Joravsky writes: "For better or worse - and many years it was worse - the union protected teachers from some of this nonsense. But in the last three years, Chicago mayors have started going after the union."

Former Obama chief of staff and current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. (photo: Chicago Tribune)

Why Chicago Teachers Hate Rahm

By Ben Joravsky, Chicago Reader

13 September 12

aving spent the better part of a week asking teachers why they'd risk a public backlash by going on strike, I've concluded that the answer is best summed up by what one told me at their Labor Day rally: "Mayor Emanuel's pushed us to the limit. He's the world's biggest asshole."

Actually, I think he may have dropped the F-bomb once-or twice. But I'm trying to clean things up since this is a family newspaper, dammit!

But here's the bottom line: so much of this fight is fueled by the animosity of thousands of teachers toward one man.

I know-I shouldn't joke. A teachers' strike is serious stuff: the lives, careers, and future plans of thousands of teachers, kids, and parents are at stake.

I just read an open letter "To the Leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union from Leaders of the Faith Community." It's an ad in the Sun-Times, published before the strike and signed by various clergymen with close ties to the city government, calling on teachers to do what's right for the kids and call off their strike.

"We do not side with the Mayor, the Chicago Public Schools, or your organization," the letter reads. "We side with the 350,000 students who will be placed in harm's way if you lead Chicago teachers into a strike."

Of course, by writing this letter they're very much siding with the mayor. Because if the union calls off the strike they lose what little leverage they have to force the tough and powerful people who run this city to give them even a fraction of what they want.

Or as Frederick Douglass put it: "Power concedes nothing without a demand."

Speaking of power, I'd like to say a word or two in defense of Mayor Emanuel. I know, you don't hear me say that too often. But the truth is that this showdown has been brewing since long before he came on the scene.

Traditionally, CPS has been a top-down, vaguely militaristic system in which central-office bosses issue mandates like Zeus from above.

The teachers-you know, the folks doing the real work in the classroom-are supposed to do what they're told as new dictates come and go. It's like the weather. Don't like the latest policy on curriculum or testing mandated by the board? Just wait-they'll mandate something new in a day or two.

For better or worse-and many years it was worse-the union protected teachers from some of this nonsense. But in the last three years, Chicago mayors have started going after the union.

The assault began under Mayor Daley. Not sure why, though I'm starting to think the poor guy became a little unhinged in his last year in office after he didn't get his Olympics.

In 2010 Ron Huberman, the guy Daley put in charge of the schools, circumvented the union contract by essentially declaring an end to teacher tenure. His weapon was a personnel policy called "redefinition." So a principal could "redefine" an English teaching position into an English teaching position with a specialty in, say, basket weaving. Presto-out goes the old, "unqualified" English teacher and in comes a new one who's generally younger, paid less, and well aware of the need to worship the principal. Because children won't learn to become productive citizens without teachers who are afraid of their shadows.

Into this world marched Mayor Emanuel, like Napoleon invading Russia.

Emanuel will tell you that he knew what was wrong with Chicago's public schools and was determined to change it, because that's what strong leaders do.

My theory is that he knew next to nothing about the schools when he got elected. And what he did know was shaped by campaign rhetoric, which was itself largely based on his efforts to impress out-of-town pundits, who had themselves bought into the conventional wisdom that just about everything wrong with schools today can be blamed on bad teachers and the unions who protect them.

Whatever his motivation, Emanuel stepped up the war on the union, using the nonunion charter schools as his main weapon. In last year's mayoral campaign, he insisted that the top-scoring high schools in Chicago are charters-even though no charters are in the top ten. In fact, there's no strong evidence that charters are educating children any better than regular schools.

Once elected, Emanuel appointed charter advocates and charter funders to his schools transition team and then to the board of education. He supported efforts in the state general assembly to divert more state aid from regular unionized schools to the charters. He opened up more charters. And just in case somebody out there wasn't paying attention, he started dropping by charter schools for visits and praising them for the cameras, saying it would be wonderful if all the schools could be just like them.

Meanwhile, his only official meeting with CTU president Karen Lewis was the one last August 2 when they had their infamous squabble. He wound up telling her "Fuck you, Lewis." And she told him-well, we're not sure what she told him. But I'm sure it wasn't pretty.

Then came his obsession with the longer school day.

Yes, yes, yes-all children should spend more productive time in school. But no, no, no-we shouldn't just mandate it without giving schools the resources to do something meaningful with the time, like offer classes in art, drama, music, and dance, which are not taught in most Chicago schools.

But point this out to Mayor Emanuel and you can count on him, or one of his spokespeople, to accuse you of coddling teachers or hating on kids. He went as far as to faintly criticize Mayor Daley-though not by name-for trading a longer day for labor peace in the 2003 contract negotiations. The politicians, Emanuel said, got their "labor peace," the teachers got their "pay raises," and "our children got the shaft." As if teachers were venture capitalists sending jobs to the Cayman Islands and stashing their cash in Swiss bank accounts.

I don't think teachers will ever forgive him for that one.

The mayor also had his appointed school board rescind the raise the previous board had negotiated with the union on the grounds that the system was too broke to pay it. Even though the system wasn't too broke to raise the pay of CEO Jean-Claude Brizard-and most of his central-office appointees-over what their predecessors were making. Just as their predecessors got a boost over the people before them, and so on.

In short, after Daley took away teachers' tenure, Emanuel increased their hours, cut their pay, portrayed them as money-grubbers, closed unionized schools, and opened more nonunion charters, thus depleting the union's power through attrition. And I haven't even gotten into the merit pay issue, which he's also tried to shove down their throats.

And you wonder why teachers are so angry they went on strike.

In some quarters they garner understandably little sympathy, especially among parents who are inconvenienced or students who miss out on important athletic events or crucial college deadlines, or who just need the time in school.

Still, keep this in mind before you join the rip-the-teachers chorus. Mayor Emanuel's pushing us toward a system in which all teachers-charter and union-are lower-paid, at-will employees who have about as much job protection and say in their workplace as grill-line workers in a fast-food restaurant.

Please tell me how that's good for kids.

Comments

We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.

General guidelines: Avoid personal attacks on other forum members; Avoid remarks that are ethnically derogatory; Do not advocate violence, or any illegal activity.

Remember that making the world better begins with responsible action.

- The RSN Team

+26 # dkonstruction 2012-09-13 12:07

Sadly, Emanuel's "vision" is also Arne Duncan's and thus also Obama's. Privatization and for-profit charter schools is the their idea of "vision" (not to mention lower salaries and fewer beneifits).

This strike could turn out to be as important as the air traffic controller's strike under Reagan...time will tell.

+23 # RnR 2012-09-13 16:07

Let's not limit those who detest Rahmbo to teachers. I feel deprived.

I hate him and I'm not a teacher :) I identify with those watching their rights ripped out from under them.

-10 # Susan1989 2012-09-14 03:22

I was a teacher for 16 years and worked for a private school as a financial administrator fo 17 years and my experience over those years taught me that the public school system does not work for a myriad of reasons. One of the most obvious from anyone on the inside is that public schools are forced to maintain disruptive students and ineffective teachers who distract the learning process for everyone else. Public schools are also most usually large and impersonal....i n spite of the research which shows that students do far better in small school environments. US public schools, particularly in urban areas, are not working, having been failing for a long time. A new system has to be developed that for starters will get rid of non performing teachers and remove disruptive students from the classroom. I worked hard to send my children to private school so they would have a safe learning environment.

+8 # Glen 2012-09-15 04:54

You do have a point, Susan, but small schools and private schools are out of range for most citizens. For one thing, there are too many people and schools cannot keep up with fluctuating populations much less a major influx of newer students. As I said below, it is complicated and a local community has much to do with schools, school improvement, and a tax base.

Using schools as a weapon during campaigns and in an effort to privatize literally everything in the U.S. must be fought by all citizens. It is also important for parents to involve themselves in a helpful manner to work to better local schools.

+16 # Glen 2012-09-14 03:55

This is not merely a local strike, protesting unfair tactics against citizens. This is a battle that will take place in every state over the coming months, regardless of the outcome of the presidential election.

Amazing how easily Emanuel influenced U.S. citizens at large, and how easily citizens will turn on each other without doing a simple bit of research on such as teacher conditions.

-10 # MidwestTom 2012-09-14 04:26

Nobody wants to address the cause of this mes. Over the years Illinois has created an almost unlimited welfare state. The benefits are good enough that many poor women now see having children as a way to making a living. In the name of helping the children the legislature continues to add more benefits. Most children born into these families start ,ife with tweo strikes against them.

The Chicago schools are so bad that many major colleges stopped recruiting athletes from there years ago, because they cannot make succeed in college. This is NOT the teachers fault. They see the kids five hours per day; seventy percent qualify for free breakfast. The city is presently spending $13,500 per student. More money wil not solve this problem.

It will take time, buy the only cure is to drastically limit how many children the state state will support from one women.

Thanks to our tax burden in Illinois we already have one of the worst business environments of any state in the union. Additional money will solve Chicago's problem.

+10 # dkonstruction 2012-09-14 06:42

"the cause of this mess" has been nearly 1/2 a century of the ongoing abandonment of the state's (i.e., gov't) commitment to adequately fund public education in this country not so much in terms of salaries/benefi ts for teachers but rather in terms of funds to keep class sizes down and have adequate staffing in classes with populations of kids that face multiple learning challenges. Scapegoating teachers may be good politics but it is hardly a serious or helpful contribution to a conversation on how to improve our public school system. Finally, it also important to understand that the drop in support for our public school system began at a time when the student population began to change from being primarily white to primarily students of color (at least in the major "inner cities"

+9 # ltsnh1941@gmail.com 2012-09-14 07:40

I don't disagree with what you say, but I do want to note that we spend far more for folks we put into prison than we spend on our children. I'm not sure what Illinois spends, but California spends more than $25,000 per prisoner. Just think if we spent that much on our children. The previous poster noted that he sent his children to private school (small classes, individualized attention, etc.). Our local private school charges $34,000 for tuition and fees, etc. No wonder their students do well.

+11 # Glen 2012-09-14 07:51

Tom, your comments are so cliche. Nobody receives much assistance simply for having children and the life lived by the poor, even with a bit of assistance, is not pretty.

Also, these issues with schools are not limited to Chicago. The social, community, and local income drop in hundreds of areas have contributed to serious issues in schools. Even the buildings are in disrepair. Buses cannot be out on their route due to little funding.

Nothing is as simple as you would like to present it.

+3 # mikes1060 2012-09-14 11:47

Tom, you don't know what you're talking about. Consult Crain's on the Midwest Business Climate...$13,5 00 a student? No WAY! Welfare state? Talk to somebody on welfare and ask them how easy it is to feed one person on $5 a day.

-13 # MidwestTom 2012-09-14 04:35

There is little sympathy for the teachers outside of Chicago. Average wages in this state have dropped 9% since the start of the recession and unemployment is above the national average. The average teacher pay is $76,000 per year, with a generous retirement plan, and good health insurance. They initially wanted a 30% raise, which the papers now report has been lowered to a 16% pay raise; this coming at a time when businesses are increasing their layoffs. If the number is correct that there is one administrator for every ten students; maybe the Mayor should look to the non-teaching staff for major layoffs.

+7 # dkonstruction 2012-09-14 07:42

Quoting MidwestTom:

There is little sympathy for the teachers outside of Chicago. Average wages in this state have dropped 9% since the start of the recession and unemployment is above the national average. The average teacher pay is $76,000 per year, with a generous retirement plan, and good health insurance. They initially wanted a 30% raise, which the papers now report has been lowered to a 16% pay raise; this coming at a time when businesses are increasing their layoffs. If the number is correct that there is one administrator for every ten students; maybe the Mayor should look to the non-teaching staff for major layoffs.

Since you provide no evidence that there is "little sympathy for the teachers outside of Chicago" this merely presents your own personal views regarding this strike.

And starting salary for teachers in Chicago is roughly $50,000 a year and only after 25 years of teaching do teachers wind up with a salary between $82-88k (depnding on whether they have a BA or a Masters) so those making $76,000 have been teaching for many, many, many years.

And that 16% pay raise is over 4 years so the teachers are in fact asking for less than a 4% increase per year which, after accounting for inflation (including energy and food which are not included in the official statistics) this amounts to barely a cost of living increase which is thus no salary increase at all.

+16 # Eliza D 2012-09-14 09:18

Midwest-You have finally made a comment not driven by emotion. You better believe that schools should lay off administrators. Their salaries, not teachers' salaries, is what is driving the cost of education up. In the new charter schools, there is one administrator for every five teachers, evaluation teams for every twenty teaches,staff "developers" and all sorts of other useless job titles. Teachers are professionals who should be evaluating each other, not cowed into following the latest vogue from some overpaid bureacrat. So many people want to play Monday morning quarterback with teachers. Let them teach, for heaven's sake, and pay them well. I want a relaxed, well-paid teacher for my children,not a frightened sheep who doesn't know when the guillotine will fall.

+9 # dkonstruction 2012-09-14 11:18

Quoting Eliza D:

Midwest-You have finally made a comment not driven by emotion. You better believe that schools should lay off administrators. Their salaries, not teachers' salaries, is what is driving the cost of education up. In the new charter schools, there is one administrator for every five teachers, evaluation teams for every twenty teaches,staff "developers" and all sorts of other useless job titles. Teachers are professionals who should be evaluating each other, not cowed into following the latest vogue from some overpaid bureacrat. So many people want to play Monday morning quarterback with teachers. Let them teach, for heaven's sake, and pay them well. I want a relaxed, well-paid teacher for my children,not a frightened sheep who doesn't know when the guillotine will fall.

And public funds (i.e., our tax dollars) should not be going to support for-profit privatized charter schools.

+8 # RLF 2012-09-14 04:41

The reason Raum hates the teachers is because they are "fucking retarded liberals". With Democrats like these Chicago types, who needs republicans. I blame Clinton for starting it but maybe it is the remnants of the 'southern democrat' thing.

+17 # Eliza D 2012-09-14 04:49

MR. Jarovsky,thanks for telling it like it is. George Bush created, and President Obama continued, a blame game scenario in education in which teachers are lazy, overpaid primadonnas who just want to sit on their fannies and collect inflated pensions. I have known many teachers, and the truth is, from September to June they are unavailable socially because they are making lesson plans,correctin g papers and searching for meaningful materials to make work more interesting for their students. I know teachers who bring snacks DAILY for hungry students with their own money BECAUSE THEY CARE ABOUT CHILDREN. I am a parent too, and know that Harvard is not Harvard because of the quality of the professors, but the quality of the students. Read that again, please. Ivy League schools hand pick the best,brightest most involved young people to work with. Other schools must work with what they get.

+11 # Glen 2012-09-14 08:08

Thank you Eliza. Teachers across the country can testify to what you have seen. No Child Left Behind was one of the worst programs to hit schools and the preparation in college to work within that program upon entering teaching was shocking to many future teachers.

The average citizen does not understand what schools are dealing with. Schools are a convenient political football, as I have said many times. Sure, there are teachers that are no good, and some are burned out, but the majority are as you describe: honest, working their butts off even in the summer, and contributing to what they see lacking in the classroom and with their students.

A shame there is so little support from governments and local communities, that used to be a big part of growing up.

+7 # michelle 2012-09-14 13:38

"...even in the summer" and that doesn't begin to cover all the 'extras' teachers do for students. I had three children go through the public school system. Teachers in my district took students to competitions like Science Olympiad, History Day, Science Bowl on their own time. They wrote rec letters over school breaks and weekends. Their reward for all this dedication is to be constantly maligned by politicians and the media. We are lucky indeed that we have any teachers left in the system.

+6 # Glen 2012-09-14 15:13

Michelle, you are so right. The flip side of all this is lack of support from parents. I witnessed parents arriving at school to complain and then YELL at either the principal or the teacher for keeping their child in from recess to catch up on work that had not been done. Part of the reason for the work not getting done was the parents not encouraging the student.

There are near horror stories concerning what teachers must deal with in attempting to help their students. All that is overlooked by governments and such as Bill Gates in attempting to destroy decent teachers and schools, in favor of privatizing schools. Well, pretty much everything.

+6 # michelle 2012-09-14 17:32

"Bill Gates in attempting to destroy decent teachers "
You address another important point. People who have never been in a classroom telling the world how to teach. Bill Gates is the guy who brought us Vista and the Zune. Now he wants to bring us his vision of education. Sigh.

+2 # Glen 2012-09-15 04:33

I have a report concerning Bill Gates and his folks wishing to take over Oakland CA schools, if you would be interested in reading it. A handful of people, one especially, have fought Bill Gates and the privatization of schools there.

+4 # Eliza D 2012-09-14 17:09

Furthermore, Rahm Emanuele and his cronies want to extend the school day to 5PM and the school year as well. I understand that working parents need childcare for their children, and this two income new world order is unbearably stressful for parents, but extending the school day is NOT the answer. Children need play time and down time, which, research has shown, encourages creativity and brain growth. If politicians extend the school day in my state, I will pull my kids out and home-school them. And teachers? How will they be good parents to THEIR children if they are working 'round the clock? Being envious of their perceived comfortable status(and I mean that ironically,beca use only Banksters are really comfortable) is not the solution. An enlightened society works to make life better for everyone, and doesn't engage in schadenfreude towards those perceived to be doing well owing to their own hard work.

+9 # Greenprof2 2012-09-14 06:53

I worked in urban Chicago for 8 years as a teacher educator and know the conditions teachers there face, and their salaries are hardly too high. I stand in solidarity with the CTU for fighting evaluation by test scores alone, and for opposing the privatization of public education and union busting thru charter schools. Thank goodness there is still courage and principle to be found in this country and as a retired teacher I'm delighted to find these things in the union!

+10 # Granny Weatherwax 2012-09-14 07:12

"Still, keep this in mind before you join the rip-the-teacher s chorus. Mayor Emanuel's pushing us toward a system in which all teachers-charte r and union-are lower-paid, at-will employees who have about as much job protection and say in their workplace as grill-line workers in a fast-food restaurant.

Please tell me how that's good for kids."

That can only be good if you want to raise them to keep their head down and flip burger without questioning the imposed "consensus".

+8 # reiverpacific 2012-09-14 08:32

Quoting Granny Weatherwax:

"Still, keep this in mind before you join the rip-the-teachers chorus. Mayor Emanuel's pushing us toward a system in which all teachers-charter and union-are lower-paid, at-will employees who have about as much job protection and say in their workplace as grill-line workers in a fast-food restaurant.

Please tell me how that's good for kids."

That can only be good if you want to raise them to keep their head down and flip burger without questioning the imposed "consensus".

Exactly!
As a "Furriner" watching from the relative sidelines, that's exactly what IS happening and has been happening for many years, especially post-Reagan; just the way the Plutocrats want it. Keep 'em dumb enough to work non-challenging jobs without question, limiting their aspirations to acquiring a big-screen TV and it's further numbing, content-free, commercialized infotainment world.
How else can the likes of Reagan and Dimwits be able to even run for office and be (s)elected by their powerful handlers, and the so-called Democrats become so afraid to really go after the status-quo?
I hate to say it but it's working folks!
To those of you who think that teachers are "overpaid", perhaps it's because the rest of the country's poor and middle classes are being trained in the craft of "Lowered expectations", so that they accept their lot passively. That's what unions were formed to combat originally, innit?!

+6 # RMDC 2012-09-15 04:10

Rahm is just part of the nationwide movement to destroy public schools because they are unionized and somewhat egalitarian. He's a neo-liberal who wants to hand everything over to the for-profit sector. He's a protoge of Bill Clinton and Israeli politics who gave us the banking crisis and Goldman Sachs.

So the people of Chicago need to organize a re-call election. Throw his ass out. Shut the city down. Why should anyone take this shit from a public servant. Rham should be cleaning the sewers of chicago down there with the rats.

Refresh comments list
RSS feed for comments to this post

THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community.