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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19547286

Teachers in Chicago have gone on strike for the first time in 25 years, prompting a showdown with Mayor Rahm Emanuel over a contract dispute. As many as 26,000 teachers were expected to stay away, with picket lines forming around the city. About 350,000 students were affected by the strike in the nation's third-largest district.

There seem to be three primary complaints:

1. Lack of pay increase (a 4% rise was canceled last year)

2. Health insurance concerns

3. Job security and teacher evaluations

The teacher evaluations are, as usual, dependent on test scores, which I'm guessing are a poor measure of a teacher's performance, especially given that the curriculum and textbooks of most public schools are a terrible, disorganized mess.

One of the side effects of the strike, though, is that a lot of children are not where they are supposed to be.

Is a strike like this the best way to get what they want?



Edit: On a side note,
Mitt Romney decides to give his ill informed opinion of the situation, citing the students as the real victims, as if he truly cares about the students of America in general, much less in Chicago.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics...0,669195.story

Originally Posted by Mitt Romney “I am disappointed by the decision of the Chicago Teachers Union to turn its back on not only a city negotiating in good faith but also the hundreds of thousands of children relying on the city’s public schools to provide them a safe place to receive a strong education,” Romney said in the statement, issued by his campaign as he was flying from Boston to a campaign event in Ohio. “Teachers unions have too often made plain that their interests conflict with those of our children, and today we are seeing one of the clearest examples yet.”

This is a tough situation for me to take a strong stance on for a variety of reasons.

-Strikes are tough to support in education since students lose out, and US students are already having shorter school years than a lot of other countries, and falling behind other countries in academic achievement for a variety of reasons.

-But we do need to spend more on education, pay good teachers well, give them good benefits etc. to encourage more of the best and brightest to choose to teach rather than go on to work in business, law, medicine etc. that will always pay more.

-But at the same time teacher's unions have to stop fighting for strict tenure that keeps crappy teachers in jobs for years, leads to talented young teachers getting disenchanted and quitting as rewards are too based on seniority etc.

-But to do that we need effective evaluations systems, not just standardized test results. We need things like professional evaluations of teachers etc., with the best teachers getting the highest pay and the worst teachers getting fired regardless of years on the job.

So there's a lot of give and take that needs to happen on both the side of teachers/unions and on the part of society/government in terms of how much we value and invest in education.

Typical republican garbage. I'm not a teacher so forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's stated in any job requirement, "must give up any and all rights to be treated fairly". There are some people you just don't with, the police, fire fighters, and if you care about education, teachers.

Originally Posted by dmaul1114 This is a tough situation for me to take a strong stance on for a variety of reasons. -Strikes are tough to support in education since students lose out, and US students are already having shorter school years than a lot of other countries, and falling behind other countries in academic achievement for a variety of reasons. -But we do need to spend more on education, pay good teachers well, give them good benefits etc. to encourage more of the best and brightest to choose to teach rather than go on to work in business, law, medicine etc. that will always pay more. -But at the same time teacher's unions have to stop fighting for strict tenure that keeps crappy teachers in jobs for years, leads to talented young teachers getting disenchanted and quitting as rewards are too based on seniority etc. -But to do that we need effective evaluations systems, not just standardized test results. We need things like professional evaluations of teachers etc., with the best teachers getting the highest pay and the worst teachers getting fired regardless of years on the job. So there's a lot of give and take that needs to happen on both the side of teachers/unions and on the part of society/government in terms of how much we value and invest in education.

I know you're not a "teacher" per se, but isn't it a bit hypocritical that you should speak of tenure systems for teachers when, lets be honest here, tenure for university professors is pretty much a license to be a shitty instructor. Now I know you're thinking "teaching isn't the main aspect of my job", and that may be true for you and those at your university, but not every school is a research university. It just smacks a bit of a double standard.

Originally Posted by Clak Typical republican garbage. I'm not a teacher so forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's stated in any job requirement, "must give up any and all rights to be treated fairly". There are some people you just don't with, the police, fire fighters, and if you care about education, teachers.

Are you saying that taxpayers are responsible to meet any demands put up by police, firefighters, and teachers? Even when the state is going bankrupt (http://www.graham-benson.com/2012/04...oing-bankrupt/) and the average 9-month teacher salary (http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/06/...teachers-make/) is more than the median household income (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinoi...apita_income)?

Originally Posted by Clak I know you're not a "teacher" per se, but isn't it a bit hypocritical that you should speak of tenure systems for teachers when, lets be honest here, tenure for university professors is pretty much a license to be a shitty instructor. Now I know you're thinking "teaching isn't the main aspect of my job", and that may be true for you and those at your university, but not every school is a research university. It just smacks a bit of a double standard.

No I get that.

My response would be along the following lines.

1. University tenure shouldn't be a solid as it is currently. Tenured faculty generally go through 5 year reviews after tenure. But there should be more pressure to keep performing to get raises, and more ability to get rid of people who aren't doing anything. It's not just an issue with teaching, there's issues with people who greatly reduce (or stop) publishing research, getting grants etc. after tenure or after becoming full professor etc. as well.

2. We need more split between research and teaching in research universities. It's already there in the sense that research faculty like me typically have a 2-2 teaching load (two course in fall, two in spring) where as full time teaching faculty are on a 4-4 or 5-5. But most of the full time teaching faculty at research universities are not tenure track faculty unfortunately.

That should change, and teaching faculty should be evaluated on teaching only, research faculty mostly on research as currently. Totally on research if we get to some perfect world where top researchers aren't forced to teach at all.

One thing our department is trying to pursue is variable teaching loads. So some people who are good teachers but don't do much research can get say 3-3 loads, and the more research active faculty can get 2-1 or 1-1 loads, and buy down to even lower loads from buying out classes with research grant money.

3. For teaching universities, tenure evaluations would be totally based on teaching (just like for the teaching faculty at research schools). And evaluations should continue post tenure to make sure they're still doing a good job, just like research faculty should keep being evaluated on the teaching and research they do post tenure.



But all that said, "teaching" shouldn't matter as much in higher education if our k-12 system wasn't broken. College used to be (and should be) a place for the best and brightest scholars who by the time they get to that level don't need a lot of direct teaching. But rather can just be lectured to, asked to think critically about material, and most of the learning being guided self learning outside of the classroom. Outside of very advanced classes in math and the hard sciences of course where more teaching is needed.

But our public education system is broken, so only a minority of college students are ready for that type of guided self learning even in simple classes like criminology. Anything I don't teach in great detail in my lectures, the classes tend to do poorly on those areas on exams. I end up having to lecture a lot on stuff that's covered in the readings in details as when I just expect them to read and understand material on their own, and use lecture to cover additional or more advanced material, they end up bombing on the book-only material and doing better on the class-covered content.

So in short, college education has really gotten dumbed down to pretty much the high school level--with just more detail given to specific major area subjects.

1. Did you read the entire article you posted?
2. According to wikipedia (and after I found the right page) it says the median household income in cook county is $45,922, that isn't especially high. My father alone made that working in a (unionized, imagine that) factory. So you're saying that teachers make more than the county median? Good for them.

Originally Posted by yourlefthand Are you saying that taxpayers are responsible to meet any demands put up by police, firefighters, and teachers? Even when the state is going bankrupt (http://www.graham-benson.com/2012/04...oing-bankrupt/) and the average 9-month teacher salary (http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/06/...teachers-make/) is more than the median household income (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinoi...apita_income)?

You have no ing clue what you're talking about. You took the STATE average, and you can actually make a livable wage in suburban teaching. Inner-city Chicago teachers make next to nothing to start out. (That's one problem) They worked for 5 hour school days, Emmanuel decided to raise it to six and a half, and the teachers asked for a 30% pay raise to go along. They were denied. Yeah, goddamn selfish unions

Originally Posted by Clak 1. Did you read the entire article you posted? 2. According to wikipedia (and after I found the right page) it says the median household income in cook county is $45,922, that isn't especially high. My father alone made that working in a (unionized, imagine that) factory. So you're saying that teachers make more than the county median? Good for them.

It is good for them. I was taking exception with your statement that you couldn't with the teachers.

Originally Posted by RealDeals You have no ing clue what you're talking about. You took the STATE average, and you can actually make a livable wage in suburban teaching. Inner-city Chicago teachers make next to nothing to start out. (That's one problem) They worked for 5 hour school days, Emmanuel decided to raise it to six and a half, and the teachers asked for a 30% pay raise to go along. They were denied. Yeah, goddamn selfish unions

Sorry, but I do understand what I'm talking about. I understand that that is an average teacher's salary. We are talking about union striking, not just the low-seniority teachers. I can't imagine that the high-seniority teachers are out their striking to keep their own pay the same and offer more to the new teachers.

Going from a 5 hour day to a 6.5 hour day would suck. I understand that, but teacher-apologists like to talk about how they all work long hours anyway. I don't see this making that big of a difference in the actual number of hours that they log.

Maybe if the teachers would get together and figure out ways to improve outcomes with the time and money that they have taxpayers would trust them to have more money. As it is per-student spending is going up and outcomes are going down.

Originally Posted by dmaul1114 No I get that. My response would be along the following lines. 1. University tenure shouldn't be a solid as it is currently. Tenured faculty generally go through 5 year reviews after tenure. But there should be more pressure to keep performing to get raises, and more ability to get rid of people who aren't doing anything. It's not just an issue with teaching, there's issues with people who greatly reduce (or stop) publishing research, getting grants etc. after tenure or after becoming full professor etc. as well. 2. We need more split between research and teaching in research universities. It's already there in the sense that research faculty like me typically have a 2-2 teaching load (two course in fall, two in spring) where as full time teaching faculty are on a 4-4 or 5-5. But most of the full time teaching faculty at research universities are not tenure track faculty unfortunately. That should change, and teaching faculty should be evaluated on teaching only, research faculty mostly on research as currently. Totally on research if we get to some perfect world where top researchers aren't forced to teach at all. One thing our department is trying to pursue is variable teaching loads. So some people who are good teachers but don't do much research can get say 3-3 loads, and the more research active faculty can get 2-1 or 1-1 loads, and buy down to even lower loads from buying out classes with research grant money. 3. For teaching universities, tenure evaluations would be totally based on teaching (just like for the teaching faculty at research schools). And evaluations should continue post tenure to make sure they're still doing a good job, just like research faculty should keep being evaluated on the teaching and research they do post tenure. But all that said, "teaching" shouldn't matter as much in higher education if our k-12 system wasn't broken. College used to be (and should be) a place for the best and brightest scholars who by the time they get to that level don't need a lot of direct teaching. But rather can just be lectured to, asked to think critically about material, and most of the learning being guided self learning outside of the classroom. Outside of very advanced classes in math and the hard sciences of course where more teaching is needed. But our public education system is broken, so only a minority of college students are ready for that type of guided self learning even in simple classes like criminology. Anything I don't teach in great detail in my lectures, the classes tend to do poorly on those areas on exams. I end up having to lecture a lot on stuff that's covered in the readings in details as when I just expect them to read and understand material on their own, and use lecture to cover additional or more advanced material, they end up bombing on the book-only material and doing better on the class-covered content. So in short, college education has really gotten dumbed down to pretty much the high school level--with just more detail given to specific major area subjects.

I agree with you, and as far as what college has become goes, I think people just don't like to read anymore. If the textbooks for your classes were in audiobook format, maybe, maybe you'd see a difference. I could be completely wrong in that regard, it may just be overall laziness. I'll say that there were classes I had in college where reading the material was completely unnecessary, especially in the sociology class I remember taking. Others were so necessary that you'd fail the class if you didn't read. I don't know how you tend to grade things and create tests, but I'd start loading the tests with more material from the text and less from lectures.

I'm split on this issue.

My mom has been an educator for over 30+ years in several different roles (educator, administrator, etc.) and I know there are many dedicate like her that put in more then the "9 months" everyone bitches about as well as spend money out of their own pockets for supplies for their students.

However, at least in Maine there are many issues that need to be fixed. Many teachers are getting into the practice of double dipping; meaning once they put in their "time" they retire and withdraw their pension. Once they have drawn their pension they will then seek remployment with their district and most superintendents will rehire them at their previous wage

Here is a good article on that practice:


http://bangordailynews.com/2012/07/2...ouble-dipping/


At a Maine superintendents’ meeting in January 2011, Webster voiced his opposition to double-dipping. “I was one of the few, if not the only, superintendent who had this perspective,” he said.
His predecessor, Leon Levesque, retired in 2006, began getting a pension, was rehired as superintendent by the Lewiston School Committee and continued to get a salary. In 2009, his annual salary was $113,300 and his retirement income was more than $100,000 a year. Based on U.S. Social Security Administration life expectancies, Levesque’s projected pension income could be more than $2 million over his lifetime, depending on cost-of-living increases.
The practice is common among state employees.

While it certainly isn't every teacher it is prevelant and worrisome (and I know it doesn't just apply to teachers).

I know many educators are underpaid but I feel like it is a field where you know beforehand you are going to make monetary sacrificies and growing up I felt like my family did very well. We always had great health care, took great summer vacations, spent all the holidays together and my mom was able to continue her education and eventually get her doctorates all paid for by her school district.

Originally Posted by RealDeals Inner-city Chicago teachers make next to nothing to start out. (That's one problem)

That's a huge problem in all cities. There's already all kinds of inequality in the inner city, and the schools are lackluster because the salaries are lower as the local tax base is lower due to most inner city areas being impoverished.

Thus its very hard to get good teachers to go (and stay) there as they pay less (and are in higher cost of living areas) and require more work (teaching kids who are more troubled, parents who are absent and/or don't give a shit about their kids, more behind their grade level, more drugs, violence etc. in the school and so on). All of which makes it harder for kids to better themselves and break out of multi-generational poverty.

Rural areas have the lower tax base/lower pay issue too. But jobs are so scarce in rural areas that competition is still fierce for full time teaching jobs.

Originally Posted by yourlefthand It is good for them. I was taking exception with your statement that you couldn't with the teachers.

I didn't say you couldn't, I was implying you shouldn't. So no, I dont' think you should with the police if you want them doing their best to combat crime, I dont' think you should with fire fighters if you want them there when you're house is burning down, and if you care about the education of children, I don't think you should with their teachers when they're simply trying to get a good deal.

I have no problem with these groups wanting better pay, benefits etc., they're a very necessary group of people and they deserve to be compensated well.

Originally Posted by Clak I don't know how you tend to grade things and create tests, but I'd start loading the tests with more material from the text and less from lectures.

What I was getting at is when I tried that, grades suffered. Granted, I'm at a pretty crummy university that gets mainly students who don't get into the 3 better universities in the area--and CJ attracts the lowest tier of students for the most part anyway at the undergraduate level.

Now most of my exams draw from things covered in BOTH the text and lecture as the largest part of the material, then draw from stuff only in lecture, and include a few things only from the text (which kids tend to bomb--other than the few A students).

But at the end of the day, some of the blame goes to me as I'm pretty lazy about teaching these days as I'm in full on publish or perish mode as I have two years to tenure and need several more publications to be safe--while I'm fine on the teaching side as my evaluations are solid as my classes are fairly easy. And as long as kid are getting the grades they hope for, they give good evaluations (huge flaw of the student evaluation system).

I love how they said children are overweight and fat YET they are opening up the schools for breakfast and lunch... and they go if they didnt the wouldnt have anything to eat... like they never had food all summer

and also love how they are on tv now saying ALL OF THESE KIDS Have nowhere to go WHERE THE HELL DID THEY GO ALL SUMMER THEN

sick of people playing the ing race card as well .....

heard on tv that all of the black students cant go to school cause of the strike but this does not affect white students cause they go to charter schools ..... ummmm at least here that is 80% the other way...

Originally Posted by yourlefthand Sorry, but I do understand what I'm talking about. I understand that that is an average teacher's salary. We are talking about union striking, not just the low-seniority teachers. I can't imagine that the high-seniority teachers are out their striking to keep their own pay the same and offer more to the new teachers. Going from a 5 hour day to a 6.5 hour day would suck. I understand that, but teacher-apologists like to talk about how they all work long hours anyway. I don't see this making that big of a difference in the actual number of hours that they log. Maybe if the teachers would get together and figure out ways to improve outcomes with the time and money that they have taxpayers would trust them to have more money. As it is per-student spending is going up and outcomes are going down.

Wow, you realize that these kids were barely scraping past the basic state and federal requirements before this (pretend to know some of the Constitution, etc.), and Emmanuel wanted to give them a shot at some more extra-curriculars, as there was/is no art, music, or gym, as well as any clubs to speak of. Plus, now the teacher's periods and curriculums will be extended, no doubt which will now need re-working. Besides your public union hate, do you SERIOUSLY find it unreasonable to ask for a 30% pay increase after you work 30% more?

Originally Posted by yourlefthand Sorry, but I do understand what I'm talking about. I understand that that is an average teacher's salary. We are talking about union striking, not just the low-seniority teachers. I can't imagine that the high-seniority teachers are out their striking to keep their own pay the same and offer more to the new teachers. Going from a 5 hour day to a 6.5 hour day would suck. I understand that, but teacher-apologists like to talk about how they all work long hours anyway. I don't see this making that big of a difference in the actual number of hours that they log. Maybe if the teachers would get together and figure out ways to improve outcomes with the time and money that they have taxpayers would trust them to have more money. As it is per-student spending is going up and outcomes are going down.

It is becoming more and more difficult for educators though; for the last few years my mom has been on state and federal boards regarding standards for students and educators.

Most school systems are in a position where these standards set them up to fail. We have all heard of the great private or semi private acadamies. I happened to go to one which was semi private (it had to accept certain students in the district but the rest of the enrollment was made up of students who paid tuition).

These schools do well because they essentially can dismiss trouble or non performing students.

Districts like the one that employs my mother do poorly because of how they are graded.

Student A can enter the 6th grade with essentially the education of a 1st grader. His/her teacher can perform a miracle and get that student up to almost a 5th grade level but because they don't perform at a 6th grade level by the end of the year that student, and the teacher will count as a failure.

However Student B can enter the 6th grade at a sixth grade level, make almost no advancements and pass their standardized test by the seat of their pants and he and his teacher will be considered a success.

Also with many special education programs being cut students who would normally get much more individualized attention and care are being mainstreamed, classes are getting larger (this is also due to consilidation) and the pace of the class, as we all know, is being taught to the understanding of the slowest students.

It is almost like we have standardized education where even teachers are losing their identities.

Having worked at Job Corps (branch of the DOL) for a few years I understand this as well. These programs are run in such a fashion where they expect the teachers, educators, etc to work with each student as if they are the same, like a tire of an assembly line and they wanted us to approach each student the same...

and that just doesn't work.

But to get back on topic yes I understand why educators are frustrated

Originally Posted by slidecage and also love how they are on tv now saying ALL OF THESE KIDS Have nowhere to go WHERE THE HELL DID THEY GO ALL SUMMER THEN

Around here parents spend huge amounts of money sending their kids ot day camps for summer care. I'm not sure how things tend to work in Chicago.

The issue isn't that the parents can't make other arrangements, it's that they didn't think that they needed to make other arrangements.

Originally Posted by slidecage I love how they said children are overweight and fat YET they are opening up the schools for breakfast and lunch... and they go if they didnt the wouldnt have anything to eat... like they never had food all summer and also love how they are on tv now saying ALL OF THESE KIDS Have nowhere to go WHERE THE HELL DID THEY GO ALL SUMMER THEN sick of people playing the ing race card as well ..... heard on tv that all of the black students cant go to school cause of the strike but this does not affect white students cause they go to charter schools ..... ummmm at least here that is 80% the other way...

Don't even know how to respond to the first part... 'Obesity is a problem so we're gonna assume all you kids are fatasses and not give you lunch or breakfast, even though we're probably the only place you can get/afford any. Sorry'

Where the do you live? You don't realize keeping kids in school in CHICAGO for god's sake will keep them off the streets/out of trouble?