By Nick McDaniels – First, let me say that I am excited and honored to be invited back for another school year of blogging for the Marquette Educator.
I am in my fourth year as an English teacher at Baltimore City’s biggest high school and am enjoying the wisdom I have received from the bumps and bruises of the last three years. I am teaching 10th grade, a tested grade level, this year after three years with freshmen, have switched classrooms, am now expected to use the common core curriculum, and am in my second year as a co-teacher. All of this gives me plenty to write about, particularly for a first blog post of the year.
Fortunately, there are more pressing matters to attend to.
As many of you know, especially those readers in Wisconsin and Illinois with an ear to the ground for rumblings of government attacks against workers, the Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis and the membership have submitted their strike date, Sept. 10th. The CTU has been at a negotiating stand still with CEO Brizard and Mayor Rahm Emmanuel for quite some time, with Brizard trying to push forth new initiatives that will keep students in classrooms longer, continue the process of allowing private operators to run our public schools, and continue the national trend of teacher-blaming, union-busting, and over-testing the students who most badly need to learn instead of be tested.
As Brizard and Emmanuel attempt to force corporate education reform on teachers with contract elements that are either untested or failing in other parts of the country, the CTU membership, fortunately for the students, parents, and communities, has saved money, stocked the cabinets with non-perishable food items, and has readied themselves for a strike.
It is important to know why the CTU may strike. A fair contract is essential to any labor negotiation. After watching “landmark” contracts in urban areas around the country fizzle out because the districts do not have the infrastructure to implement them fully, the CTU is rightfully hesitant to ink a deal that would put teachers, who are already under considerable stress and scrutiny, in a test tube of education reform that would directly affect their livelihoods.
However, the pending strike is about more than a contract. The CTU is the first big teachers union to actively fight back against the ed reform movement, setting a precedent very different from the one set by the collaborationist fat cats at the parent union, the AFT, who have actively forced these types of contracts down the throats of teachers all across the country, including Baltimore. The CTU wants a few clear things for the schools. Smaller class sizes, fair compensation for paraprofessionals, and fair compensation and evaluation structures for teachers. What may be more precious, but is not receiving as much attention, is the CTU’s hope to reduce privatization in the schools, preventing corporate interests from skimming huge amounts of money off the top of our public education budgets.
The reasons we all should consider CTU’s fight as our fight are just as clear as the negotiating goals:
- We should consider preventing growth of the business model of education which allows CEOs like Brizard, and former CEOs Klein and Rhee to hand out huge contract to private vendors who are finally seizing an opportunity to tap one of the last untapped markets in the American financial system, our public schools.
- We should consider that CEOs like Brizard have a singular goal, to educate as many students as possible, as well as possible, and as cheaply and/or as profitably as possible. These types of reforms require the demonization of teachers and public relations campaigns that divert attention from the real problems facing our schools, widespread poverty. It makes sense that CEOs like Brizard would not want to take a stand on issues like the poverty of Chicago’s youth, 84% of which receive free and reduced lunch (all of whom Brizard will not feed in the case of a strike). There is a lot of money to be made as a result of this poverty by corporate ed reformers like Wendy Kopp, major textbook and testing companies, charter school vendors, and let’s face it, the bloated leadership of national unions like the AFT.
- We should consider that in no way can we support working-class children by allowing attacks on workers. Teachers, paraprofessionals, school nurses, office assistants, related service providers, custodians, and others are working people earning their living by helping students. We cannot accept that anyone who loves children as much as reformers like Brizard, Klein, and Rhee say they do, can dislike those that work with children so much.
If you are not convinced that attacks on organized labor, high-stakes testing, privatization of schools and pay for performance contracts are bad for students and bad for schools, I encourage you to do some more reading about it. Or, better yet, go to an inner city school, where great teachers are forced to teach less and less, test more and more, and worry every day about losing their jobs, getting bad evaluations causing them to eventually leave the students who need them the most. All of this solves the problem for corporate ed reformers of educating children as cheaply as possible and reduces the work-force of teachers who may be willing to take a stand on behalf of children, the experienced, tenured teachers.
If you are convinced, I encourage you to tell your friends and colleagues about CTU’s fight. Because if we don’t support CTU, the fight will come to our doorstep before we know it. Offer your pledges of support to the CTU and send them messages of solidarity. Their fight is our fight.
I am proud of my school and proud to be a teacher but this guy does not represent my voice. I can’t believe Marquette supports this.
Anonymous,
This is a great opportunity for discussion. Please share your perspective. Even if I may not agree with you, it is still important that your voice gets heard.
Keep up the great work in the classroom!
Nick
Just a comment from the sidelines to clarify that all of our bloggers blog from their own perspectives. While many of our writers are current students and alumni, their opinions aren’t those of the College or the University, but of individuals.
As a result, we realize that issues like this are multi-faceted, and that some may have opinions in opposition to our writers. We see that as an opportunity for dialog and respectful discussion. Our hope is to incite conversation about the topics that is inclusive and accepting of differing points of view. So, we welcome anything you have to say about this or any other content; please feel free to share your perspective.
Here’s a post by a Chicago teacher who certainly has more authority than I do to speak about this issue. http://chiteacherx.blogspot.com/2012/09/why-im-striking-jcb.html
As a Marquette graduate and a recently retired teacher from Wisconsin, I firmly believe that all educators must support the Chicago teachers. After 40 years in education, I can assure you that education and educators in the United States are in a more precarious position than they have been in the last 40 years. I am not a political person, but any way you look at it, public education and the teaching profession in our country are both at risk. Teachers must stand together and work together for the future of our youth. I certainly hope Marquette supports all teachers!
Mary P. Smith
Hi Mary! Thanks for your passion and all the work you have done for children during your career. Thanks for reading and commenting.
I never do this, but…
As teachers, we see students every day and we can attach real kids we know to the policies that impact them. Empathy and compassion, the very traits that make us better teachers, sometimes prevent us from being objective when it comes to politics. Before you tell me that all I must care about is money, let me explain.
In any situation where you have more things in your shopping cart than cash in your pocket, something has to change. One of the problems with polls is that if you ask people, “Do you want to pay higher taxes?” they overwhelmingly say no, and if you ask people “Do you want more services like…..” they generally say yes. We can’t afford all of the things we want, so we point the finger and say that someone else should pay for us. If you’re middle class, you’re looking at the rich. If you’re rich, you think you’re a job creator and paying for that stuff is someone else’s job. If you’re poor, you don’t care who pays for it as long as you get it because you don’t have a choice. To me, the rock-bottom choice is when we pass it off on the future. If we can’t figure out how to do more with less, the very children we promise a free education to are the ones who are going to have to pay the cost of that education down the line in the form of public debt stretched out decades into the future. If we are honest with ourselves we see that the only alternative becomes spending less.
How can we provide children with high quality educations on a budget? Unions try to argue that we can’t and that any cut to education will result in a negative impact somewhere down the line. Businesses know how to be efficient and maximize resources so that every dollar goes further. If you want to give kids as much as you possibly can with the resources you have, you’re going to have to streamline processes and eliminate waste. Even the most pro-union MPS teachers I know will admit that there is a whole lot of waste. MPCP voucher schools are required to return any DPI money that they don’t spend on students at the end of the year, and the best ones are able to raise money so that they’re spending much more than what they’re given. We’re talking about raffles and bake sales here. These CEOs are not lining their pockets with money from cookies and cupcakes. Sure, there are instances where people find a way to do awful things, but that doesn’t tell me we should get rid of the entire program. That tells me we need to step it up and regulate it better. Maybe it is just my imagination, but I feel like you used “CEO” like a dirty word. Why do some people take such a negative view of businesses and the private sector in general? I don’t mean to get personal but you chose to attend a private university, didn’t you? What did Marquette ever do wrong to you?
The hardest part for me is that we aren’t even talking about keeping CPS teachers’ salaries the same. They want a substantially bigger piece of the pie at a time when we can’t even afford the pie. I think they should be required to explain what other things in the budget they see as less important than education. Police and firefighters? Municipal utilities? Roads? Libraries? Then we could really have a discussion. For now it seems like they may have lost sight of the fact that their daily reality, while meaningful, is not everyone else’s daily reality. If there is anything Rahm Emanuel is known for it’s not compromising, so this is really going to be a battle. Ultimately the biggest losers will be the kids who spend September unsupervised, hungry and uneducated. I hope they come to an agreement for the kids’ sake.
Catherine
You make great points. Thank you for engaging with the issue and this post so thoughtfully. I think you are right that those in business are trained to have a great capacity to maximize resources. I would challenge you however, that these same people have a great capacity to maximize profits, which, when education is more privatized, is not forcibly reinvested into students. It is this point that causes great concern for me. Additionally, maximizing resources and doing more with less are not identical concepts and it is unclear which concept the Mayor’s reform initiatives will resemble. While waste is a terrible thing no matter how you look at it, waste also implies that there are in some ways resources available, or at least, resources that are attempted to be made available. This is a good thing too.
I think your assertion that we all need to be more fiscally responsible is completely accurate. Great point!
I want to push you in saying that we could afford the pie if we would all engage more seriously in independent politics that are not so bound by protecting the interests of those who do not want to help pay for the pie.
Ultimately, you are right, that when kids are hurt, no one wins. I hope the children are back in the classroom soon. I want to caution against the thinking that the CTU is the one hurting the children however. I might argue that Mayor Emmanuel and his Democrats for Education Reform supporters have initiated the bulk of the attack on children.
Again, thanks for reading the blog and for so passionately voicing your opinion in support of children. We all can benefit from thoughtful discussions like you have initiated.
Nick