage increase of 2.25% for School Year 2012 — essentially a cost of living increase — without any changes to existing steps and lanes. He also recommends an additional increase of 12.6% to compensate teachers for working a longer school day and year representing a combined first-year increase of 14.85%, plus existing step and lane adjustments. Both the CTU and the Board rejected the findings.

“We have chronic underfunding and misplaced priorities in the system,” said high school teacher Jen Johnson. “CPS would rather shut down schools rather than give them the resources they need. Thousands of students have been displaced by CPS’ school actions. Teachers are losing their jobs and parents have no choice but to keep their child in an under-resourced neighborhood school or ship them off to a poor-performing charter operation.”

Lewis said members are also concerned about the Board’s plan to close over 100 neighborhood schools and create a half public-half charter school district. “This education crisis is real especially if you are Black or Brown in Chicago,” she explained. “Whenever our students perform well on tests, CPS moves the bar higher, tells them they are failures and blames their teachers. Now they want to privatize public education and further disrupt our neighborhoods. We’ve seen public housing shut down, public health clinics, public libraries and now public schools. There is an attack on public institutions, many of which serve, low-income and working-class families.”

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Hanging in the Balance: A Head Start for Low-Income Kids

by , posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2012 at 5:02 pm

from the Center for American Progress

Head Start is a program of the Department of Health and Human Services that provides comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families. With sequestration pending, funding for Head Start hangs in the balance.

This video spotlights what’s at stake if Congress fails to act to avert the automatic cuts to the area of the budget that funds many human needs programs, including Head Start. As many as 80,000 children could lose access to Head Start’s comprehensive services and more than 30,000 teachers, administrators, and support staff could lose their jobs. At a time when one in four children under age 5 are living in poverty, we need a strong Head Start program now more than ever.

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Chicago Teachers Union Informational Picketing, Day 2

by , posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012 at 8:13 pm

from the Chicago Teachers Union

On August 21, 2012 CTU members and supporters engaged in informational picketing at schools across the city to discuss contract negotiations with the communities we serve.

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Chicago Teachers Union members and supporters take their case to the streets

by , posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2012 at 11:02 pm

from the Chicago Teachers Union

On August 20, 2012 CTU members and supporters engaged in informational picketing at schools across the city to discuss contract negotiations with the communities we serve.

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Robert Reich on the Romney-Ryan Economic Plan

by , posted on Monday, August 20th, 2012 at 7:22 pm

from MoveOn.org Political Action

The five basic features.

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Chicago Teachers Union vs. Astroturf Billionaires

by , posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2012 at 2:04 pm

from the Chicago Teachers Union

The Chicago Teachers Union is currently on the front lines of a fight to defend public education. On one side the 30,000 members of the CTU have called for a contract that includes fair compensation, meaningful job security for qualified teachers, smaller class sizes and a better school day with Art, Music, World Language and appropriate staffing levels to help our neediest students.

On the other side, the Chicago Board of Education—which is managed by out of town reformers and Broad Foundation hires with little or no Chicago public school experience—has pushed to add two weeks to the school year and 85 minutes to the school day, eliminate pay increases for seniority, evaluate teachers based on student test scores, and slash many other rights.

Teachers, parents and community supporters in Chicago have fought valiantly—marching, filling auditoriums at hearings and parent meetings, even occupying a school and taking over a school board meeting. Most recently, 98 percent of our members voted to authorize a strike. But now we find ourselves facing new opponents—national education privatizers, backed by some of the nation’s wealthiest people. They are running radio ads, increasing press attacks, and mounting a PR campaign to discredit the CTU and the benefits of public education.

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PDA IL–TIF Abuse: The Hyatt Hotel and Hyde Park Schools

by , posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2012 at 2:02 pm

from PDA-IL

PDA IL joins the Chicago Teachers Union, Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign, Gray Panthers, Northern Illinois Jobs for Justice, Unite Here and National Nurses United among other labor unions and Hyde Park community activists to protest against the use of property taxes going to fund the building of a new luxury hotel in Hyde Park while schools face millions of dollars in cuts.

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PDA-IL: Kristine Mayle of the Chicago Teachers Union on the current state of contract negotiations

by , posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2012 at 10:06 am

from PDA-IL

Chicago Teachers Union Financial Secretary Kristine Mayle speaks on the current state of Chicago Public Schools and contract negotiations.

August 13, 2012

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PDA-Chicago: Don’t Take Our Children’s Money!

by , posted on Monday, August 6th, 2012 at 8:00 am

from PDA-Chicago

Join PDA Chicago as we stand with the Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign this Wednesday, August 8, to protest public tax money going to corporate welfare.

5:30-8:00 p.m., Lake Park Ave. and E. 53rd St., Chicago, 60615

$5.2 million of property taxes intended for our public schools is going to Hyatt Hotels, a company that doesn’t need it. No more corporate welfare!

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