Just under half of Chicago’s registered voters support the Chicago Public Teachers strike in a 500 person poll taken Monday, and nearly three-quarters of those polled say Mayor Rahm Emanuel is doing an average, below average or poor job in handing the labor dispute. – Poll: 47% of Chicago registered voters support teachers in strike
THERE IS room to convince the 14% undecided registered voters that teachers in Chicago are making reasonable demands that have the students best interest in mind. A lot depends on how the media frames it.
“We need teachers, we need books/we need the money that Rahm took.” – Teacher chant in face-off with Mayor Rahm Emanuel
The rescinded, then diverted 4% raise was reportedly funneled to security and police.
The pressure just intensified.
Why do teachers get such a bad rap? Has anyone ever observed a teacher in action? I have, when my daughter took me to school with her as a “teacher’s aide.” She teaches 6th grade special ed students. She gave me two students to work with for the day while she worked with the other ten. Her class was supposed to be 8 with 2 aides. I was exhausted after working with the 2 children all day. She never let up and when we went home she went out and ran 6 miles. I have never been so amazed at the commitment of one person and I don’t say this because she is my daughter. She had children who were in her class for a variety of special reasons, including autism and brain injury. I don’t know how she does it year after year and still manages to have her students meet their goals consistently.
Taylor,
Are you really surprised? Rahmbo was always going to screw the pooch as Mayor of Chi-Town. He botched his job as the DCC head, getting pwnd by the Dean Crew and the Republicans. He got run out of DC by his inept handling of the COS position. He now getting run over by the teacher’s union for his obvious hypocrisy over salary cuts. Hell he might even have pissed off the Firefighters and the Police, I seriously doubt they wanted to get their raises on the backs of teachers. I am certain that they did not want to become the bad guys in this story.
Rahm has always been a crass corporatist hack, an attack dog for the 1%. He is the sin qua non of Chi-town ward-healers, only half step brighter and half a step wiser than Blago. With the teachers strike his true colors are showing even more prominently than before.
If the career of his predecessor is any guide, though, none of that will stop him from being re-elected.
The Green Party should be there, right beside them, and they should both say, loud and clear, ” Democrats don’t support us anymore. “
“If the career of his predecessor is any guide, though, none of that will stop him from being re-elected.”
That’s because the same voters who gave Taylor Marsh today’s talking point would respond in the same if not greater plurality if also asked, “Do you wish to keep your property taxes the same or lower than last year?”
If you guys wish to put the teachers in smaller class sizes, offer more “enriched curriculum” or whatever other things are on their wish list, just stop jawboning and write a check.
Money does solve all problems……that is why I amass it.
“Money does solve all problems……that is why I amass it.”
It doesn’t solve stupid and pathological lying evidence Mitt da Twit and Lyin Ryan….Hell, look at the entire repugnantklan/teabagger/UBERChristian mob.
start quote
Money does solve all problems……that is why I amass it
end quote
It hasn’t solved the problem of the REPLY button for you,has it?
So, by this logic, we all need to amass $500k or so, so that we can afford Stage 3 cancer, or replace our houses when they’re destroyed, or whatever. Except, since we’re doing all this via the “free market”, we need several times that. That’s because the Free Market Fairy really works like this: When someone produces a lousy product, or otherwise doesn’t deliver, those people who still have any money left go elsewhere. So, we need several times as much as that $500k, just so we can be sure that it’s not all lost or stolen by the fabulous free market.
Let’s say that’s $3 million for each of us… 3 x 10^6 times 3.2 x 10 ^ 8… I think I found a problem with your idea.
But if you think otherwise, go ahead and start cutting those checks, and we can just hope there’s a national economy somewhere that’s big enough to cover them. And remember, that’s Cujo359, with a capital ‘C’. I don’t want to have to learn a new signature at my age.
Karen Lewis, President of the Chicago Teachers Union has made a real effort to reach out to parents in the community, which I believe shows in the poll numbers supporting the teachers. The parents know the teachers are fighting for their children and that the teachers’ working environment is also their children’s learning environment – one in the same going hand in hand. I heard her say in a speech a while back that the union had to learn that lesson, that by reaching out to parents, they would have strong allies. Smart lady.
I can’t help noticing that there seems to be a special vitriol leveled at teachers’ unions and I can’t help wondering if that has anything to do with the fact the teacher union membership is overwhelmingly female and when you pair that with the fact that they work with kids, the idea that they don’t just do it “for love” is just unforgivable in some minds. Just can’t help wondering.
Interesting letter written to Diane Ravitch from a striking Chicago teacher – having taught in an urban district myself, this is reality for many families and teachers, unlike in the “reform” movies that Michelle Rhee shows audiences: http://dianeravitch.net/
Great link, lynette. I’m a big Ravitch fan.
One thing about the value-added method being used in NYC: the creaters of that method have said it is not a good vehicle for measuring individuals over a short period of time which is precisely how it’s being done.
That’s right, StrideHyde. The VAM is not reliable – it has a huge statistical variation. Depending on the classes a teacher gets from one year to another, s/he could be great one year and not-so-great the next – which means this is not fair to teachers and could be greatly abused. Also, this could be weighted 50% of a teacher’s evaluation, upon which his or her job depends. Thus, excellent teachers could be fired based on an unreliable tool. This is really an issue of fairness for teachers. If data is going to be used in the evaluation process, it must be based on a fair and reliable tool that should be no more than 20% of a teacher’s evaluation. I think that’s what the teachers are asking for.
Here’s the permalink to that one. Yes, it’s an interesting perspective. I noted from the Chicago Public Schools’ own website that 87 percent of their students qualify as poor. That’s a rather substantial number, by any means. It sure looks to me like Rahm Emanuel’s priniciple goal here is to shovel as much money as possible into the hands of his supporters, rather than try to find the funds to make the schools and the rest of Chicago go.