In it, teachers make clear, “We need books. We need air conditioners. When there’s 40 students in a classroom, each student’s not going to get the individual attention they need to succeed.” A parent adds, “This isn’t about politics. It’s about my kids.” – Progressive Change Campaign Committee
“Democratic Party, where are you?”
WORKING TO help teachers striking in Chicago, progressives put together the ad above.
Late on Tuesday, the teachers union voted to end the strike. From the Chicago Sun-Times:
The union fell far short of its last public pay request, for a pay hike of more than 20 percent pay hike in year one, and wound up instead with 3 percent the first year, followed by two years of 2 percent raises, and a possible fourth year at 4 percent, if the union wants to extend the deal.
But the CTU preserved traditional extra raises for experience and advanced degrees — increases that CPS had tried to kill off or radically change. All three raises together should give the average teacher a 17.6 pay hike over four years, CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said.
However, the union fought off a drive to push merit pay and other “pay for performance’’ pay schemes upon teachers — something Lewis said the union received back-slapping calls about from around the country.
There are more details at the link above, including reports that Mayor Emanuel became “emotional” during the announcement.
Again, teachers’ working conditions = students’ learning conditions. In the end, the teachers’ jobs will depend on students’ test scores progressing under these conditions. Talk about stress! Why, in this country, with all of its resources and wealth, do we have so many students and teachers in crisis? Certainly there are solutions, but I believe the people that can help the most with that, the ones in the trenches, are not the ones being listened to by the politicians. And that is the real shame in all of this. Teachers, by and large, know what they and their students need to be successful. They also want to be judged/evaluated fairly. I believe our country really needs to value children and teachers, give them what they need to succeed, and give them our respect and support.
From the very beginning of the strike, teachers were universally portrayed as the Bad Guys- greedy, lazy, selfish, care more about their paychecks than their kids, etc. A Democratic Mayor assisted by the entire MSM apparatus, INCLUDING several MSNBC personalities, casually dropping remarks like “the teachers make on average twice as much as the parents of these kids…” without pointing out that POVERTY is a main ISSUE in the failure of many kids to succeed…the Chicago teachers may be satisfied with the deal, but they’ve been given a warning- don’t expect any even-handedness from politicians or the media, you are ON YOUR OWN because teachers are held in only slightly higher regard than politicians or drug dealers by the general public. Want to know why? Turn on the tv.
go ctu!!
Glad to see they could get some of the things they were fighting for.