The strike is over, and I will be willing to bet a years pay that nothing will have changed in one, two, five or even ten years in Chicago. The schools will remain among the worse in the nation, the kids will continue to score poorly on tests, and the teachers will continue to draw salaries approaching a lot of first year medical residents.

The unions won... Rahm won.... and the children lost... as usual!

They taught the students a lot when they went on strike.

: They don't give a damn about their charges.

: Money means everything

: Want to get ahead in this world? Get a public service job and do nothing.

: If you work more than 5 3/4 hours per day you're stupid.

: If you work more than 154 days a year you're stupid.

"Finnish teachers are required to have a master’s degree and teachers come from the top 10 percent of college graduates. Compare that to the U.S., where 47 percent of America’s teachers come from the bottom third of their class, according to a 2010 McKinsey report."

PLEASE don't forget that the VERY Conservative magazine Forbes lists teaching -including benefits- as the 3rd lowest paying profession in America requiring a 4-year college degree. It also requires 300 hrs/year MORE work than the average full-time job. And American teachers in most systems are required to earn a masters degree or equivalent within so many years of becoming a teacher.

If teaching was so easy and lucrative, why is it that most large systems - including Chicago- have annual recruiting drives in 3rd world countries because they can't get enough American teachers to work for that salary under those conditions. 10% of Baltimore's teachers are from the Philippines.

Additionally, the teacher is held accountable if the student doesn't succeed, but the parents aren't held responsible if their kid is a devil in the mornings and an angel in the afternoons because the only meal he eats most days is his free lunch and that's all he can think about in his morning classes. Talk to virtually ANY public school teacher and they know kids like that: it's unfortunately too common. And so is the girl whose mother doesn't feel like going shopping alone, so she picks up her teenage daughter from school in the morning to take with her. But it's the teacher's fault when the girl doesn't do well.

Attend a parent night and look in classrooms of the gifted classes and the low-level classes. There's standing-room-only in the gifted classes. There's usually not even one parent on the low-level classes. Wonder why the kids are low-level?

Yeah, but the article says the education system is "broken"! How about American society? What do you accomplish when 90% of them get free lunches and breakfasts - but the parents can't be bothered to get many of the kids to school in time for the breakfasts?

I think it is a bad assumption that a union's job does not include weeding out poor performers. That implies that the union's job is to protect poor performers, which of course would never be the case. When unions became large and powerful, they maintained their own standards, and poor performers would either be exposed to significant peer pressure to perform or would be convinced to leave the local. Why would anyone want to have poor performers allowed to represent the whole union or local? If union leadership would insist on quality products and services provided by their members, they could legitimately claim that they are providing a high quality service to the employer. I believe this is a new role for unions, and it would buy them incredible respect.

The issue isn't the Unions per say; it is that they overly protect poor performers. I manage a non-unionized EMS system. We identify and remediate poor performers. When behaviors that threaten the cohesiveness of the team or patients continue we will seperate that person. There are a handfull of immediate termination behaviors - texting and driving an ambulance or making personal phone calls on your cell while driving the ambulance.
I discuss the issues with some of my collegues that have a union workforce, and it's ugly. They have a difficult time disciplining and/or removing employees who are a threat to the work environment and patients.
From what I gather from this story the unions are taking a similar position in protectiong poor performing teachers. (BTW: management should held equally accountable if they are poor performers.). Any unions defense of a worker that habitualy and by choice is a poor performer is reprehensible.
Management and employees - if both have the product and supporting the work environment as their expressed goals - ought to negotiate workable policies, procedures, and equitable pay scales without a unions influence.

sadly the country is rigged towards having a great amount of uneducated citizens so they can be duped to vote for self-serving politicians. they can talk all they want but those in the government actually prefer dumb folks as their constituents they can make into believing any garbage coming out of their mouth.

Why is it that people refuse to read the article before posting? The article is about improving the system not bashing teachers. You work with what you already have, not express your disdain for unions

This issue was addressed by the Documentary "Waiting For "Superman" and they already said part of the problem is the Union and not because of poverty in certain areas. They proved the point that even poverty stricken children would still be able to outperform. That student went to a chartered school, but you have to be in the lottery to even get your child to be picked.

What is the divorce rate in Finland? How many "parents" are on Welfare in Finland? What % of Finland's children are taught every day at home that school is dumb and the government will just pay you anyway so just go for a free meal?

Educational reform starts and ends in the home, it really has very little to do with the schools.

A broken system? Please this sh*thole of a city is known for 2 things...Al Capone and that idiot in the White House who ruined a Nation in one 4 year term as President. Other than that it's good for some quality crack at cheap prices and that's it

"For many, school is where they go, not just for an education, but for food"

Schools should be place of education. If schools become the place for kids to be fed, because their parents are not feeding them, then CPS needs to step-in. If I didn't feed my kid, it is called neglect and CPS has a duty to take kids (away from their parents) who are neglected. I understand that a kid does not learn when their stomach is empty. I also understand that it is a parent's duty to properly feed their kids. I agree that some kids (families) need assistance and I do not disagree with assistance re subsidized meals. However, I do disagree when the kid receives free meals because the parent cannot or does not feed them; then it should be considered child-abuse and neglect and CPS needs to step-in. Schools need to spend their resources educating children, not being parents to children because of neglect in the home. Moreover, much of the nation's crime is directly attributed to children who grow-up in abusive and neglected home-environments. Schools cannot be held accountable for every child's well being. It is the parents duty, which includes properly feeding their children.

Do we recall, Waiting For Superman and the overall revealing of some of the embarassingly shoddy public school systems in too many states not so long ago? What's really changed since then? Should this really be such a surprise as the article seems to portray? So in fact this matter goes far deeper and broader than the issues being delved into here. Likewise the reasons the schools and children perform so much better and efficiently in other developed lands per energy expenditure and attendant headaches vs public revenue (tax dollars) 'spent' to achieve such. Note that it points out that the entire community gets involved with the process. So how do we think this reflects as a civic and economic based role model example to set before children overall? How does such compare in the US? Now it's clear that there's a faaar greater reason so many perform poorly, and are largely blamed by a confused populace that just expects results ought be possible somehow- but don't know themselves, fostering a deep rooted low self-esteem problem where kids confusingly turn to drugs and other criminal behavior because there's not really the country that's long been sold to the general American public. In fact I recall an article in The Seattle Times in Jan, 1990 telling all about how in retrospect the '80's was largely just one BIG cleverly spun TV ad and PR campaign that never really delivered. Titled, The Decade of Grand Illusion, it featured a characature mociac of Showmaster Ron in Top Hat w/ fortune teller Nancy gazing into her crystal ball. Ruthless buyout Vampires are about to pounce on Wall Street, and the S&L scandal thing is portrayed. So this has all been brewing beneath the surface for awhile. It does get to me when there are those who go on and on about how poorly American kids perform compared to their foreign counterparts in a host of developed nations. Yet proceed to dance around some of the most important reasons why, making suggestions that are thus minimally effective relative to the commitment of time and resources involved.

why should teachers and their famlies be forced into poverty because the school wont pay them enough to survive. the teachers a trying to make a living . provide a future for the family and go back to college to get required education in order to keep their job. a friend of mine spouse got grandfathered so she didnt have to go get the additonal education/

all the kids of mexicans who speak mexican at home and are behind at school because they dont comprehend because they only use english at school shouldnt be a burden to taxpayers or a minus sign

on a teacher evaluaition but time and again these people are included in teachers evaluations

they need a special school where all these people have programs designed to get them to better learning ability .. the taxpayers are paying so no one should care is how they act anyway not !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Calm down folks and lets get back on point. First there is enough blame to be spread around to everyone. For me the compelling part of the article was the overwhelming poverty of the children in the Chicago Public Schools. Which aligns with the fact that the City of Chicago and probably most older urban cities are getting poorer. Except for a few gentrified neighborhoods, vast areas of Chicago resemble Detroit, abandoned boarded up houses and vacant lots.

A few years ago the Chicago Tribune ran a story in which they reported that annually the City of Chicago looses over a BILLION dollars in salary income. This is the income associated with people leaving the city and moving to the suburbs. The prime motivating factor was not pollution, congestion, or crime. Rather it was education. As soon as a young couple have either a "bun in the oven" or a child of school age, they pull-up stakes and head to the burbs. And if they cannot, they enroll their children in a private school, which in Chicago does not mean charter schools, but rather the Catholic schools.

Bottom line, its a storm that is feeding on itself. The middle class, be they black, white, asian or hispanic, people who would demand a quality education for their children, leave the city because they know, believe, or after a long day of both parents at work to make ends meet, they just don't have the energy to tackle what has been to date an unsolvable problem...reforming education in a decaying urban city. So who is left...politicians, bureaucrats, and yes unions all feeding on a dying carcass.

I'm not saying that the urban poor do not care about their children. They do. But because they are poor and struggling to make ends meet, if they even can, they are ill positioned and ill equipped to take on the problem of education reform. Think about it...if you are a resident of one of Chicago's (or name your urban city) suburbs. When was the last time you attended a local school board meeting.

Looks like someone, namely XXXXX should be sitting there.

"Rather, they say, school leaders should do a better job identifying bad teachers and weeding them out."

How can this happen when the union protects the teachers.

I am a firm believer in denying unions in the first place. Using public money to pay teachers AND allowing them bargaining powers smacks of improper use of public funds.

Now to the question of who loses. Everyone associated with the strike, students, teachers, union leaders and the public at large lose. While earning their pay teachers were not performing their job. Students were denied their rightful education. Parents lost twice, once in the education of their children and second, in tax revenue being paid teachers who were not teaching.

Lastly, America lost an opportunity to once and for all provide quality education without fear the citizens of tomorrow were being short changed in the name of union rights. We must learn to differentiate between quality and equality.

The headline alone is enough to insult any intelligent person....duh you think?

Jack. You are making my point for me and you don't even realize it:

" I was forced to bring in union workers and if they didn't make the grade, I sent them back to sit on the union bench"

So the workers stink, you know they stink, your Union knows they stink, the workers themselves know they stink, yet as long as these crappy workers keep their Union dues current they still remain eligible for jobs. Do you not see the ridiculousness in that?! Cheese N Crackers you are a moron.

I would just like to say, THANK YOU FOR THIS ARTICLE. There have been many issues identified by this strike, and many failings identified by this strike. Many of them can be isolated, and hopefully with that isolation of issues, identify where the unions have been lax, the teachers have been lax, and the school administration have been lax. Blaming parents, ( though they have responsibility ) isn't going to solve the issues of not having books for the kids in class, having qualified teachers to teach a class, having an evaluation system for the teachers that sees that the student's goal of graduation includes literacy in the subjects required to graduate. If all the kids don't graduate, well all the kids don't graduate. The teachers graduated however, and therefore they should be held accountable for their personal literacy. Union pensions and benefits should be paid for AFTER the students have books. School administrators should be evaluated according to the number of students who reach the next grade level with literacy competency. Union representatives all should be high school level science and math teachers, actively teaching, and evaluated by the union rank and file on their job performance with the kids in their class, No union representative should be paid more than their base salary as a teacher, and if they aren't teaching, they don't represent teachers. Sort of like being in the Navy, when the ship sinks the captain has the opportunity to swim with the crew.

For 75 specific examples of how bureaucratic school systems stand in the way of students, teachers and parents nationwide, see Over the last decade, through our foundation’s efforts to strengthen public schools, we have discovered that numerous bureaucratic challenges facing urban school district central offices may help to explain why many well-intentioned efforts to improve public schools have not worked.

Systems are the problem, not people. Luckily, they can be fixed.

In the US, public school teachers have historically been paid poorly especially in view of the importance of their work to society. One of the few advantages the profession had was benefits. Now, those are being stripped away, the workload is increasing, their alreays minimal pay is not increasing. On top of all this they're being called lazy and greedy by many so they're not worth any additional taxes to compensate them. I guess what those people are looking for is a wave of immigrant teachers (legal or illegal) who will work for minimum wage and still give their kids a top rate education.

80% of the students in these districts are eligible for food allowances. Here in NYC that means breakfast and lunch - even during the summer when school is out. These kids are already being given the dirty end of the stick in life, yet the teachers take time away from a years teaching. Competition in life is already brutal for these kids, now they are in catch-up mode. Thanks CTU, I guess it really was al about the kids.

Does anyone know if Finland has a high stakes test when kids are about age 11-13? I know that many countries do that and they split the kids at that point. We often measure all of our kids vs. their top 50%.

To the know-nothings who think school systems "can't" fire incompetent teachers: You're wrong! All that tenure gives a union-represented teacher is the right to due process. It requires principals who think teachers are incompetent to PROVE it. Yes, that's better for the employee than the "at will" employment most of us have in the private sector...which is WHY people join unions in the first place!

Education works best in a climate of mutual respect and collaboration. The best way for principals to deal with teachers they think are incompetent is to work with them to improve their skills. And (surprise, surprise!) in the process of working on that improvement plan, the principal will either actually help the teacher to improve or develop the evidence needed to demonstrate that the teacher really IS incompetent and should be removed from the classroom. It's pretty simple when you approach the issue in terms of solving the problem, not ranting about how evil and out-of-date unions are!

the problem in school systems is not the teachers or the unions. the middle-class is being slowly destroyed by right wing republicans and the rich. this has been going on since R. Regan started it by turning the country into a capitalist state. the downward spiral of middle-class income is a matter of record, most thanks to the greedy rich and corporations who want middle-class incomes to be equivalent to china incomes and they are succeeding. the bulk of students, in what the idiot Neil bortz refers to as government schools, populate these schools are poor and getting poorer and the family problems they contend with (poverty, violence, single parent homes, drug addiction, etc) produce a student who is usually less than a scholar. the problems are mental illness, antisocial behavior, hunger, fear etc. bortz idea is to subsidize the rich and help them put their kids in private schools using tax payer money thus contributing to even more problems in the public school system.