CORE is dedicated to reforming and revitalizing the Chicago Teachers Union based on a 5-point platform.
A Strong Contract
· Restore system-wide seniority
· Develop contract language that protects our professional autonomy and creative rights on the job. No more scripted curriculum!
· Say no to merit pay and two-tier pension schemes that pit members against one another.
· Develop an E-3 process that protects members against principal abuse and retribution.
· Allow members to communicate news and views electronically using CPS databases and e-mail.
· Provide daily prep for elementary school teachers. Make the city pay for any new endorsement requirements such as middle school subject areas.
· Restore our ability to negotiate the impact of class size and layoffs. Allow us a voice on school closures /consolidations. Make all work pensionable including summer school, Saturday school and evening school.
· Prohibit the outsourcing of members’ jobs.
· Restore our hourly rate for all work: no special non-instructional rate.
A member-driven union
· Allow CTU members to attend actual contract negotiations. Establish a transparent structure for member input and oversight of the collective bargaining process.
· Provide all CTU delegates and alternates with up to 5 days of release time from instructional duties to engage in union work.
· Make the CTU an action organization. We need a union that is constantly fighting to support and defend its members.
· Transform the CTU into a union that works to educate, empower and inform members about their rights on the job and the struggle to defend and improve public education. Establish ways that we can work with community, labor and parent organizations to improve the quality of life for all Chicagoans.
· Members should be in charge of all key decisions.
Transparency & Accountability
· Make all non-confidential Union information available to CTU members and the House of Delegates.
· Impose salary caps for officers and union staff whereby they only earn the average teacher salary prorated over a 12 month year.
· Develop a strong CTU research, publication and media wing to educate all members about threats to our jobs and our schools and to promote our interests and the interests of our students.
Engage in Outside Partnerships
· Use a variety of strategies to build relationships with parents, community groups and other unions.
· Maintain current health care and retirement benefits and organize for a long-term solution for all Illinoisans.
· Ensure that the real stakeholders–teachers, PSRPs, parents and students–are the major groups responsible for education reform, not big business and their political cronies.
· Fight for an immediate halt to all school closings, the expansion of charter and contract schools, consolidations, phase-outs, reconstitutions and turnarounds.
· Strengthen and expand Local School Councils. All schools should have an elected LSC.
Support Publicly-Funded Public Education
· Restore members’ rights taken by the State Legislature in 1995, so we can bargain to reduce class size and counselor loads and stop school closings and reconstitutions.
· Provide technology education, art and music instruction, and other resources needed to provide a 21st century education for all students. Support and recognize the importance of World language, physical education and electives.
· Focus on the whole child, not just the test scores.
· Fund and hire the counselors, social workers, nurses,and psychologists . needed to support students.
· Limit CTU support to only those politicians that seek to stop the proliferation of charter schools, provide adequate funding for essential educational services and preserve our rights on the job.
· Fight for legislation that requires Mayor Daley to redistribute all TIF (Tax Increment Financing) funds captured from our public schools back into the district to serve children.
· Guarantee high level services and compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for all of our students with special needs.
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