CHICAGO — The Chicago Teachers Union and the nation’s third-largest school district were close to a deal on Thursday to end a four-day strike over education reforms sought by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, but school will not be open on Friday.
“We are optimistic, but we are still hammering things out. Schools will not open Friday,” union president Karen Lewis said.
Lewis, a former high school chemistry teacher, said the union House of Delegates will meet at 2 p.m. local time Friday to provide an update on the talks. Lewis has said she would need the approval of that body to seal a deal.
The strike by 29,000 public school teachers and support staff, affecting 350,000 kindergarten, elementary and high school students, is the biggest private or public labor dispute in the United States in a year.
Lewis, who called Emanuel a “bully” and “liar” before leading teachers on their first strike in 25 years, struck a conciliatory tone after late-night talks on Wednesday.
As for schools reopening on Monday, Lewis said: “I’m praying, praying, praying… I’m hoping for Monday.”
Lewis said there was progress on the two most vexing issues – using student test scores to evaluate teachers and giving more authority to local principals to hire teachers.
The union is concerned that more than a quarter of its membership could be fired because the teachers work in poor neighborhoods where students perform badly on standardized tests, which Emanuel wants to use to evaluate teachers.
Emanuel’s negotiators released a copy of their latest compromise offer on teacher evaluations. The mayor would phase in the new teacher evaluation system over five years and give no more than 20 percent weight to standardized tests. Classroom observations and a survey of students would also be used.
Other unresolved issues include the role of principals in hiring teachers and what happens to teachers when a school closes and teachers face layoffs.
The union fears Emanuel plans to close scores of schools, putting unionized teachers out of work. In recent years, about 100 public schools have been closed, with officials usually citing low enrollment. At the same time, a similar number of publicly funded, non-union charter schools have opened.
About 52,000 students enrolled at those schools have not been affected by the strike this week.
Thousands of teachers and supporters held another rally in downtown Chicago on Thursday to underscore their strike resolve.
Support for the union from Chicago parents appeared to be holding up. A new poll for Capital Fax by We Ask America found 66 percent of parents with children in Chicago Public Schools supported the strike. The majority of people who opposed the strike were either white voters or had children in private schools, Capital Fax said. Some 85 percent of students in Chicago Public Schools are either African-American or Hispanic. The poll surveyed 1,344 voting Chicago households on Wednesday.
Emanuel supporters also weighed in on Chicago media with television and radio ads calling on the union to end the strike. Democrats for Education Reform, a group backed by major financiers, hedge funds and philanthropists, ran an ad quoting from Chicago newspapers saying the union should go back to work.
The strike in Barack Obama’s home city has put the U.S. president in a tough spot. Emanuel is a former top aide to Obama and the president is counting on labor unions to drum up support for his re-election on November 6. Obama’s own Education Department has championed some of the reforms Emanuel is seeking.
Both sides agree Chicago schools need fixing. Chicago students consistently perform poorly on standardized math and reading tests. About 60 percent of high school students graduate, compared with 75 percent nationwide.
More than 80 percent of Chicago public school students qualify for free school lunches because they come from low-income households.
The fight does not appear to center on wages, with the school district offering an average 16 percent increase over four years and some benefit improvements.
But a major credit rating agency on Thursday warned that Chicago cannot afford the salary rises it is offering the teachers, and any deal will bust the budget.
“It’s highly likely that actual salary increases will exceed budgeted salary increases,” Moody’s Investor Services said.
Rating agencies already have downgraded the debt rating of the school district, which means it might have to pay a higher interest rate to issue debt to finance deficits.
Evaluating teachers on their students’ standardized test scores is about the laziest and most unhelpful manner in which to gauge teachers. We want teachers teaching to a standardized test now? All the kids are exactly alike and the best skills we have to teach them involve picking a response out of a bunch and hope it’s the correct one? Come on. The union is right to be fighting against that.
And I agree. But tell me this
Don’t you think it’s reasonable to ask for a manner in which to gauge who the good and poor teachers are? The teachers don’t.
Don’t you think it’s reasonable for the School to be allowed to hire which teachers they want to employ? The teachers don’t
Don’t you think it’s unreasonably for teachers with a horrible track record to be demanding MORE pay when they already make 50 percent more then the national average and even more then 50 percent of the average Chicago city employee?
Chicago has almost a 50 percent dropout rate. Their kids read far below the national average.
Don’t get me wrong. I hold the parents just as responsible. But the city doesn’t employ the parents. They employ the teachers.
Holding the kids hostage and saying it’s not about how teachers are graded is nothing more then a disgraceful lie. They know legally they can’t strike on that premise so they’re pretending it’s about money.
Teachers in another local district have average salaries of 112k per year compared to Chicago at 74k per year. They also are required by contract to live in Chicago. They are currently evaluated (by the very principals who you believe should be allowed to hire who they want), much like you are probably evaluated at your job. Now imagine, if you were a factory worker for an automobile company and you were judged not on how well you did your job, but on how well a driver did theirs. Sure the car was made to spec and rolled off the line, but the drunk 23 year old wrecked it by wrapping it around a telephone poll. Should you be held accountable for that? Because that is the accountability you are asking teachers to undergo.
Excellent analogy.
What district are they being paid 112k?
I’ve been paying close attention to this situation and this is the first I’ve heard of this.
HOW exactly is their performance being evaluated?
I’ve read no evidence of this ANYWHERE.
The UNION requires that THEY tell the schools who to hire..
I understand the hesitance to use the kids tests as a gauge but there has got to be some manner in which to determine the good from the poor teachers.
Please cite where the arguments you are making can be found.
If the info comes from a PRIVATE school where the kids are doing much better then you might want to rethink making this argument. I don’t know but it kind of smacks of this being the case. PRIVATE SCHOOLS are not paid for by TAXPAYER MONEY.
It has been stated over and over by various news outlets that Chicago Teachers make 50 percent more then the national average. And yet the kids are in the bottom 20 percent scholastically These facts I”M SURE of.
Once again, please cite your source.
Sorry, I was wrong on the number. It was 106.5 k. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-13/news/ct-met-lake-forest-teachers-strike-20120913_1_president-sharon-golan-teachers-strike-lake-forest-education-association
In terms of teachers being evaluated, I suggest you check out their contract. It requires evaluations. It is clearly spelled out in there.
Chicago teachers are required by law to live in Chicago. Don’t you believe that entitles them to make more than the national average? After all they have to pay the cost to live in Chicago. All of this is easily verifiable by looking at their contract. I suggest you read the actual background information. It sounds like your sources might be a little biased and wrong.
And the article is just as I had suspected. It’s states in the headline, “Affluent” You understand what that indicates? It means WEALTHY. The article is about 150 teachers. NOT 29 thousand. In other words, your comment epitomizes BIASED AND WRONG
Rahm Emmanuel is the one saying (This isn’t some right leaning Republican. It’s a far left leaning Democrat that has realized that things MUST CHANGE )It’s about the ability to grade teachers. There is no tangible way of doing so at this time. As I stated. I understand the hesitance to use kids test scores BUT THE TEACHERS WILL NOT EVEN THROW OUT ANY IDEAS
This fight is NOT ABOUT MONEY. It’s about the ability to hire and fire whom the schools chose and how to grade them You tell me what the grading system they use now is?
What happens nationwide is a teacher’s contract comes up for renewal. If the Board or the Principal decide they don’t want to rehire them The teacher runs directly to a lawyer. Therefore making it expensive to fire a teacher so many don’t even bother to try.
Amazing how you’ve contorted this story. My information comes from ABC news, CNN and the NYT. Are you going to tell me these are union hating sources?