I attended my first Chicago Board of Education meeting in decades Tuesday and my first Chicago Public Schools kindergarten graduation the next morning. The inadequacies of the former were underscored by the inspiration of the latter.
The board reaffirmed the existing teachers contract, guaranteeing a generous 4 percent raise negotiated by the weak-kneed duo of Mayor Richard M. Daley and Arne Duncan, then the superintendent of Chicago Public Schools and now the United States secretary of education. The board thus eliminated the chance of a strike in the fall as it also gave Mr. Duncan’s successor, Ron Huberman the power to perhaps lay off teachers and raise the number of students in classrooms.
“Door Open to 35 in a Class,” declared a Chicago Sun-Times headline, reflecting the prime concern of what essentially is a superficial debate.
In fact, the meeting itself might as well have been choreographed by the Goodman Theatre, given all the role-playing.
Mr. Huberman dispiritedly talked about the need for the funds owed by the state and union concessions, and he detailed a budget deficit that is at minimum $427 million. When it came to the union’s bête noire, the once comically-bloated public schools central office, he noted the cuts he’s made and cuts that are still to come.
Marilyn Stewart, the outgoing leader of the 32,000-member teachers union, bemoaned the imminent “educational malpractice” and of the need to “stand up against the mayor and say we can’t stuff 35 kids in a classroom,” she said.
Ms. Stewart and Karen Lewis, a chemistry teacher who just defeated her, were among 15 teachers, students and activists who were given an unjustifiably fleeting two minutes apiece to vent.
“This is the start of chaos,” said a college-bound Julian High School graduate. “Don’t cut teachers ‘cause you’re killing our students.”
There were other passionate declarations, some with erroneous accusations and naïve analyses. They included an assumption that the board is paid (it’s not); that renegotiating debt service could be a magic wand;, and that tax increment financing, a controversial Daley tool for development, could save all.
The board predictably voiced concern and chagrin and voted unanimously. As it did, a reality check was provided by Norman Bobins, former chairman of LaSalle Bank (now Bank of America) and by far the board’s longest-serving member (15 years).
He indicated that even if you bid farewell to 2,700 teachers — -that’s the figure bandied about in the hyperbolic discussion — -and raised class sizes to 35, you’d only have taken care of 35 percent of the budget shortfall.
A few other matters didn’t get acknowledged: productivity, efficiency and quality. Forget about even alluding to the outrageously short school year in Chicago, which is seven weeks shorter than New York City’s, and a week less than the rest of the state’s.
Class size is not the key factor in determining educational outcomes. Even stipulating the challenges of poor resources and poor students, teacher quality overrides nearly everything else. But it’s a system in which performance standards are largely nonexistent.
On Wednesday, my wife and I attended the finale of kindergarten at Ravenswood Elementary, a North Side school with a high poverty rate. As we watched our son and proud classmates sing John Lennon’s “Imagine,” we were grateful that he had experienced a young and stellar teacher after two years with another young star, his pre-K teacher.
The kindergarten teacher, Meghan Residori, showed parts of a nifty film about the past year and gave us all a copy of it, as well as a laminated folder that contained our child’s kindergarten memories in the form of his thoughts on various photos taken during the year, and a month-by-month compendium of his writing, evidence of heartening progress.
She and the pre-K teacher, Kira Hamann, are probably as good as you’ll find in any public or private school. Each has a commitment to the students and an ability to build a cohesive community. But, in seniority-driven layoffs, they might be goners.
It’s absurd. A sane system would include real standards. It would give flexibility to and demand accountability of principals. It would replace clearly mediocre teachers with clones of these two women.
Imagine.
Jimmy–call. 773-575-2630
So much bad information out there.
Before your piece, I hadn’t read that the layoffs will make up for only about 1/3rd of the shortfall.
As it all plays out, do you expect CTU will give back the 4% raise and concede on veteran teacher pension payouts?
Do you think RYH has it right — $275 million annually — in CPS funds diverted to TIFs?
Do you know why the amount of the budget shortfall goes from $900 mln to $600 mln to at least $457 mln? Fear tactics?
The state owes CPS $400 mln for this year and next, I’ve heard, but can’t pay. Is this a real number and true fact?
I am very glad to have found this site and your writing again.
As a retired CPS teacher who taught many years and worked with CPS teachers many years I applaud this article. The business model that for almost 20 years has influencd education as if we made products, little boxes, instead of molded the lives of human beings. It ignores layered perspectives, research, and theories on how children learn, how they learn to read, how social venues influence learning, the role of talk, the role of environment, brain studies, etc. which leads to each teacher addressing each child’s learning as an individual while addressing a whole class. Demands for higher test scores that act as if all children can perform above level, attendance can be 100 percent for children and teachers, and corporations know education is based in plain bad thinking. The beauty of Ravenswood School and many schools across Chicago, where the children of writers don’t go, is that teachers approach all their students with respect and caring to help move then level by level. Thank you for a great article. Let’s hope the powers listen.
Mr. Warren,
I am grateful that you wrote this article in praise of some excellent teachers in the CPS system.
However, I question your “7 weeks ” comment about NYC – where does that information come from ? I checked their website , and their school year is 181 days, only 11 days longer than CPS students attend. They start right after Labor Day and end on June 28 , with 3 weeks off during the year and about the same 10 holidays as CPS. If that website is wrong, I apologize, but I can’t find any information of NYC having a 205-day school year, which would indeed be 7 weeks longer that CPS ( 35 school days more ) .
Again, thanks for the positive comments on CPS teachers. But could you check your facts on the NYC calendar ? I’d really like to know.