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Chicago – Teachers Draw the Line Against Attacks
Thursday 13 September 2012
Chicago – Teachers Draw the Line Against Attacks
September 10th, 2012
On Monday morning, 26,000 teachers and school staff in Chicago walked out of school to man the picket lines. For the first time in 25 years, Chicago’s teachers have all gone on strike. The Chicago teachers are challenging the concessions which have been forced on them in the last decade, and they are challenging the privatization of the school system, which has seen children’s education turned into a profit-scheme for education companies. But most importantly the Chicago teachers are drawing a line against the type of concessions which are being forced on workers everywhere.
The strike comes after decades of attacks on teachers in Chicago. Teachers have seen cuts to their wages and benefits, as well as increasing class sizes. The latest round of attacks have been the most threatening. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has spearheaded an effort to restructure teachers pay-scale. Instead of teachers being paid for their years of work, and for their education, teachers’ pay would be tied to the test scores and performance of students. Emanuel is also demanding that the schools increase the school day by 20 percent. For this massive increase in workload teachers would receive only a two percent raise. It doesn’t take advanced math to understand that this is a huge attack on teachers’ pay.
The latest attacks are not just against teachers, but on the students. In Chicago, 80 percent of public school students qualify for free school lunches based on their parents’ income. In other words these schools serve the working class and poor population of Chicago. And the budget cuts have taken their toll on students, cutting access to materials and resources. As of this year there are 160 schools in Chicago which do not have libraries. And on top of that, the schools do not have adequate heating, which is an essential need in the Chicago winters.
But not all schools are under attack. During the last decade, the Chicago school district has seen 12 percent of its schools converted into non-union charter schools, where teachers make $20,000 less per year than at public schools.
The Chicago teachers have made it clear that this is unacceptable. But what do the politicians say? The Republicans have directed the same attacks against the Chicago teachers as they did against the workers in Wisconsin who fought to stop anti-union legislation there last spring. Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has blamed the teachers, saying that their strike is a direct attack against the students. According to him, more cuts like this are needed, and that’s what we can expect if he is elected in November.
But what about the Democrats? In fact, the Democrats are the ones leading the charge against the Chicago teachers. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is a Democrat, and before becoming mayor, he was Obama’s Chief of Staff. He has reacted to the strike, saying that the teachers are only hurting the students and that he will put an end to the strike as soon as possible.
What about the Obama administration? Obama’s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, used to be the CEO of Chicago’s public schools. During that time he supported budget cuts, and attacks on teachers. Duncan designed the Race to the Top program, the Obama administration’s key education program. Under Race to the Top, federal funding is tied to attacks on teachers, making their pay based on test-scores, and giving school districts the power to close public schools and open non-union charter schools. In other words the Democrats, including the Obama administration were the architects of the policy which Chicago teachers are resisting with their strike. No wonder Obama has hesitated to say anything about the strike.
The Chicago teachers are absolutely right to draw a line against the attacks against them. How many of us who work in other jobs, and in other parts of the country are in similar positions? The Chicago teachers have shown that there is another way to deal with the attacks that we face. The politicians have shown what they have to offer, which isn’t much. But we can draw the line ourselves against budget cuts, concessions, and attacks.
Forum posts
1. Chicago – Teachers Draw the Line Against Attacks, 16 September 2012, 14:32, by WSWS
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is pushing for a rapid end to the strike of 26,000 teachers along lines dictated by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Even though a contract has not yet been finalized, the CTU has indicated it is hoping to send teachers back to work on Monday.
The union is seeking to end the strike even though the teachers have won widespread support from workers in Chicago and throughout the country. A rally planned for Saturday is expected to attract tens of thousands of people, with buses arriving from other states.
The CTU is worried that a prolonged strike will escape its control and develop into a broader struggle against the Obama administration, which fully backs the attack on teachers being carried out by Emanuel. The union is prepared to sacrifice the basic interests of its members to maintain its political alliance with the Democratic Party.
On Friday, both the CTU and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) officials said they had agreed on the “framework” of an agreement, which they hoped to finalize over the weekend. On Friday afternoon, the CTU held a meeting of the House of Delegates, comprised of about 800 teachers, including representatives from each school. The delegates must vote to end the strike, though the membership as a whole will get to vote on the final agreement only some two weeks later.
CTU officials had said they wanted to get a vote Friday to end the strike before a final deal was even worked out. In the end, the union decided to delay the vote until Sunday. President Karen Lewis said at a press conference after the delegates’ meeting, “Delegates were not interested in blindly singing off on something they have not seen”—precisely what the CTU had originally planned to do.
Lewis refused repeatedly to provide any information on what concessions the union had made. “Creative thinking” was involved, she said. “They thought about some stuff, and we thought about some stuff.” Lewis said that the union was not going to provide any information to members before the Sunday meeting.
It was left to Jesse Sharkey, a member of the International Socialist Organization and vice president of the CTU, to provide the most contorted justification for the union’s refusal to release any details to the teachers. There are “pretty high stakes attached” to a vote, he said. “If our membership looks at a detailed summary of an entire contract document and rejects it, then we are still on strike.”
Sharkey worried that “if people can’t look at the settlement as a whole, that undercuts that process.” This, he explained, is “why we are being circumspect” by not saying anything about what the CTU had agreed to.
In other words, the CTU has agreed to massive concessions but does not want to reveal them without carefully packaging them together with supposed “victories.” If the union capitulation is not properly sugar-coated, the delegates might vote to continue the strike—something the union is determined to avoid at all costs.
For his part, Mayor Emanuel showed less circumspection. He praised the deal, saying the “tentative framework is an honest and principled compromise” that “preserves more time for learning in the classroom, provides more support for teachers to excel at their craft, and gives principals the latitude and responsibility to build an environment in which our children can succeed.”
Providing “more time for learning in the classroom” is a reference to the lengthening of the school day without compensation to the teachers; providing “support for teachers to excel at their craft” is a euphemism for a standardized test-based evaluation system; more “latitude” for principals means gutting recall rights for laid off teachers.
The little information that has come out in the press makes clear that the CTU has agreed to the virtual elimination of job security for teachers. Under a new system, “student growth”—primarily standardized testing—will make up 35 percent and possibly 40 percent of a teacher’s total evaluation. Non-tenured teachers will be subject to immediate dismissal if they are deemed “unsatisfactory” on this basis, and tenured teachers can be dismissed after one year.
Lewis’ only substantive comment at the press conference was to say, when asked about the union’s attitude to the evaluation process, that it is “based on state law.” A 2011 Illinois law, passed with the support of the CTU and in response to Obama’s Race to the Top program, provides for an expansion of test-based evaluation systems.
From day one of the strike, Emanuel made clear his determination to force through measures that undermine teachers’ job security. This is part of an overall strategy of dismantling the public education system.
The Emanuel administration has plans to shut down up to 120 public schools over the next five years, laying off thousands of teachers in the process. It is withholding details of these plans until after the strike is ended, with the understanding that there will be massive opposition among teachers. Emanuel is also planning to vastly expand the network of for-profit charter schools.
The mayor’s demands are supported by the mass media and both the Democrats and Republicans at the national level—with Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan declaring that education “reform” is a “bipartisan issue.” Emanuel is carrying out in Chicago what the Obama administration is implementing at the national level.
The CTU has already signed on to these plans, with Lewis saying that it is only a matter of implementing them in a “reasonable way.”
2. Chicago – Teachers Draw the Line Against Attacks, 17 September 2012, 20:28
Les enseignants de Chicago (Illinois, nord), troisième plus grande communauté éducative des Etats-Unis et fief de Barack Obama, ont entamé leur deuxième semaine de grève alors que le maire de la ville a exprimé son intention de les forcer à reprendre le travail.
Une majorité des 800 représentants des syndicats des écoles publiques ont voté dimanche en faveur d’une reconduction de leur mouvement qui avait débuté lundi dernier afin que leurs représentants aient le temps d’examiner un protocole d’accord conclu ce week-end avec la municipalité.
La grève déclenchée par 26.000 enseignants des écoles publiques de Chicago est d’une importance vitale pour la classe ouvrière à travers les États-Unis et internationalement. Le World Socialist Web Site et le Parti de l’égalité socialiste se tiennent aux côtés des enseignants en grève et pressent les travailleurs et les jeunes partout au pays et dans le monde à appuyer leur lutte.
Les enseignants de Chicago ont courageusement défié les deux partis de la grande entreprise – les démocrates et les républicains – ainsi que les médias et l’élite financière qui se sont ligués contre eux. Ils ne luttent pas seulement pour leurs propres emplois, leurs conditions de vie et leurs conditions de travail, aussi importants soient-ils. Ils luttent pour des principes : la défense des écoles publiques et le droit des jeunes à une éducation décente.
Cette grève est la première confrontation majeure entre la classe ouvrière américaine et l’administration Obama, laquelle coordonne directement ses interventions avec le maire Rahm Emanuel, ancien secrétaire général d’Obama à la Maison-Blanche, avec l’aide du secrétaire à l’Éducation Arne Duncan, ancien directeur des Écoles publiques de Chicago.
Selon un article du Washington Post de mercredi, «les responsables de l’administration suivent les événements de près et font de fortes pressions pour un règlement rapide. Duncan, un ancien directeur général du système d’éducation de Chicago, a fréquemment été en contact téléphonique avec le président de la Fédération américaine des enseignants (American Federation of Teachers, AFT) Randi Weingarten… Et les responsables de l’AFT ont contacté l’équipe du président Obama dimanche afin de la maintenir au courant, alors qu’il devenait clair que la grève allait se produire, selon des personnes qui connaissaient bien la situation.»
Les médias du patronat américain ont présenté les enseignants comme des opposants aux «réformes» exigées pour améliorer les écoles publiques et ont décrit le maire multimillionnaire Emanuel comme le défenseur des enfants et de leurs parents.