Sep 16 - Chicago Teachers Strike, turns ugly

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The confrontation between Chicago teachers and Mayor Rahm Emanuel escalated on Sunday when their union extended a strike and the mayor said he would go to court to block the walkout, risking more friction within President Barack Obama's political coalition as the November 6 election nears.
There will be no cla#ses in Chicago public schools on Monday and Tuesday, affecting 350,000 kindergarten, elementary and high school students.
The showdown left in doubt a deal on wages, benefits and education reforms for 29,000 unionized teachers that negotiators thought they had struck on Friday to end the biggest labor dispute in the United States in a year.
It also could widen a rift within the Democratic Party between education reformers such as Obama's former top White House aide Emanuel, and organized labor, which the Democrats need to get out the vote in the election.
Chicago union President Karen Lewis said some 800 union delegates met on Sunday and decided to consult with rank-and-file members before voting whether to end the walkout.
"There's no trust (of the school district and mayor)," Lewis said. "So you have a population of people who are frightened of never being able to work for no fault of their own."
Union delegates will reconvene on Tuesday to discuss the feedback from rank-and-file members, Lewis said. Parents should plan for their children to be out of school until at least Wednesday, she said.
No formal vote was taken during the meeting, but delegates were asked to stand up so that the leadership could get a sense of those for and against ending the strike, delegates said.
"A clear majority wanted to stay out. That's why we are staying out," Lewis told a news conference after a three-hour meeting of the delegates.
MAYOR CALLS STRIKE ILLEGAL
Emanuel called the strike "illegal" and said he would go to court to seek an injunction to block the labor action.
"I will not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union," Emanuel said, adding that the union walked out over issues that are not subject to a strike under Illinois state law.
Emanuel's gambit takes the dispute into uncharted territory. No injunction request has been filed in an Illinois educational labor dispute since 1984, when the state gave Chicago teachers the right to strike.
Teachers revolted last week against sweeping education reforms sought by Emanuel, especially evaluating teachers based on the standardized test scores of their students. They also fear a wave of neighborhood school closings that could result in ma#s teacher layoffs. They want a guarantee that laid-off teachers will be recalled for other jobs in the district.
"They're still not happy with the evaluations. They're not happy with the recall (provision)," Lewis said of delegates.
Before the meeting of delegates on Sunday, Lewis had called the agreement a "good contract." But after the decision to extend the strike, she backtracked, saying: "This is not a good deal. This is the deal we got."
Emanuel's chief negotiator, School Board President David Vitale, said the union should allow children to go back to school while the two sides complete the process.
"We are extremely disappointed that after 10 months of discussion reaching an honest and fair compromise that (the union) decided to continue their strike of choice and keep our children out of the cla#sroom," Vitale said.
During the first week of the strike, opinion polls showed parents and Chicago voters backing the union, with some parents and students joining boisterous rallies. A key question is whether the public's support will waver as the strike drags on.
"I'm very fed up and I'm very upset," said Crystal Blakeley, a single parent of a daughter in second grade on the South Side of Chicago. Blakeley said she was paying for child care during the strike.
Candace Johnson, a barista at Starbucks, said she had been taking her 8-year-old son to the library on Chicago's North Side.
"I'm trying to be as patient as possible, but the longer it takes, I don't know what else I'm going to do with my child," she said after the strike was extended.
Former Chicago City Council member !! Simpson said Emanuel may have made a mistake by going to court to block the strike.
"If I were advising the mayor, I would have advised him to be patient for a couple of days," said Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. By waiting, Emanuel could have put the onus on the teachers if they rejected the contract later this week, Simpson said.
Both sides appeared to win some concessions, according to details of the tentative agreement released by the parties.
Emanuel compromised on the design of the first update of the evaluation system for Chicago teachers in 40 years. He agreed to phase in the new plan over several years and reduced the weighting of standardized test results in reviewing teachers.
Teachers won some job-security protections and prevented the introduction of merit pay in their contract.
NATIONAL DEBATE
The Chicago strike has shone a bright light on a fierce national debate over how to reform failing inner-city schools. The union believes that more money and resources should be given to neighborhood public schools to help them improve.
Emanuel and a legion of financiers and philanthropists believe that failing schools should be closed and reopened with new staff to give the students the best chance of improving.
The agreement calls for a 3 percent pay raise for teachers this year and 2 percent in each of the next two years. If the agreement is extended for an optional fourth year, teachers get a 3 percent increase. The deal would result in an average 17.6 percent increase over four years, the district said. Chicago union teachers make an average of about $76,000 annually.
The deal could exacerbate the Chicago Public Schools financial crisis. Emanuel said the contract will cost $295 million over four years, or $74 million per year.
Debt rating agencies had previously warned that the new agreement with teachers could bust the school district budget and lead to a downgrade of its credit rating.

Chicago teachers extend strike, mayor seeks court order - Yahoo! News

#Bang Bang

Even though I oppose interfering with a childs education. The way the Government works with and views teachers as "another person with a job" is sickening. They;re underpaid, they hire any and everybody without proper screening, and they dont provide them with materials to make a student all he/she can be. It's pathetic. Im not gonna go into the history of this corrupted educational system cause we know that and if you dont do some research but this is just Americas chickens coming home to roost.



I just hope Chicago paves the way for the nation abroad to follow because this shyt aint just a problem in Chicago. And the reason something like this has never took place before is because the dominoe affect it has. But Im glad they now see.......Shyt in this country can not get any worse and will never change until the people stand up for themselves instead of waiting for the government.



I like how they tried to throw some long azz portfolio of solutions together and pa#s it off as "Here, problem solved." Em teachers was like....[pic]

Take this shyt back........We'll wait. [pic]

[pic][pic]

I graduated highschool 3 months ago, I've learned more !! on Boxden in the past 4 years than Public school ever taught me !! is just sad,
my university doe >>>>>>

Glad im not the only one. It leaves you feeling like damn. I just wasted 10+ years of my life learning lies and half truths. Only to go to College and realize even some college professors think poorly of public school system and even teach against what you've been taught to learn as truth. Wtf

^^the last two posts are too true. Folks gotta stop depending on the school system to educate our kids. They are just babysitters. Babysitters set up to remove your ability to think for yourself and hinder your quest for knowledge. Making you into a better hamster to toss on the wheel.

this gotta be one of the worst places to have a school strike considering the amount of !! that has being going on in Chicago these past couple of weeks. Think of all the kids at home chillin, no school, with nothing else better to do than keep on that latest episode of "Keef and Jojo," like its a fukkin Nickelodeon show

i said it alot...

education can be pa#sed down and taught in the HOUSE.

public school is grown up day care and a big party social which they need sure but education wise.. man lets be serious.

you think it will be difficult to educate your child to a high school diploma? LETS be honest

college is different sure but i think parents can do it.

To play the other side tho, dont you think its wild that teachers in chicago average 76k a year, can obtain tenure, yet their school system is 3rd worst in the nation for major areas. I mean damn, what are they paying them for besides being professional babysitters cus those kids arent learning !!

Not hating on teachers, but this !! is complicated and you cant keep rewarding bad performance

I agree with everything said in here but THIS.

76k isn't a bad salary on top of being unionized. They get pretty great benefits as is and they barely earn that money as it seems since students can't even pa#s them weak[..] standardized tests. [pic]

And that quote about how they believe the Public Schools need MORE funding? !! outta here, what they need to do is reallocate the hundreds and thousands they already receive from Federal contracts INTO THE CLa#sROOM and not in the Administrations pockets. Look at the administrators parking lot. They whipping Lexus, Benz, BMW, Audi, Infiniti, etc....They are nothing more than paper pushers. Trust me, the money is there, it just doesn't go into the school nor the kids.

Standardized testing doesn't help students, it makes teachers teach to some test. We need to reform the education system, not privatize it. Now all teachers aren't absolved of responsibility, but I think standardized testing is not the answer, and its kinda unfair to compare test results on the south side of Chicago, to test results of schools in the Richer suburbs of the Chicago.
And pretend like "oh well test scores are lower in the city, means teachers are the problem" Very different atmosphere.

glad i went to a charter school, i learned !! that alot ppl i met in college even no !! about, thats sad tho

Standardized testing is a huge !!ing joke to be quite honest. You can't have a one size fits all education system as we are all unique in our own right as human individuals. Some people are more artistic, creative, imaginative, they should be able to have an equal enough opportunity to cater to or nurture that side of themselves. Some people are abstract thinkers and should be able to go to an educational institution that would allow them to develop that part of themselves.

Standardized testing should never be the end all be all to set the precedent for their working adulthood there after. If you go to school for 12 years, pa#s every cla#s, but can't past that retarded[..] mundane test, you get a "Certificate of completion" but no diploma? That is some backwards !!, yet accepted.

Home schooling is where it's at.

I don't know anyone personally who was home schooled, but I feel like a lot of times home schooling leads to teaching of creationism and !! in place of real science.

Home schooling> [pic]

depends in if the parents is super religious or not, imagine if a kids parents are like high academic types, that home schooling gonna be beast

yeah but lets be real here, how many high acadmeic types have the time to home school their children? Granted I've only known 2 kids home schooled, and I wouldn't say we were friends or anything, we had some mutual friends. Socially they were cool, acted normal but their parents were strict religious types. The kids weren't, but the parents still taught it, which is for sure their right to do, but I think it poses problems down the road. On the other hand, for those who know about home schooling, is there like guidelines you have to meet?

Nah I know more than most because I have a lot of knowledge on a lot of different topics


Boxden > School

Khan academy >>>>>>>

Look it Upand thank me later, if you haven't heard of it.