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$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.

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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.

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10:00 AM

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CORE FOR CTU Ad on Vimeo.

Presidential Candidate Karen Lewis at the Curie HS Town Hall Meeting

Press from the 2009 School Closings Protest

Recording Secretary Candidate Michael Brunson at the Board of Education

Financial Secretary Candidate Kristine Mayle at the Guggenheim School Closing Hearing

Presidential Candidate Karen Lewis

CORE Co-Chair Jackson Potter at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Rally

CORE Budget Committee Chair Kurt Hilgendorf at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Rally

The Struggle Against Renaissance

Arne Duncan/Advance Illinois Protest

Public Dollars, Public Schools

Opening Commentary by Vice Presidential Candidate Jesse Sharkey

Stop School Closings!

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(left to right) Barrett and CORE Communications Secretary Kenzo Shibata standing in solidarity with their brothers and sisters at SK Tools when they were on strike in Summer of 2009.

Saturday, February 27th, 2010, Sean (Xian) Barrett spoke at Operation Push, asking the audience to support the Chicago Public Schools, even in the wake of the Board’s claims of a budget shortfall that will force major concessions from the CTU and from the students we teach. His marks are reprinted below.

Good Morning Rainbow Push and the good people of Chicago. When Rev. Jonathan Jackson walked into my classroom, I was a little surprised—I was in the middle of giving a quiz on Japanese Grammar. Now, as a high school teacher, I don’t really feel comfortable speaking to crowds over the age of 18, but as Reverend Jackson emphasized, we must all stand up and speak to defend these schools or be complicit with injustice.

My name is Xian Barrett and I’m a teacher at Julian High School and a proud member of CORE—a group in the Chicago Teachers Union not afraid to fight for the community and the students of Chicago. Most of all, I’m an adult ally for Chicago Youth Initiating Change, a student group some of whose leadership you’ll hear from today that has been fighting Ren2010 and school closings over the last several years.

I found success with these amazing youth through a simple strategy: I listened to my community. I learned from the experienced African American teachers, and the wisdom of the community leaders who surround Julian. I learned the most by listening to our outstanding students.

The mayoral-controlled CPS board does the exact opposite. It discusses its plans behind closed doors with members of the elite and inflicts them upon the communities of color of our city. In many ways, it’s not a new story. These same elites and powerbrokers have abused our communities since before many of us in this room were born. They are hoping that we will be so desperate that we will again swallow their lies and turn on each other.

It’s happening even this very moment. CEO Ron Huberman is telling “Chicken Little” stories that we have a billion dollar deficit and that we will may have to increase class size to 45 students per classroom. Of course, last year, when there was no deficit, I had 46 students in an introductory Japanese course. And there were some math classes with 60. Yet, he continues to blame the experienced Black teachers instead of his own mismanagement of the funds. Look at CPS’ own budget which this year boasts a $422 million increase in “Other Charges”.

This is a lie to divide us. The CPS leadership is like a gambling addict, trying to blame the unpaid light bill for why there’s not enough money to feed the kids. They have gambled our children’s education away through expensive, experimental programs like charters and turnarounds. The data says they have failed. Our hearts know they have failed. Why do you think there are no charters and turnarounds in rich white communities?

They have fired thousands of outstanding black teachers while hiring more failed business people from outside our community as consultants and managers. They are food bank operators who sit with their friends in the office eating prime rib while the people starve outside.

There are two differences between us and them. First, we are motivated by love. I spend 16 hour days away from my lovely wife out of love—love for my students and love for her as I want to be able to face her when I get home. The students get up at 5 in the morning and continue their activism after school out of love. You all support your community school and came out today out of love. And love conquers tyranny.

Secondly, we have the courage to see this through. Unlike the board, who ignored the community to approve the destruction of 8 schools, we have the courage to meet each other in sunlight and have the tough conversations about what our children need. Unlike those who are too scared to even come out to our neighborhoods, we come together to improve those schools.

And yet, as of today, the official record still says that come June those communities will be destroyed. We must not allow this atrocity to occur. We must stand together—parent, student, community member, teacher and union leader and do whatever it takes to defend our children and our schools. We have all seen the devastating effects of turnaround and closure and we must join together and say, “Not one more school!”

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ABC-7 News features CORE candidate for CTU President Karen Lewis, who told the board, “Turnaround is a layoff policy, not an education policy.” CORE Pension Trustee Lois Ashford, “[Turnaround schools] aren’t better…they’re just different.”

Click Here to see WGN Channel 9 coverage of CORE treasurer Carol Caref and CYIC’s Kellina Mojica

CORE Live-tweeted the meeting. Check out www.twitter.com/coreteachers .

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Today’s Education Committee hearing ended up being quite a show! Several aldermen gave scathing accounts of their view of R2010, and Alderman Munoz forced the committee chair to change her mind and hear public testimony from a small representation of the many folks who came out to support the R2010 school closing moratorium. It was a powerful day.

When the public was allowed to speak, representatives from CORE and our GEM partners spoke in favor of the Moratorium Resolution, co-sponsored by Aldermen Lyle and Dowell. This resolution would,

…requite that a moratorium of at least one year be place on current and future school closings, consolidations, turnaround, and phase outs until a comprehensive strategy of transparency, community involvement, and public accountability can be developed, which will include the recommendations from the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force.

From Catalyst:

…members of the audience said they wanted the education committee and the City Council at large, to vote on the resolution. Jesse Sharkey, a member of the Caucus Of Rank and File Educators, a group of progressive teachers, said at least then people would know where their alderman stood on the issue.

CORE Vice Presidential Candidate Jesse Sharkey speaking to the City Council Education Committee

Jesse was recently elected as CORE’s Vice Presidential candidate. Jesse’s testimony available at the “read more” link.

During public participation, hundreds of students, parents, and teachers from schools slated for closure arrived and filled the board chambers.

School communities entering city hall

Jonathon Jackson of Operation Push and protestors outside City Hall.

School communities file into City Council chambers to hold their representatives accountable as CORE Co-Chair Jackson Potter looks on

School communities storm the fifth floor to hold the "Education Mayor" accountable

Since the "Education Mayor" refused to speak to students, teachers, and parents, the group decided to sing songs against school closings.

Afterword, they filed up to the fifth floor, demanding to speak to the Mayor. Daley refused to leave his office and sent out a representative who insisted that Daley “has been the ‘education mayor’ for the last 21 years.”

What that means is anyone’s guess.

Mr. Mayor, please don't close our school.

There’s a lot of fads in school reform, just like there’s a lot of fads in weight-loss—and the belief that turnarounds—that is firing the whole staff of a school and bringing in a fresh but inexperienced team is every bit as discredited as crash dieting. In Chicago we saw substantially the same policy, which was called ‘reconstitution’ fail in 1997, re-engineering fail in 2000, we undertook turnarounds in 2006—and there’s a lot of evidence that this latest face on an old fad is doing us more harm than good.

We have now seen enough of this experiment on our schools; we have evidence that is too persuasive to ignore: (1) turnarounds have been associated with increased violence, as we saw at Fenger H.S., (2) the turnaround process has pushed veteran black educators out of the teaching force as they are fired and replaced with predominantly white novices, and (3) the turnaround process has actually destabilized the teaching force and displaced a significant number of students in many of the schools where it is tried—and therefore even the legitimate test score gains that CPS claims—and not all of them are legitimate—are based on a quick fix, that actually reduces the health of our schools overall, and will lead to a sad, but predictable reversal.

Without going on for too long, I want to go through each of these three claims in a little more depth.

1. Violence. No one is blaming school violence on turnarounds—that’s a social epidemic that does not begin and will not end in the schools. But there’s good reason, and plenty on anecdotal evidence to show that destabilizing a school by firing its veteran staff is a bad idea. In early September, Derrion Albert, who attended the Fenger turnaround was killed outside of school after weeks of gang violence dominated the beginning of the school year. No one knows if the tragedy at Fenger High School could have been averted if a veteran staff, who knew the neighborhood, and had a history with those kids, had still worked in the building.

2. The turnaround process has pushed veteran black educators out of the teaching force as they are fired and replaced with predominantly white novices. It is moreover the case that this is taking place in schools that serve the African American community—so not only do turnarounds have a negative impact on the diversity of the Chicago teaching force in general, the policy has the effect of depriving students of role models who look like them, and share their background. Chicago has 2,000 fewer African American teachers than we did in 2002. Turnarounds are a big part of this. In fact, the EEOC has upheld a complaint, filed by CORE on behalf of black teachers whose schools had been turned around. This is a disparate impact case—meaning that driving veteran black educators out of Chicago’s classrooms may not be the intent, but it is certainly the effect, expect the Department of Justice to take up the investigation soon.

3. Finally, turnarounds do not achieve the goal of creating a stable, skilled teaching force at the schools in question. Take for example, AUSL, which is Chicago’s most important turnaround operator. According to data compiled by Catalyst, the large majority of AUSL graduates are not still at the turnaround school three or four years later. This is not too surprising; nearly fifty percent of new teachers don’t make it—but it does not serve these schools well.

Finally, I want to say something more about the historical parallel between turnarounds and reconstitution, which was tried and then abandoned in the late 1990’s. In both Chicago and San Francisco, where reconstitution was first used in 1984, there was an emphasis on recruiting the best teachers for the targeted schools—as well as curricular and other supports which went into place after the school was reconstituted. And in both these cases the program was abandoned because those schools wound up with most of the same difficulties which they faced before the reconstitution—in fact, one of this year’s turnaround targets, Marshall, was reconstituted in 1997! But this leads to the question—if a school system is going to make an effort to hire skilled teachers, as well as provide training and curricular supports for a school—why do you have to fire the entire staff in order to do that?

The turnaround process is like a fad diet—we’re trying it because we’re desperate for results. But like any diet that hurts our health, we’d be better off asking our doctor and using a little common sense. In this case take the advice of educators, not venture capitalists with a product to sell. Do not fire your most dedicated, veteran teachers who work at your toughest schools. Stop Turnarounds.

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