Yes, except with this agreement....when you get rid of the teachers, when hiring to replace them- you are stuck with having to hire half of them back. Takes a long time to get rid of them all at that pace.

Fire 300,000 this year and hire 150,000 back along with 150,000 new ones.

Fire the same 150,000 sloths again next year...rehire 75,000 along with 75,000 new ones.

So takes quite a while to drain the system of all of the stench.

The students and parents should now go on strike demanding qualified teachers.

I agree, though not even necessarily qualified. I'd say what's more important is getting teachers who value the well-being and education of the next generation more than their own paycheck.

I know everyone has to make a living, but I'd wager most of those teachers only got a raise of $3,000 or less. I'd rather have a teacher that would find a way to save $250/month (if they really need it) over having kids miss a couple weeks of valuable education, not to mention setting an example to the kids that you can throw a tantrum to get what you want.

Teachers who work hard at making their lives work are likely the ones to put in extra effort to get each kid the education they need, and if they're not "qualified" at the start, they'll get there as they teach.

3000 raise??? They get less than 2.5% each year. On an average worker making say 50,000 that is a bit over a grand spread out over 24 checks...wow look out. Stupid teachers should have gotten nothing. They should get fired and let T Rex and all the others that said to fire them, come in and work for free. I know that he is excited to work with inner city kids and have his job performance based, not on how he does, but how his kids do. All 30+ of them. T Rex, please send us a phot of you in the classroom in Chicago making a difference. I can't wait.

The students and parents should now go on strike demanding qualified teachers.

I wish the students and parents would go on a strike, so that the teachers and principals can negotiate for a better product and better parental input. I am so tired of people dumping on teachers. Are there some bad teachers? Yes, without a question. Are there some bad people in the private sector? Yes, without a question. Are there some bad people in government? Yes, without a question. Do not denigrate a profession that is so important to our country's future by lumping them all in one pot. Not all unions are "totally" bad. The mayor got some concessions and I am sure the city will revisit the issue again and look for even more concessions down the line. I really wish the children, teachers and principals a successful school year, because they will need it.

maria

so are we to assume ace16 is your pimps number?...............................................:)

"It's for the children."

Yep, just check the student graduation rate and test scores next year and compare it to the miserable statics now. If an improvement has not been accomplished, the Chicago Teacher's Union should be taken to court......PERIOD.

My fiancee teaches freshman English and Reading at one of Chicago's lowest performing high schools in one of Chicago's highest poverty neighborhoods.

Pay is a small issue compared to school conditions, which are what's driving the strike. Union teachers make decent money, better than teachers at the local charter schools. Starting teachers in Chicago outside the union make 35k or something silly, which is right above the poverty line if you have the city's cost of living.

Most of her incoming students read at a third to fifth grade level. A few cannot read at all. This is partly due to the impoverished environment, but also partly because the elementary schools are grossly underfunded and underequipped. Their conditions are even worse than which I'm about to describe. This is why the union is opposed to teacher performance being tied to student scores on standardized tests. My fiance's students are simply unable to take a standard 9th grade performance evaluation.

These students come to a school with no library or school nurse. They will not get books to take home after class, because the school cannot afford them. My fiance has bought books for her students with her own money.

The school is heavily dependent on volunteers to make it through the day. A group called City Year sends volunteers to alot of Chicago's schools because they are understaffed.

Music, art, PE classes are not available to all students at my fiancee's school. They only have one music teacher and one art teacher for the 750 students who attend the school. A few electives are available if teachers volunteer to teach them.

The schools have no air conditioning and the windows are all sealed shut for safety. Classrooms temperatures can go above a hundred degrees, and school has let out early due to heat.

The schools are entirely segregated. My fiancee's school is 99% black. Most of the schools with abysmal teaching conditions are in African-American or Latino neighborhoods.

Students do not expect to live beyond their early twenties. They say education is pointless because you cannot escape the west side of Chicago. They assume they will be victims of gang violence or police brutality before they get old.

And they're right. Maybe they won't actually be killed, but they won't be able to leave the west side. Their schools are so poorly equipped and funded that many of them don't know how to read. They don't know how to use a computer.

And they will become pregnant in high school and earlier, because there is no sex education. They don't know what Plan B is or how to use a condom.

Many of the parents cannot spend time with them because they work 2 or more jobs or are in jail or on drugs or dead.

And so, consequently, they have no social skills. They cannot communicate with someone outside their little world. They don't know how. I can't stress this properly. I can't describe its magnitude with words. The basic human interaction and etiquette that we take COMPLETELY for granted is missing in their lives.

This is institutional poverty, and its very powerful. In Obama's hometown. One of my fiancee's students asked why Obama hadn't done anything to improve their school, and she had no answer for him (and before you think this is some kind endorsement for Romney, let me say that the only people who care less about our education than Democrats are Republicans).

In my own neighborhood, where my own kids will probably get their education, there's a public school with state of the art technology and all the students will be college ready. Its maybe a 20 minute walk away.

This is what the strike is about!

Then do what Obama expects everyone to do. Spend more tax dollars and pay more taxes to fund the schools.

WhatTheNubbers: Yours is the most well stated and sad commentary I've seen on this subject. I accept everything you state as essentially true, because I believe it to be true. The sad part of all this is that successive Democrat administrations in the city of Chicago have failed to address the situation. How can that be? Democrats pride themselves on helping the poor and downtrodden....yet, Democrats have controlled Chicago for 50 years or more....and this is what they can show for it? Geez, Al Capone did a better job helping the downtrodden during the Depression. You have an uphill fight in Chicago....and, sadly, the Democrat party has not lived up to its hype. Beyond that, I didn't see any press reporting that teachers were striking because of books and such. Maybe they were, but the press pretty much gave the impression it was all about wages and teacher accountability. I don't know what the solution is....but clearly Chicago politicians don't either, and are not even trying. As for teachers, they need to get the full message out and quit looking out largely for themselves.....the real message is getting lost in all the political BS.....good luck, and keep telling the story as you did here.

30,000 Lesson Plans covering the break+ Better than a Mosaic Miracle.

Hi Brian

I would weather for my tax dollars to got to schools than oil companies that are making Billions of dollars in profits.

WhatTheNubbers,

I feel for your fiance. My wife is a teacher, and I understand the plight of educators in this country.

That said, I'm interested as to how you think this strike (and the current list of demands) solves any of the admittedly serious issues you raise.

The Chicago teachers voted to strike, primarily, to (a) alter the length of the school day, (b) largely detach the tie between their evaluations and student performance, and (c) addressing job security under the prevailing "evaluation plan".

The teachers' union wanted to lengthen the school day for elementary students (by 75 minutes) and high-school (by 30 minutes). A noble cause, to be sure, but with a price tag: they also want to be compensated for the extra time (understandable but difficult with budgetary constraints).

What they got (along with their demands), was a backlash against teachers' unions in general. Although the majority of this comes from folks who didn't bother to read the demands, it's undeniably hard to sympathize with someone earning $49K - $92K who wants more and is willing to put 350,000 students on the streets to get it.

I submit that the societal problems that form the basis for much of the academic problems in Chicago will not be altered much--if at all--by these demands being met. It will not improve decaying school buildings. It will not fund textbooks or other materials for much of the student body. And it certainly won't improve home conditions for many of the troubled teens in Chicago.

I've always supported teachers, less so the unions. In this case, it could be a battle won and a war lost.

NO BO IN 13

You say how does the strike solve any of this? Well, it doesn't, not directly. The union can't solve this problem, but the city can. That's what a strike is for, to demand the city fix its own problems. And there is no option but to strike, because a strike is the only thing the city can't ignore.

Without the union, the city would simply keep its taxes low and teachers poor and the schools worthless. You'd read a news article about it, or see a documentary or something, and think "boy, how sad, someone should do something" and then go on your merry way and forget all about it. Our politicians aren't interested in fixing this problem, and alot of Americans aren't either because they can just ignore it. But the teachers have to live with it and see it every day, and the union is the only option they have to fight it. You can't support the teachers and not the union, because they are the same thing.

If we had better schools and paid our teachers what their time is worth, they wouldn't NEED a union. It'd be great if the nation could grapple with the inherent problems that many union organizations have, but we can't do that while unions are struggling to even exist.

(You have some of your facts backwards. CPS increased the school day, and in turn the union wanted compensation. You should probably read my statement on evaluations again, they were a serious problem, and worth striking over. The evaluations are nothing but an excuse for the city to continue defunding its schools. You should also look at this:

washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/11/how-much-do-chicago-teachers-make/

CTU teachers make better pay than most but the average salary figure of 75k that people kick around is an exceptional pay grade. The median, what most teachers are making, is only 56k. 56k, gosh, time to buy a car elevator!)

The CTU stabbed teachers and kids in the back by accepting the contract. This will advance Emanual's and the Obama administration's anti-public school agenda. This is what the Democratic Party is all about now. The Republicans attack the middle class and poor directly including going after Unions.

The Democrats attack the middle class and poor with fake populist proposals (like the tiny raise in taxes for the Rich) to suck in liberals and progressives and by working with the corrupt union leadership to thwart and real labor militancy and success.

Both parties are bankrolled by the same entities: Corporations and Wall Street.

Read on...

Delegates meeting votes to end Chicago teachers strike

By Joseph Kishore

19 September 2012

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) succeeded in obtaining a vote by 800 delegates who met Tuesday evening to end a nine-day strike against the third largest school system in the US. The vote means teachers will return to work on Wednesday, though it will be some three weeks before they are able to vote on the agreement reached between the CTU and Chicago Public Schools (CPS).

There is broad opposition among teachers to the contract deal, which incorporates all of the basic demands of Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS. In collaboration with the CTU, the city administration and the media have waged a campaign of lies and intimidation aimed at pressuring the teachers to end the strike.

Tuesday's vote was held under the threat of a court injunction, requested by Emanuel Monday morning, that would declare the strike illegal and set the stage for teachers to be fined and arrested.

From day one, the strike came under vicious attack by both big-business parties and all wings of the corporate-controlled media, "liberal" as well as conservative. The political lineup revealed the stark class divisions not only in Chicago, but nationally, and raised the need for the development of an independent political movement of the working class.

The contract expands test-based evaluations used to victimize and fire teachers, undermines recall rights for laid-off teachers, grants principals far greater control over hiring and firing, and includes other concessions. These measures will facilitate the planned shutdown of up to 120 Chicago public schools, the mass firing of teachers, and the expansion of for-profit charter schools.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/sep2012/chic-s19.shtml

WhatTheNubbers,

You say, "If we had better schools and paid our teachers what their time is worth, they wouldn't NEED a union."

I agree with you.

But I still think the CTU overstepped in this case. There are many teachers in this country--unionized teachers--who are taken advantage of far worse than their Chicago counterparts.

This strike, in my opinion, forced the city to do nothing but acquiesce to the demands laid out before them. And--again in my opinion--they missed the mark when it comes to the most important factor: the kids.

The city of Chicago will do nothing to improve the core issues lying at the base of the problems you succinctly list. If anything, the increased cost of this most recent action will *detract* from their willingness, not add to it.

I'm still of the mind that, by and large, the CTU should have addressed issues closer to the interests of the kids. Otherwise, state the obvious: this was more about the teachers than those they taught.

We may have to agree to disagree on this. I respect your opinions. I hope you do the same with mine.

I don't disagree that they could've/should've done more, but there is a contradiction in saying they didn't do enough while also saying they over-stepped their bounds.

You're right, and just like ArchStanton is saying, they should demand more, lots more, but anti-union sentiment is so strong that even demanding small improvements creates a backlash.

An amusing (depressing) story: while striking last week one morning, my fiancee and her fellow teachers were passed by a guy in a business suit driving a high dollar SUV towards downtown (presumably to his high paying office job), who yelled at them to get back to work. Its just an anecdote but its a tiny microcosm of what's wrong with America.

WhattheNubbers: Your list of demands come with a hefty price tag, how much cost can the taxpayers of Chicago afford. People will be working 2 jobs just to pay the tax bill. Your city has been run down by dems for over 50 yrs and is widely known as the most governmental corrupt city in the nation. You keep hiring dems and then wring your hands over mismanagement. As far as teen pregnancy goes -- really, because there isn't any health classes? Pulllllleze the ten year old twin girls that live across the street KNOW how babies are made and born. On any given day I can turn on the TV and see ads for Planned Parenthood and how to avoid teenage pregnancy -- along with the plight of a teenage mother. If you can reach puberty you know how to avoid pregnancy!

Agreed, Chicagoans should take their local politicians to task for this problem. And its everyone's responsibility to make sure our schools have supplies as basic as books.

Also I'll pass along your suggestion of watching TV instead of improving education to my fiancee, I think she will find that information valuable.

I'd be interested to ask the Chicago school district students how many want to become teachers when they grow up?

WhatTheNubbers,

I appreciate the story you related. A few comments, however:

That businessman in his "high dollar SUV", going to his presumably "high paying office job" is me, or more accurately a person like me. I fit the description.

I'd never shout "get back to work" at your fiance or his fellow union members, but my tax dollars and I are caught in the middle of a three-way tug-of-war between proper use of those tax dollars, the unfairness of how they're appropriated, and the ongoing push for more. This person undoubtedly could have been more respectful in his approach, but I respect his frustration.

Not to mention, of course, that businessman may very well have had kids at home (and not in school) due to a strike he deemed unnecessary or misaligned with the true needs of his city.

I'll also add the fact that that businessman--if he's not a millionaire--must go to that "high paying office job" or lose it. More than likely, no union will come to his rescue if he's laid off, or if a younger, less experienced businessman (or woman) forces him out. He's also given raises and promotions commensurate with his performance, be those metrics fair or unfair.

I'm not suggesting that being a good teacher doesn't require more work than is required by most professions. I know better. I just believe that in Chicago, the demands will benefit the teachers more than the students. That's not the way this strike was advertised to the general public, but it's what I believe in looking over the demands.

And I further believe that professing to know a person--and minimizing his or her frustrations--based on what they drive won't help.

You missed the point of my story.

I too work downtown in an office. I don't have a union, indeed don't need one because my job offers competitive money and good working conditions. The same cannot be said of our nation's teachers, who arguably have a more important job.

Congratulations to the Chicago Teachers' Union for winning their fight against a quality education for our children!

WhatTheNubbers, the average public school teacher in America does not have a masters degree yet makes more per hour worked -- including "off-hours" worked -- than the average masters degree holder. On top of that, the average Chicago teacher makes 60% more than the average US teacher meaning they make much more per hour worked than the average masters degree holder. This does not include the gold plated medical, gold plated retirement and all the other perks like tenure.

When you go to your job, your performance is likely evaluated. If you continually under-perform, you risk losing that job. That's as it should be because your employer wants to ensure he is giving client a quality product. Is that how it works in our public education system where the workers make more per hour than the typical masters degree holder? No, sadly it's not and unfortunately it shows glaringly in our childrens' performance.

Do you have a source for the average masters degree holder quote? Not that it matters, at 56k a year, teachers are underpaid even if its more than what others make. That's not an earth-shattering amount of money.

You need to reread my above statement on why the performance evaluations don't work. Seriously, I thought we were past this No Child Left Behind crap?

WhatTheNubbers...This is precisely why people are upset with the union. The property tax base of Chicago is to be paying for supplies for the students, school libraries, school nurses, not your fiancé. Where is the money to be found? In the paycheck of the tenured teacher who's making two to three times the salary of your fiancé, not out of the paycheck of your fiancé. If an ill performing teacher isn't doing their job, but are tenured, so additional help has to come into the class, is the pay for that additional help coming out of the tenured teacher's salary? No. Fire the non performing teachers.

Why is it so expensive to live in Chicago? Count the number of unions, both private and public that are found in Chicago. Instead of throwing a light switch yourself, I'm guessing a union electrician has to throw that switch. All need to make money because all increase their own costs of just being there. Who profits the most? Not the union laborer, or the just starting teacher...but lazy old fat dinosaur brained tenured vested parasites on the public property tax dollar. Can I believe that student's in the 9th grade are reading at a 3rd grade level? You be I can, that's because some of those old tenured teachers aren't themselves mentally developed past the 4th grade in "human qualities". They are of the philosophy of what they lack in human qualities, they'll make up with money, and that money is coming from the property taxes levied against those who can afford a home. That's why homes are so expensive. If they are built with union labor, and taxed at union teacher pay,pension, and benefit demands, living in a discarded appliance carton should be expensive, let alone a very modest home.

Good luck to you and your fiancé, you sound like you are young and have both vitality and hope. Study municipal budgets. Figure out where all the demands are coming from on one side of the equation, and where all the money to meet these demands are coming from on the other side of the equation. It requires a literacy level that is supposed to be about 8th grade. Unfortunately in Chicago, in the non sciences, a PhD is about 8th grade.

WhatTheNubbers I read your source for Chicago's teacher income and it clearly states that $56k is complete bull crap number published by the Unions. It's actually pretty funny that the article is completely opposite of what you're trying to say because it shows that the median income for Chicago teachers is $71,017.

The article that you posted also showed that the 30 minute increase at the end of the day is also accompanied with new teacher hires to offset the increase. On average there's 180 school days a year and Chicago teachers gets paid huge benefits that totals close to $90,000 as a median! Work more days of the year if the money is still not enough. So please, don't give us this crap about teacher's living "right above" the poverty line.

WhatTheNubbers, my numbers start with this Bureau of Labor Statistics report stating:

"Teachers employed full time worked 24 fewer minutes per weekday and 42 fewer minutes per Saturday than other full-time professionals. On Sundays, teachers and other professionals worked, on average, about the same amount of time. These estimates are averages for all teachers and other professionals who did some work in the week prior to their interview."

That last (bold) phrase is just as important as the fact that teachers work on teaching related activities 2 hours and 42 minutes per week less -- per week they work -- than the average worker because they also work 20% less weeks. From there it's not hard to find average teacher salaries, average salaries for workers with master's degrees and average hours worked by those with master's degree. BTW...I am not going to track all these down for you since you already admit that you are going to ignore and simply discount it like reality doesn't exist.

Typical liberal...get faced with reality and you ignore it and shut down.

This compromise is a vast improvement, don't you know? The number of teachers fired will rise from one in a thousand to 1.5 in a thousand, and the number of students who are proficient might rise as far as to 1 in 4.

and rahm/barry get to keep the union votes and money..... isn't democracy grand?.............:)

They were offered 16%, wanted 30% and settled for 7%? That's what unions do for you. I worked for 15 years in the IBEW, and every three years our contract came up, the union advocated strike and everybody did for an unpaid vacation, but after a week or two with no paycheck, we would go back for whatever the company offered.

That's harsh. Shouldn't they also get credit for a week's worth of instruction in community organizing?

its Chicago,.......... they need cages not wages...............:)

More like they should receive correctional officers wages complete with hazard pay.

Do they recieve extra pay for "Proper Prophylactic Application " or " The Joys of the Homosexual Lifestyle", or " Socialism is the Wave of the Future" ?

ted...all of those mentioned, plus "Applying for Welfare 101", "Increasing Your Welfare Benefits with More Babies", " How to Include your baby daddy as a dependent", " How to Exchange Food Stamps for Dope", and "How to Vote For a Democrat Multiple Times".

tsk tsk....you sound sceptical, why? remember the election 2 years ago, They got a new Governor along with a new tax just look at all the help the new tax increase has done............

why just yesterday i was driveing over there and there were two state employees spray bombing the words "rough surface" ...ON THE road.... ahead of a bad patch job. cant aford a sign i guess, ( sounds like a joke but i swear its true) new boston blacktop, aledo county.

Sorry people of Chicago, my favorite city.

Barry.....is that you?......................:)

Is someone threatening your life, or that of your family? Were you beaten into submission? Or did you choose to be a Teacher? If the latter DO THE JOB or quit!

I thought that Teachers, above many others were intelligent, could read and discern reality ! The City is broke, the County is broke, The State is broke, and the Nation is in even worse condition we're not just broke, we're broke and over $16 Trillion in debt!

25 Million are un or underemployed, and these selfish, socialists held the Children hostage for their RAISE! What they have primarily caused is the demise of their union!

Oh we know it's not the teachers fault the students don't learn, it's tsunamis, snowstorms, ATM's, kiosks, Bush, Republicans, parents, ANYTHING but the teachers! Ask Ron Clark, Ken Carter,Jamie Escalante, LouAnne Johnson, or the hundreds of other real Teachers across America who is responsible and I'll bet you would get a far different answer!

Yep, I guess since all of those things are broke, we should what??? Not pay teachers? Is that your answer? The govt spent too much money, but let's not talk about taking away huge tax break for the uber wealthy...no let's pay people who on average get about 50,000 a year less. Yep, sound reasoning. I mean why should the wealthy get a bit less when we can make people who are middle class just get paid less. This is the thinking of most republicans. When you can explain why a person making say over 250,000 a year should keep tax breaks so they can continue bringing home their 250,000 a year, but a teacher who is paid say 50,000 a year should get paid less is ok in your eyes bring it on. Or why a teacher should get paid less because Mitt and other just like him still want the tax rate on profits from stocks to stay at 15% so they don't have to pay the same tax rate as the teacher? So Mitt can make more money and pay less taxes by almost 1/2 than the teacher you are saying should get paid less. You say how unfair it is that Mitt made his money and he should keep it, but in the same breath you say pay teachers less. So how is that fair?

WOW...that really hurt. You calling a teacher a SOCIALIST...Just too funny. Is that the only card you got up your sleeve...call everyone who doesn't agree with you a socialist. So how is a teacher a socialist anyway? I'll just call you Joseph McCarthy now.

yep...... 3% safer to walk down the street, until schools out anyway.......................................:)

I have a Masters degree and work in the helping profession

so your a politician?.........

and have never made above $50,000.

try community organising i hear it pays MILLIONS.................:)

Wow, kpcoach....can't put anything over on you. Good catch, though. Only you, me, and couple of others have figured that out.

kpcouch said,

" So cry me a river, this is all about greed."

Bingo we have a winner!!

That's all it's about...greed... or as Moochelle would say... gimme gimme gimme!!

My heart goes out to those poor kids who are suppose to get an education and instead are used then thrown away... disgusting!!

Right, Tom.....you must be on drugs

I think that was satire Grandfather, at least I hope it was! It's hard to believe that anyone with the ability to chew gum and walk at the same time would really believe that!

No Drugs I am not a liberal!

Yeah...if you believe that crap he has a neighborhood he wants you to organize....

Once a spin-doctor..........

it has nothing to do about right wing or left wing. it has to do with job performance and how people should get paid. if the school systems were in the business world they would have gone under years ago. I personally am getting sick of over paying on taxes. And in return get nothing back. I don't mind paying taxes but I would like to get something back in return.

"right wing"? Even the man who signed the Wagner Act believed that Public Sector Unions should never have existed! " All Government employees should realize that the pratice of collective bargining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the Public Service. It has it's distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to Public Personnel Management" ! Franklin D. Roosevelt Jimmy Carter made it extremely difficult for any Public Sector Unions to be created at the Federal Level! So, while Obama gives it lip service, it's not a situation he's forced to actually deal with!

CoolBean, your statement is perfect proof that the majority of posters have have no idea what they're talking about. Teaching and Business/Manufacturing are not the same thing, not even close. Public schools are NON-profit, but if left up to the Repubs you'd have to pay to go to school. This would leave hundreds of thousands of kids without an education.

Public Schools have to take every student who shows up and find a way to educate him or her to a one-size-fits-all standard.

Imagine if everyone who walked through your office door was given a job on the spot and expected to perform at some artificially set level. Oh wait...you get to CHOOSE who works for you. Teachers don't get to choose students, they take the good and bad, smart and struggling, proficient and disabled, rich or poor, black or white... teachers take them all and for 8 hours a day nurture and guide them toward success. The other 16 hours those kids are in the real world of hate, poverty, abuse, malnutrition etc...

So no, schools will never run like a business, thank goodness.

Mr. Clark, Mr. Escalante, Mr. Carter Ms. Johnson, to name a few, would beg to differ with you! They made a choice and they made a difference, what the didn't make was excuses for failure!

Administrators are not part of a union, but feel free to spread that old Repub rhetoric and lies... seriously CoolBeans, it's time to log off and go for a walk or something to cool down that "angry blood" you got in you. You have nothing factual or relevant to say, yet keep talking.