$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.

She will be on FOX-32 News at 9:30 with Chicago Reader columnist Ben Joravsky.

Karen Lewis has been elected president of the Chicago Teachers Union, and CORE has won the leadership of the 30,000-member CTU by a landslide. Lewis, a Martin Luther King Jr. High School Chemistry teacher, headed the slate of candidates from the caucus called CORE (the Caucus of Rank and File Educators) and won a landslide victory on June 11, 2010, in the hotly contested Chicago Teachers Union runoff election. CORE not only won the top four offices in the union, but the other nine citywide offices, and all of the vice presidencies for high schools (six) and elementary schools (17). By the time the final vote counts were announced in the early hours of June 12, it was clear that CORE had completely defeated the United Progressive Caucus (UPC) and the six-year CTU president Marilyn Stewart.

The CORE victory, the size of which became clear early in the evening during the counting of the votes at the headquarters of the American Arbitration Association at 225 N. Michigan in Chicago, was a landslide. Karen Lewis defeated Marilyn Stewart by a vote of 12,080 to 8,326, with the other three CORE candidates for officers in the 30,000-member union each receiving more than 12,000 votes to fewer than 8,300 for each of CORE’s opponents. The final vote tallies were certified by the American Arbitration Association at 3:00 a.m. on the morning of June 12, 2010.

Senn High School history teacher Jesse Sharkey was elected vice president by a vote of 12,000 (to 8,233 cast for his UPC opponent Mark Ochoa).

Displaced elementary teacher Michael Brunson was elected recording secretary by a vote of 12,016 (to 8,200 cast for his UPC opponent Mary Orr).

Eberhart Elementary School Special Education teacher Kristine Mayle was elected financial secretary by a vote of 12,032 (to 8,191 cast for her UPC opponent Keith VanderMeulen).

All six CORE candidates for trustee were elected. They are: Jackson Potter, Jay Rehak, Lois Ashford, Eric Skalinder, Sara Echevarria, and Albert Ramirez. Their margins over their opponents’ were roughly 11,900 to 8,000.

The three CORE candidates for area vice president were elected. The are Carol Caref (Area A), Jennifer Johnson (Area B), and Norine Gutekants (Area C).

All 17 CORE candidates for elementary functional vice president were also elected. They are: Beverly Allebach; Jeffrey Blackwell, Brenda Chandler, Susanne Dunn, Nathan Goldbaum, Alexandra Gonzalez, Francine Greenberg-Reizen, Lara Krejca, Garth Liebhaber, Joseph Linehan, Cielo Munoz, Annette Rizzo, Wade Tillett, Kevin Triplett, James Vail, Cassandra Vaughn, and Terri Wilford.

6/8/2010 WGN-9 News

An historic moment at Connie's Pizza. CORE's Presidential Candidate Karen Lewis met with caucus leaders Deborah Lynch (PACT), Linda Porter (CSDU), and Ted Hajiharis (SEA) about going forward with bringing UNITY back to the Chicago Teachers Union. All three of those caucuses endorsed CORE in the June 11th Run-Off Election.

Karen Lewis’ speech to the House of Delegates (6/2/2010):

Good afternoon.  I would like to thank PACT, CSDU and SEA for running honest campaigns, based on the issues; and for their support.

I am honored … and exhilarated.  Those of you who are unaligned and voted for CORE, thank you.

Last week’s rally was incredible.  All of us in this room turned out thousands of people to tell Huberman and Daley “No” — stop destroying our neighborhood schools and trying to bust our union.

We should have done this every year for the past six years.

Because for years there has been a well-funded national smear campaign against public school teachers. Gains we won over 70 years of struggle are being stripped away. I have taught in this system for over 20 years and I have never seen this level of attack – scapegoating educators for all that ails urban schools.

But on June 11th we have a  chance to end this business as usual, top-down unionism.

The most important thing Union leaders do is build consensus and organize members to speak and act as ONE.  But who has heard our voice in the past 6 years?  Who has seen a real fight against privatizing Chicago’s schools?  Big business sees K-12 public education as 350 billion dollars they weren’t getting a piece of.  Why haven’t we heard our leadership attack that profit motive – and PROVE IT?  Why has our Union seemed complicit in its silence?

My opponent charges that we aren’t experienced despite the fact that we worked to stop 12 school closing and saved a thousand jobs. We had to sue the Board for budget and TIF details so we DON’T have to reopen the contract. You can’t talk numbers if you don’t have real information.  We have the former vice-president of CTU, Howard Heath, who has not only negotiated a contract, he’s a mathematician who can crunch the numbers with the best of them.  We’ve got lawyers and old contracts so we’re ready!

Let me share something with you.  You already know that I’m the wife and daughter of CTU members and I went to Chicago Public Schools. But I am the only Black woman in the class of 1974 at Dartmouth College and  I got that degree when I was 20 years old.  I know how to stand strong in the face of adversity and win.  I am not afraid.   Never have been.

The current leadership claims that the safe bet now is to stay the course.

Clearly members didn’t buy that.

Two-thirds voted against the very candidate Huberman has backed in secret meetings over the last couple months.

On May 25 we said NO to repeating “the Marilyn experience” that cost 6,000 members their jobs.  We said NO to pension raids.  We said NO to the unchecked powers of abusive principals. We said No to rising class sizes.

We’re going to bring real technology to this union so our members have access to relevant information.  We’re going to have real delegate training so everyone knows how to run an election smoothly, help the members in our schools and provide professional development that makes us more effective educators and unionists.

We will have a political strategy that is based on our ability to initiate and take the lead on legislation, not wait until the hammer drops – especially after the beating we just took in Springfield with the pension raid, the diabetes fiasco and a voucher bill that just won’t die.  We’re ready.

So, I ask you today, will we stand united?  Will we stop the attacks on our members? An injury to one is an injury to all.  CORE represents what called us to the teaching profession in the first place.  That commitment must be fused in out Union’s work every day.  Let’s rebuild our spirit, our public image and harness the power of 30,000 members.  Reclaim the joy of teaching and learning.

10:00 AM

Video of of the 5/25/2010 Save Our Schools rally and march featuring CORE Candidates Karen Lewis (President) and Jesse Sharkey (Vice President)

The current president of the Chicago Teachers Union is facing an uphill re-election battle. And it just got a little more difficult. That could shake things up in Chicago education.

Just 500 votes separated CTU President Marilyn Stewart from her toughest challenger in last Friday’s election. More than 19,000 teachers cast ballots. Stewart didn’t get enough votes to avoid a runoff.

Last night, third place finisher Deborah Lynch announced she’s throwing her support behind challenger [CORE Candidate] Karen Lewis. The fourth place finisher [CSDU] has also endorsed Lewis.

Lewis is a member of CORE—a group that’s opposed school closings through lawsuits and protests. They’ve also challenged CPS on issues the union rarely talks about, like overuse of standardized tests and recapturing TIF funds for education.

SUIT FILED 5/20/10

Huberman won't come clean with the actual budget numbers.

From The Chicago Tribune:

Teacher’s group sues CPS over access

May 20, 2010

A union group that is vying for power in Friday’s Chicago Teachers Union election has filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Board of Education, claiming it is in violation of the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.