"This was a strike of choice and is now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children. Every day our kids are kept out of school is one more day we fail in our mission: to ensure that every child in every community has an education that matches their potential.”
September 16, 2012
"I will not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union."
Said Rahm Emanuel, after the Chicago Teachers Union decided to extended its strike.
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58 comments:
This was a strike of choice and is now a delay of choice
Hey, he's hostile to choice!
What's got into Rahm!
Isn't this a dog & pony show?
My God, that giant woman must have a death wish. They got away with it so far but that is going to break down pretty soon.
Dang. This isn't business, this is personal.
Rahm Emmanuel, mugged by reality.
Twinkletoes isn't going to stand by, meaning he's going to do...what?
Chicago can't afford to give the teachers what they want. Oh God bless that Republican Rahm Emmanuel.
Hold fast Rahm. I don't think those teachers have RPGs on them.
Maguro said...
Twinkletoes isn't going to stand by, meaning he's going to do...what?
-------------
Dance?
I recommend 'Beat It' if he goes that route, because that definitely seemed to work as a fighting tactic in the video. Or maybe Thriller. Quite a few of those striking teachers seem like they'd be at home in that setting.
Reality Bites.
Tippytoes is starting to sweat.
They were supposed to have folded by now.
And still no way to pay for it, but the teachers don't care.
I won't say "teacher's union" the teachers themselves do not care how it is going to be paid for.
They may be required by law to belong to the union, but they own it.
acm - If he's going to dance, it needs to be "Gangnam Style".
MOAR pubic employee unions,please!
Rahm's dead on RIGHT!
Education IS about the children.
Union must have felt it was leaving some money on the table. Too bad for the bigmouth librul Chicago mayor.
Course "the adults" are over here >>>>
Rubbing their hands together about how much money can be made by supporting "CHOICE".
Yeah!
For the children...
Every time I hear "It's for the children" I start watching for an intern...
Call me jaded.
I call, "LOAD OF CRAP".
Perhaps the mayor should consider the Hortonville solution.
No supporter of unions here, and even less a supporter of people who want to be unionized AND seen as "professional".
Oxymoron alert!
Julia, the teaching years.
Here's the rub...
We are shitting on the very best teachers we have in order to get to those teachers who hide behind union protection.
I was part of a teacher's strike once in a state where teacher strikes are common. It's still the worst experience of my life. I've never seen so many angry people. On both sides. What you believe suddenly becomes less important than winning. The other side is the ENEMY. It's the most out of control feeling imaginable.
Unions are experts at playing the mob card. I look back at some of the things I did and I can't believe it was me. I have a great deal of sympathy for teachers who get carried away with the rhetoric. A lot less for the people who plan and promote it. They go on to the next strike. The teachers and the community are left to try and repair the damage. It was 21 years ago and that community is still paying the price.
No one wins except the union bosses.
Decades ago, if management at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler had stood up to unions' protection of things that make no sense, we wouldn't be mourning the loss of our auto industry.
And the Democrats would not be honoring Obama for "saving" what should have been saved by negotiation and practical judgement of all parties involved.
Good teachers and administrators, parents of public school kids who like the job being done at their local schools, now need to stand up and do a hex sign on the SHIT that is now rolling uphill and about to make public education a hazardous waste site.
This is a surprise -- the article in the Trib sure seemed to say that Rahm had caved and given the union what they wanted. Even so, he has an ace in the hole -- he's building up the Charter School system in the city, where there are no unions. That's part of why the unions are so worried about school closings and job security -- it's the equivalent of GM caving to union demands, but then closing factories and moving them to Mexico.
The School District has zero money for additional pay or other goodies. Teachers are always complaining about lack of textbooks & supplies, poorly-maintained buildings, etc., but they're sucking all the money out that could have been spent on these things.
They also have enormous confidence in the fact that, funded or no, pensions will be paid as promised -- they are perfectly happy to have the city using money otherwise earmarked for pension funds and apply it to raises instead, and, despite their complaints afterwards about pension underfunding, never seem quite worried enough to make that a matter of contract negotiation.
Call a plumber, for cripes sake!
Why do the teachers object to evaluations?
Unions don't protect the most "vulnerable".
The MOST vulnerable are those workers, those teachers, who take their work seriously. They CARE about outcomes.
Unions protect the bottom of the barrel idiots who have enough street sense to play "the game".
Mary Beth, human nature to have a problem with "evaluation".
Don't blame teachers, because they're not alone there.
The evaluation process is a bugaboo.
Truth is that the VAST majority of us believe ourselves to be "above average".
----They also have enormous confidence in the fact that, funded or no, pensions will be paid as promised -- they are perfectly happy to have the city using money otherwise earmarked for pension funds and apply it to raises instead--
Was listening to a Chicago talk radio show hosted by a lefty and a conservative. It was very informative. It seems that the teacher's pension fund has been raided big time. When you add that to Chicago being 1 B in the hole, and Illinois being in the hole, yikes, what a mess.
The lefty host said, well 'we need to end the waste and raise taxes'. Illinois will soon be a black hole of taxes.
"...to ensure that every child in every community has an education that matches their potential"
Rahm, that wasn't going to happen anyway.
And now ONE needs to go by the end of the school year.
If you asked teachers which ONE? I have a feeling they would know.
Because EVERYONE knows that jackass!
And TOO, the herd that follows...
OK, said enough.
If good teachers are willing to stand down and let the entire public school system disintegrate in order to protect the least of them?
Then I say that Charter Schools' time has come!
Breaks my heart, but best of luck to all you good teachers out there!
Children as pawns. Taxpayers as servants. Government held hostage by public unions.
It seems Emanuel is not nearly so opposed to embracing traditional Democratic principles, special interests notwithstanding.
Rahm should just shut down the schools and reopen them as charter schools. problem solved.
When is a strike not a choice?
and
What's the purpose of the public schools?
That's not a stupid question. Education does not equal employing teachers, it equals teaching children. Teachers are simply a means to an end. If there's another way it is the government's duty to find it. Public money is a trust, and there are always other ways to spend it.
Honestly, if we could pay teachers half as much and get 90% of the education out of them we should do it. That would free up public money to do other things, or to hire more teachers if that's necessary (and we're always told that it is). The public schools have turned into a big jobs program for the overeducated. That's going to end because of technology and because we're broke. It's not a matter of ideology, it's just how it is.
I can sympathize, because the autonomous car is going to render my job obsolete. But I don't really care about teachers per se. They are doing a job, they seem well compensated for that job, and they seem to complain a lot. I know a lot of other people who have been put out of work who had a lot less job security.
My son's iPad has taught him more words and more math than he's learned in school. Really, no kidding. It's not a replacement for a teacher, but for rote learning the technology is already here.
Good teachers weep.
We are hurting the "best" to avoid making a reasoned argument on their behalf.
If we stand up for them, they will stand up with us.
Don't doubt it.
Try it!
When I worked for other people, I never had a problem with my work being evaluated by my supervisors. I didn't realize that I was that unusual.
Mary Beth
I haven't had a problem with supervisors either. I think it might be more commen to hear about than to experience. I'd guess that most people are doing as good a job as they can, just because they feel better about themselves if they do. I can only think of about 3 people Out of the couple hundred I work with that don't work hard and try to do a good job.
Remember people, we have no comprehensive immigration policy in this country.
These teachers are on the front lines with children who do not speak English, are learning our cultural ways with their families, and some who are invisible to our society.
That's the job, sure, but don't blame teachers for failing if the new immigrant students don't test high enough, soon enough.
Failure of leaders to lead, of managers to manage, and of politicians to secure our borders makes a city teacher's job harder. Let's not pretend these are middle class students, with middle class backgrounds and norms, all ready to be educated. Some parents care, some try, some don't and want the schools to "parent".
Emanuel should look to his old boss Mr. Clinton for why his workers today are struggling to do their jobs. When we forget about immigration policy and look for cheap labor, somebody has to educate the children who come along, or are created, as part of said package deal...
I don't blame them for fearing evaluations. It's one thing for these teachers to maintain a semblance of order in the ghetto classroom. To make the students all average or above is something else again.
Mary said...
Remember people, we have no comprehensive immigration policy in this country.
These teachers are on the front lines with children who do not speak English, are learning our cultural ways with their families, and some who are invisible to our society.
That's the job, sure, but don't blame teachers for failing if the new immigrant students don't test high enough, soon enough.
You know they'r striking so that only the union can fire incompetent teachers, right?
You know the difference between an eighth grade student and an eighth grade teacher in the Chicago Public School system? The teacher has proven she can read at a fourth grade level.
And even though Chicago has the highest urban hispanic population outside of L.A., it is still the black students that the system is failing. Hispanic students test better. If it really was about the kids there wouldn't be a strike.
So take your -teachers as victims- and put it where the sun don't shine.
"You know they'r striking so that only the union can fire incompetent teachers, right?"
"Incompetent" being defined by how the black and sometimes new-to-English immigrant students score on the tests...
Sounds like we're expecting these teachers to pay for a poorly thought out immigration policy. If there's no emphasis at home on test scoring and education -- more on working and making money -- the teachers could be performing wonderfully, but their audience be missing out...
"So take your -teachers as victims- and put it where the sun don't shine."
Spoken like a Chicago goon. Bully your way to the top, eh? (Rahm: is that you???)
Perhaps a good number of Chicago's black students left in the public/non-charter population come from homes where the children, and their educations, aren't given a lot of priority, period.
Sure, blame the teachers for trying to work with those cultural mindsets. It's like making me pay for my neighbors' poor health choices and share their premium costs...
I teach college English in NYC. Two years ago, I taught a high school class as part of an early college initiative sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. High school students at a local public school were offered the opportunity to take English composition, among other courses, at no cost.
The level of student competence was fairly bad, and the program would have benefited from interaction and coordination between the college profs and the high school teachers. All the teachers were asked to come to a Woodrow Wilson conference. The person running the conference said that Wilson was going to implement a plan so that all the involved teachers would meet for one hour a month to discuss ways to improve student performance. One of the high school English teachers raised her hand and said, "That's not in our contract."
How about having students who can write a more than a fifth grade level? Is that in her contract? Silly me - of course not.
It doesn't matter what happens in Chicago. The kids always lose.
"Don't blame teachers, because they're not alone there."
I will blame the teachers, thank you.
I don't like being evaluated either, but I accept that it's part of my responsibility to my employer. Adults sometimes are required to do things for their jobs that they don't personally enjoy. Teachers often seem to have trouble with this concept, but that's not my problem.
"Sure, blame the teachers for trying to work with those cultural mindsets. It's like making me pay for my neighbors' poor health choices and share their premium costs..."
Their predecessors were largely responsible for this mindset. And they themselves are continuing it.
But setting that aside, it's just a job. Is the job too hard? Is it impossible for a given employee to teach these kids basic skills required to function in society? Then that employee needs to find another job (voluntarily or involuntarily) and let someone else at least attempt to succeed where they cannot. Which is exactly the opposite of what is happening here.
(Oh, BTW, those health care premiums you mention? I have some bad news for you...)
"Played as pawns" is an interesting metaphor. In chess, all but two of the players have only two goals:
1) Protect your king.
2) Checkmate the other king.
Pawns, bishops, and even queens submit to these goals.
Emanuel and the unions are the kings in this scenario. The teachers and of course the students are all just other players.
The union should turn it around: "We will not stand by while the teachers of Chicago are played as pawns in the Mayor's lust to become the next Richard J. Daley.
"Sounds like we're expecting these teachers to pay for a poorly thought out immigration policy."
That's a valid point. Teachers find our poor immigration policies are damaging the school system for which they teach.
Clearly the teachers, via their unions, should be lobbying their political representatives to fix the immigration policy which is corroding the school systems. They have power far beyond an individual parent.
In case you haven't noticed, this isn't happening. It's almost like the teachers and the union they run don't care to spend their political capital to address these problems at all. Why, I wonder?
Sounds like we're expecting these teachers to pay for a poorly thought out immigration policy. If there's no emphasis at home on test scoring and education -- more on working and making money -- the teachers could be performing wonderfully, but their audience be missing out...
Something like 40% of the teachers send their kids to private schools.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/sep/22/20040922-122847-5968r/
Wonder why.
Mary said...
"You know they'r striking so that only the union can fire incompetent teachers, right?"
"Incompetent" being defined by how the black and sometimes new-to-English immigrant students score on the tests...
No. Mary. Incompetent meaning that the teachers are barely able to read at the level they teach.
Sounds like we're expecting these teachers to pay for a poorly thought out immigration policy. If there's no emphasis at home on test scoring and education -- more on working and making money -- the teachers could be performing wonderfully, but their audience be missing out...
There are very few black immigrants in Chicago. There are quite a few Hispanics. Chicago being a sanctuary city. None the less Hispanics, as a group, test higher than native black students.
"So take your -teachers as victims- and put it where the sun don't shine."
Spoken like a Chicago goon. Bully your way to the top, eh? (Rahm: is that you???)
No. Spoken like an Illinois taxpayer who is tired of being bullied by the entrenched union interests of the teachers.
What do you teach, Mary?
"None the less Hispanics, as a group, test higher than native black students."
The "Hispanics" have the disadvantage, so many of them, of being first generation, totally new and still assimilating to the culture.
Blacks, in my honest opinion, still left in Chicago public non-charter schools, are being raised by one parent, if they are lucky, with little regard for education in the home.
The teachers might be dumb, but given what they are to work with... I'd like to see you turn out average or above average test scores. Not. Gonna. Happen.
You should wise up and get the heck otta Illinois, Mr. Taxpayer Man. Not Getting any better, even with the bullying little Rahm in there, with his kids safely checked into charter schools, of course, from the poor blacks and newcomer "Hispanics".
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