As far as funding the longer school day, the Mayor miraculously came up with bribe money for the schools and teachers who signed waivers to implement the longer day without it being contractually agreed upon. And the mayor says there is money in the budget for all schools and teachers who agree to be coerced into signing waivers.
We go from one extreme to another with this mayor, and who knows what the real truth is. Two weeks ago, the Mayor says we need a property tax increase to pay for the present school budget that does not include longer school day costs. This week he tells us, sure I have the money, for any of you who want to break contractual agreements and be bribed to do my bidding... So, Mayor, just what is the truth, and why are our property taxes being raised when you have all this surplus money in reserve to bribe schools and teachers?
Meanwhile, check out the three alderman concerned about how CPS is conducting itself during this process (highlighted in the Progress Illinois article below). Alderman should be monitoring negotiations between CPS and the CTU carefully. The sucess of the longer school day will depend on obtaining "buy-in" from everyone - parents, teachers, and CPS. We need to work together and not make this an adversarial process.
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PI Original Monday September 12th, 2011, 1:39pm
Battle Lines Being Drawn In Push For Longer School Day
Last week ended with the Chicago Public Schools and Mayor Rahm Emanuel farther apart than ever with the Chicago Teacher’s Union as to how best implement a longer school day.
Last week ended with the Chicago Public Schools and Mayor Rahm Emanuel farther apart than ever with the Chicago Teacher’s Union as to how best implement a longer school day.
Teachers at four elementary schools – STEM Magnet, Genevieve Melody, Skinner North Classical, and Benjamin Mays – voted to extend their school day from less than five hours to more than seven. Also, the City Council passed a non-binding resolution that CPS should add 90 minutes to the school day. And at the end of the week a fifth school – William H Brown Elementary – voted for a longer day.
But the CTU filed an unfair labor practice complaint on September 8 before the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board arguing that CPS has both intimated teachers and broken their end of the collective bargaining agreement by negotiating with individual school staffs. “The whole CBA is up for grabs,” Robert Bloch, general counsel of the CTU, wrote in the complaint. The Illinois Federation of Teachers released a statement of support Monday saying that the Chicago Public Schools, “Must stop trying to undermine the collective bargaining agreement.”
The escalating confrontation is somewhat contrived. CPS and CTU each acknowledge a district-wide longer school day will happen, probably in the next twelve months.
Emanuel and CPS, though, have decided that a longer school day – a backburner issue throughout the Richard Daley administration – must be addressed now. Emanuel told aldermen at the City Council meeting Thursday to, “burn the phone lines, the resolution is only the beginning of what I am going to ask of each of you.”
But the collective bargaining agreement between CPS and CTU expires in June 2012. Also, in the summer of 2012, a major education reform law goes into effect that will let CPS unilaterally lengthen the school day so long as they negotiate with CTU over more pay for the extra hours. CTU spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin has said that, “A longer school day is inevitable but how will it be funded and how will it be planned?”
Yet instead of focusing on a favorable deal for next year, CPS tried to cut a deal for 2011-12 by proposing a two percent raise for elementary school teachers in exchange for a longer day. CTU flatly rejected the proposal, as President Karen Lewis said her members, “were being asked to work 29 percent longer for only a two percent pay increase.”
So CPS then instead tried to persuade individual schools to take the two percent raise deal – with the added incentive of $150,000 for each school that jumps on board.
CTU alleges CPS used shady persuasion tactics in getting the first four elementary schools to agree with the plan.
At Melody, the complaint contends, Principal Nancy-Septa Hanks told teachers their school would be less likely to close if they voted for the longer day.
Meanwhile, at STEM – a new magnet school – Principal Maria McManus allegedly told teachers that a yes vote would make their school, “The Mayor’s pet school.” McManus also told teachers to save voicemail messages they received from union representatives. At Skinner, Principal Ethan James Netterstrom instructed his office to turn away any school visitors representing CTU.
Bloch writes that CPS headquarters ordered these actions. Further, he adds, negotiating with individual schools instead of the full teacher’s union violates the collective bargaining agreement.
CPS did not return calls regarding the complaint. And neither CPS nor CTU responded to queries as to whether specific schools have voted against the longer day.
The City Council is mostly sympathetic to Emanuel and CPS’s plans for an immediate longer day, though alderman like Scott Waguespack (32nd), Sandi Jackson (7th), and Nicholas Sposato (36th) expressed concern about CPS’s tactics. “They are picking off schools one by one,” Sposato says.
Chicago does have the shortest school day among major urban school districts, according to the Boston-based National Center on Time & Learning, which compiles research on school day and school year length.
Local elected officials have just occasionally mentioned the issue in the past and it was often coupled together with concerns about lengthening the school year or eliminating vacation days.
“There has never been an attempt to lengthen the school day by this amount,” says Lorraine Forte, editor-in-chief at the education research magazine Catalyst Chicago. “Daley talked about it, but he tried to get the unions to lengthen it by fifteen minutes.”
Also, it’s not clear if a longer school day will, in fact, improve student achievement. A study this April by the National Center on Time & Learning cited several state and city governments, including Chicago, pushing for a longer school day. “However,” the study noted, “They do [so] with a shortage of information of which to base their decisions.”
Teachers at four elementary schools – STEM Magnet, Genevieve Melody, Skinner North Classical, and Benjamin Mays – voted to extend their school day from less than five hours to more than seven. Also, the City Council passed a non-binding resolution that CPS should add 90 minutes to the school day. And at the end of the week a fifth school – William H Brown Elementary – voted for a longer day.
But the CTU filed an unfair labor practice complaint on September 8 before the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board arguing that CPS has both intimated teachers and broken their end of the collective bargaining agreement by negotiating with individual school staffs. “The whole CBA is up for grabs,” Robert Bloch, general counsel of the CTU, wrote in the complaint. The Illinois Federation of Teachers released a statement of support Monday saying that the Chicago Public Schools, “Must stop trying to undermine the collective bargaining agreement.”
The escalating confrontation is somewhat contrived. CPS and CTU each acknowledge a district-wide longer school day will happen, probably in the next twelve months.
Emanuel and CPS, though, have decided that a longer school day – a backburner issue throughout the Richard Daley administration – must be addressed now. Emanuel told aldermen at the City Council meeting Thursday to, “burn the phone lines, the resolution is only the beginning of what I am going to ask of each of you.”
But the collective bargaining agreement between CPS and CTU expires in June 2012. Also, in the summer of 2012, a major education reform law goes into effect that will let CPS unilaterally lengthen the school day so long as they negotiate with CTU over more pay for the extra hours. CTU spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin has said that, “A longer school day is inevitable but how will it be funded and how will it be planned?”
Yet instead of focusing on a favorable deal for next year, CPS tried to cut a deal for 2011-12 by proposing a two percent raise for elementary school teachers in exchange for a longer day. CTU flatly rejected the proposal, as President Karen Lewis said her members, “were being asked to work 29 percent longer for only a two percent pay increase.”
So CPS then instead tried to persuade individual schools to take the two percent raise deal – with the added incentive of $150,000 for each school that jumps on board.
CTU alleges CPS used shady persuasion tactics in getting the first four elementary schools to agree with the plan.
At Melody, the complaint contends, Principal Nancy-Septa Hanks told teachers their school would be less likely to close if they voted for the longer day.
Meanwhile, at STEM – a new magnet school – Principal Maria McManus allegedly told teachers that a yes vote would make their school, “The Mayor’s pet school.” McManus also told teachers to save voicemail messages they received from union representatives. At Skinner, Principal Ethan James Netterstrom instructed his office to turn away any school visitors representing CTU.
Bloch writes that CPS headquarters ordered these actions. Further, he adds, negotiating with individual schools instead of the full teacher’s union violates the collective bargaining agreement.
CPS did not return calls regarding the complaint. And neither CPS nor CTU responded to queries as to whether specific schools have voted against the longer day.
The City Council is mostly sympathetic to Emanuel and CPS’s plans for an immediate longer day, though alderman like Scott Waguespack (32nd), Sandi Jackson (7th), and Nicholas Sposato (36th) expressed concern about CPS’s tactics. “They are picking off schools one by one,” Sposato says.
Chicago does have the shortest school day among major urban school districts, according to the Boston-based National Center on Time & Learning, which compiles research on school day and school year length.
Local elected officials have just occasionally mentioned the issue in the past and it was often coupled together with concerns about lengthening the school year or eliminating vacation days.
“There has never been an attempt to lengthen the school day by this amount,” says Lorraine Forte, editor-in-chief at the education research magazine Catalyst Chicago. “Daley talked about it, but he tried to get the unions to lengthen it by fifteen minutes.”
Also, it’s not clear if a longer school day will, in fact, improve student achievement. A study this April by the National Center on Time & Learning cited several state and city governments, including Chicago, pushing for a longer school day. “However,” the study noted, “They do [so] with a shortage of information of which to base their decisions.”
Rahm's losing momentum and aldermen who want to be re-elected aren't going to be bootlickers, riding on his coat tails.
ReplyDeleteSmart alderman are not afraid to speak out about wayward city departments like CPS and the Mayor's terrible handling of city workers thus far; not addressing management waste, not following IG recommendations, lay-offs for the low wage workers, and now this teachers union debacle.
ALderman O'Connor was elected by a small number of people who did not vote for Rahm, but did vote for her. She better wake up and realize aligning herself with him is a lose/lose for her political future.
The 41st ward alderman is keeping the seat warm for the next alderman, who hopefully has some leadership skills and can speak in public. You don't hear much from O'Connor because she isn't a public speaker and mis-speaks if cornered.
ReplyDeleteHard to be a leader when you can't communicate well.
What is the real shame here is the adverserial approach the mayor uses to govern. It doesn't work. The dems are going to have real trouble in 2012 and I doubt a dem is going to come through with the presidency. Rahm will lose much of his power and along with his anger issues will turn off many voters in the end.
Rahm is a real liability to Obama. I agree dems are going to lose momentum in Chicago with this Mayor. Any alderman counting on a relationship with Rahm to get re-elected is dreaming.
ReplyDeleteI heard Mayor NAFTAPUNK today visited one of the schools recently coerced into the 90 minute warehousing session.
ReplyDeleteImagine the cussing rant NAFTAPUNK would fly into if someone proposed 15 of those 90 minutes be spent on the importance buying products made in America. Or better yet, on the role of unions building the Middle class.
What a punk.