Art Teachers Redefined is an art exhibition organized by art teachers “honorably dismissed” by the 2010 Chicago Board of Education policy that gave CEO Ron Huberman and local principals unlimited power to fire teachers without due process. The teachers were forcibly unable to work, losing benefits, pensions, and the respect of their communities.  Hosted by Chicago Temple Fine Arts Committee, the exhibit will be housed in the second floor gallery of First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple, 77 W. Washington — from May 15 through June 26, 2011.  The opening reception for the art exhibition will be held in the gallery on Sunday, May 22, 2011 at 12:30 pm.  The art exhibition is free and open to the public during the following times:  Monday through Friday 10 am to 4 pm and Sunday 9 am to 3 pm.  Click here to see the show’s flyer:  ATR_Flyer-May2011.

The Chicago Teachers Union originally hosted the art teachers’ show in February.  “We are excited and extremely grateful to the First United Methodist Church for hosting us in their new gallery space”, explains show organizer Cezar Simeon, “The show’s artists have created new works specifically for the Chicago Temple show.”  The exhibition features the works of Sunny Neater-DuBow and Lourdes S. Guerrero, whose dismissals were reported in the Chicago Reader “Filed Away” article (9/23/10).  Other art teachers are Katrina Barge, Gina Baruch, Chris Busse, Carmela Rago and Daniela Veljkovic.

The exhibit conveys the artists’ anxiety and frustration toward a system that has forgotten its educational mission.  But they also hope the show serves to demonstrate that art – and they as art teachers – can proffer insight and inspiration to the educational community in the midst of conflict and crisis.

Share/Save

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/school-reformers-hypocritical-blame-game/2011/04/07/AFDRZFyC_blog.html

Share/Save

We Are One Rally. Chicago, Illinois. Saturday, April 9, 2011.

Thousands of Illinoisans rallied in downtown Chicago on Saturday, April 9th, to show solidarity with workers in Wisconsin and other states, to renew the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King who gave his life 43 years ago in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, and to stand up for the American middle class against political and corporate-funded attacks.

The April 9th rally included a program of speeches and entertainment in Daley Plaza (50 W Washington) at 1:00 p.m., as well as several marches of workers to the rally site (one from the Hyatt Regency at Stetson at Wacker, and another from the James R. Thompson Center at 100 W Randolph.

The demonstration at Hyatt Regency was a show of solidarity with the workers at Hyatt who have been struggling for justice for years. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) as well as union members from other Illinois Federation of Teacher (IFT) and Illinois Education Association (IEA) affiliates have joined the Hyatt workers to protest against the owners of Hyatt who have bankrolled legislation that intend to weaken teacher unions and hurt students – legislation that includes the privatization of Chicago’s public schools.

The Chicago rally will be the largest of more than a dozen such “We Are One” events held throughout Illinois. There were “We Are One” rallies in Bloomington, Carbondale, Champaign, Collinsville, Decatur, Gurnee, Kankakee, Ottawa, Peoria, Rock Island, Rockford and Springfield. They are part of the national “We Are One” campaign by the AFL-CIO and allied groups.

The week of April 4 through 9 was chosen in honor of Dr. King, who was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while in Memphis to march with sanitation workers represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Dr. King gave his life for the right of workers to bargain collectively for a better life and a pathway to the middle class—the same rights and freedoms that Republican Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin and his counterparts in other states are trying to strip from teachers and other public- and private-sector workers.

(Source of information regarding rally: Chicago Federation of Labor’s website at www.ChicagoLabor.org.  Photos: Cezar Simeon)

Share/Save

Share/Save

According to the ruling, CPS is required to create a recall policy that will give the terminated tenured teachers the chance to apply for upcoming vacancies — not reinstatement to their former teaching positions at their old schools.  The ruling also does not require CPS to issue backpay and benefits to the teachers. 

For more information regarding the court ruling, check out the posting on the Chicago Teachers Union site.  You may also read about the ruling on the web from The Chicago Tribune and WBEZ.

Share/Save

U.S. District Judge David H. Coar today declared that the firing of tenured teachers under the Board’s June 15, 2010, resolution granting CEO Ron Huberman the power to fire teachers without regard to seniority or tenure was illegal. The judge further barred the Chicago Board of Education from “conducting future layoffs or ‘honorable discharges’ in a similarly unlawful manner.” The judge ordered the Chicago Board of Education to negotiate a set of recall rules within the next 30 days.

“Teachers unions were formed in the first place to protect mainly female teachers from retaliatory actions, political firings and crony hirings. Nothing’s changed. The need for strong unions to protect teachers, students and academic freedom, especially in Chicago, is upheld today. Through these illegal firings, the Chicago Board of Education tried to silence our tenured teachers who are the strongest advocates for students’ educational rights and the real fighters for better learning environments. Chicago Public Schools should stop slurring our teachers, suggesting that those fired somehow were less than exemplary teachers. The court appears to agree – tenure is necessary to academic freedom,” said Lewis.

CTU court order

Share/Save

Teachers, students, parents and community members demonstrated their anger at open budget hearings Tuesday, Aug 18th at Lane Tech HS and Wednesday, Aug 19th at Westinghouse HS. Another hearing will take place tonight, Thursday, Aug 20th, at Corliss HS (821 W 103rd St).

Xian Barrett - another exemplary teacher summarily fired without cause.

Article at

Another article at

Share/Save

…[A]s teachers union president, [Karen Lewis] is aiming for the top once again — right for Daley. She has her sights set on the mayor’s piggy bank of tax increment financing funds. She calls his pet education project, Renaissance 2010, “a disaster.”

“He’s had 15 years of reform…”

“All we ever hear about is how terrible the schools are. … People want to blame the teachers, but the person we should be blaming is Mayor Daley.”

Mayoral control of schools, Lewis says, is “an abomination. It’s made things worse. We’re going backwards in time. Mayoral control is a failed experiment.”

Share/Save

In these final days of the school year, make a list of phone numbers and e-mail addresses of teachers at your school. Talk to your students’ parents and get their contact information as well. We need your help in organizing this summer. Download the spreadsheet at the bottom of this post and e-mail it to coreteachers@gmail.com.

In an emergency meeting on Tuesday, the Board of Education voted unanimously to give CEO Ron Huberman the authority to fire tenured and non-tenured teachers and increase class sizes to 35 students per class.

The Board will work overtime this summer to ensure their demands are met. They assume that teachers, PSRPs, parents, and students will be “on vacation.” The last thing the board wants us to do is to continue organizing.

The Union will contact all stakeholders to fight the layoffs and ballooning class sizes.

In Solidarity,

President-Elect Karen Lewis

Summer Organizing Contacts

Share/Save

$60 million in high-stakes tests; $250 million in TIFs; $315 million in charters, turnarounds, and contract schools; $400 million in CPS cash reserve. What about money for students?

CPS called  an emergency Board meeting on Tuesday, June 15 to pass a resolution that will drastically change our working conditions and the learning opportunities for our students.  The resolution was passed unanimously at the meeting, in spite of every single speaker during the “public participation” portion urging the board members to vote “no.” This resolution gives CEO Huberman permission to fire teachers and therefore raise class size up to 35 if he deems it “necessary” for budgetary reasons. It also gives him the permission to take out an $800 million loan, which he claims cannot be used to stave off the firings and ballooning class sizes.

This budget has still not been made public, in spite of Freedom of Information Act requests from CORE and various Chicago journalists. These firings will be based on Huberman’s secret projections and without real budget numbers.

No announcement was made about how many teachers they will fire, if any. They claimed this was “just in case” they felt the need to fire teachers later.

Appendix H of our contract states:

Section I – Scope of Policy
Whenever an attendance center or a program is closed, there is a drop in enrollment,
the educational focus of the attendance center is changed such that available teaching
positions cannot accommodate some or all current regularly certified and appointed
teaching staff, or when an attendance center is subject to actions taken pursuant to
sections 34-8.3 or 34-8.4 of the Illinois School Code, tenured teachers will be
reassigned or laid off in accordance with this policy.

The contract states teachers have to be laid off according to seniority and tenured teachers get ten paid months to find a job. In those ten months, teachers are retained in the “reassignment pool” where they work as substitutes four days a week with full pay and benefits without a break in service.

Because the specific phrase “budgetary reasons” is not included in the “scope of policy”, Huberman claims he can fire tenured teachers without giving them the 10 month bridge to continue employment in CPS.

CORE contends  that none of this is necessary. Although there is no line-item budget available for the 2010-2011 school year, CORE’s budget committee studied the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) and found millions of dollars in wasteful non-classroom spending.

The city’s TIF (tax increment financing program) costs the schools $250 million in revenue, according to TIF expert Ben Joravsky, and verified by Cook County Clerk David Orr . This is money that normally would go directly to schools, but goes into the mayor’s slush fund instead.

Many  speakers at Tuesday’s meeting spoke in favor of returning TIF dollars to the schools, but Huberman refused to speak to the issue.

It will save the CPS approximately $150 million a year if they raise class sizes to 35. Instead of lobbying the city to return TIF dollars, Huberman and the Daley-appointed Board passed policy to take out an $800 million dollar loan, raise class sizes, and possibly end the teacher reassignment pool. If it’s a question of priorities, we question the board’s.

Lois Jones, CTU High School Functional Vice-President-Elect, pointed out that 25 or fewer students in a classroom should be the first priority, before the board funds area offices, scripted curricula that don’t work, and other costs we don’t know about because we haven’t seen the budget. Putting more students in a class is the LAST thing you should do if you have budget problems, not the first.

Teachers and students are the only ones asked to make sacrifices. This summer, it’s crucial that we keep on top of the Board and continue organizing around budget transparency and quality education. With 30,000 united,  the Board will have to change they way it does business.

Share/Save