Thursday, January 24, 2008
Chicago Teacher Union's Historic Flop
The CTU got its start near the turn of the century with Margaret Haley at the helm. As leader of the Chicago Federation of Teachers Haley fought merit pay as a system prone to corruption and favoritism and pushed for an independently elected school board. We now have a union leadership that invokes Haley as a historic figure but has gutted the fighting organization that she built. It's laughable that the very issues that made teachers in this city a force to be reckoned with are being dismantled with the CTU's official endorsement. More to come on union politics and Chicago school reform -- check in daily at the Substance blog.
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11 comments:
When does the next CTU contract have to be negotiated by?
Heidi-Ho
Lets shake things up!
Any word on why the union has not had a press conference on the school closings?
Dan,
The contract was passed in 2007. It's length is 5 years. It has a reopener in it to review health care premiums in two to three years. This could result in tremendous increases costs for members.
Brian Sullivan
Does it bother anybody else that CPS is "rebuilding" a number of schools again and the CTU seems to be absent from the Chicago's airwaves expressing anger?
Kugler and Al are right. In fact at the recent Board meeting they called on Marilyn to speak about the issue, and i did not see her around. Maybe George can comment on whether she even bothered to show up.
Marilyn Stewart spoke at the January 23 (Wednesday) Board meeting, and I assume her comments were accurately reported in the Cable TV reply (although remember, it's edited). In fact, Marilyn went in Rufus Williams's face, much to the chagrin of both Rufus and Arne Duncan. I also noticed when she was speaking that she began reading her script, then simply put it aside and laid into Rufus, Arne, and the Board.
What happened after that is something I'll be reporting in detail.
Marilyn left the Board chambers, and I assumed she was going to be holding some sort of mini press conference out back. The issue she had addressed was a hot one, she had spoken heatedly, and the reporters (including TV) were there for that story, which was the big one of the day.
instead of talking further with the press, Marilyn let Rosemaria Genova, the union's publicist, hustle her to the elevators and out of the building with an over-the-shoulder promise that Marilyn would get back to everyone with the official statement and a press conference.
Next thing you know, CTU issues (but not to Substance) a press statement, but there is no press conference. Instead, someone at CTU is trying to control access by inviting individual reporters to do exclusive Marilyn interviews on the issues.
The next questions should be whether Marilyn is going to mobilize the union for the hearings (there are 19 of them, and each one is important in its own way) from February 4 on. The House of Delegates meets February 6, so there will still be time to force the issue. But I have a hunch that part of the deal Marilyn cut with Mayor Daley includes a promise to keep her mouth shut (and the union lying down) in the face of any additional Daley moves like this.
We'll see.
This is the largest single number of school changes in history, and the least defensible. Every one of them is a political attack. Although the Board will cook the books again to "prove" that such and such a school had to be closed, a broader view of the data shows the opposite.
These are targeted shots, designed to keep Mayor Daley's agenda completely in control. The flimsly foundation for each claim falls apart as soon as it's checked out against the broader facts. CTU members will pay dearly for not having a true research capacity at the union (and "research" doesn't mean clipping the Chicago Tribune, which is the voice of the other side for Goshsakes).
The real showdown can come on February 27, when all of the "hearings" are over and the Board gets to vote on screwing all these schools. However, even if someone deflects the Board from doing that, remember that Arne has to be watched every day and every month. Last summer, he went into the summer with a "no closings" promise and then in July forced half of Moos school to squeeze into the half of the building so he could give the other half of the building to the Aspira Mirta Ramirez charter school -- over the objections of most Moos parents.
What is clearly happening is the union aka Stewart set herself up to have complete control(of what? when the union is crumbling) to either make money now somehow or with promises for something for her in the future. What I mean about control is that she is wiping out anyone that might even blink at any decision she makes over at the mart. Again the question is why she is clamping down on her own union when the board is clearly making a big move to terminate many union members?
I think the question answers itself.
It might be time to make some new alliances to save the union from a certain death if the current trend of inaction continues.
Stewart, oddly, had Rufus Williams and Arne Duncan stumped at Wednesday's Board meeting. I suspect they were more worried about her when she went off script and up in their faces than they were worried about the very articulate and well organized parents from Edison who had caught them in their usual multiple lies.
What stumped me was why she allowed herself to be muzzled so quickly on the way out the door by, of all things, the union's "publicist."
Excellent blog - at last a forum for teachers to discuss real issues! We have to put pressure on the union and force Marilyn to do something on the teachers' behalf. We need some organizing and this blog is perfect to do this.
The Tribune reported today that Marilyn Stewart "met with" teachers at Orr High School(s) and talked about how they all had superior ratings, etc. Stewart and CTU did not generally publicize the meeting as a press event, although she apparently left the Trib in. The stupid thing about how Marilyn is handling this is that she is still in the "test scores" trap because she doesn't understand how the scores are rigged and has spent three years not learning.
The question really is whether CTU will testify at each of the 19 hearings and whether CTU will demand action from both the City Council and the Board of Education. There is a full month (four weeks) between now and the February 27 Board of Education meeting when the Board votes and these atrocities get the force of law. Even after surrendering to Daley and Duncan for more than three years, Stewart could do a turnaround on this and show some leadership.
hi
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