Chicago Teachers Put Hours Before Students

Who wouldn’t like a little extra money? Let’s face it, for a lot of us out here crafting blogs, a few extra dollars toward the grocery bill (or more) is one of the reasons we write publically.

But apparently the Chicago Public School Teachers’ Union members aren’t interested in a few more dollars, or a lot more dollars for that matter.

For those who don’t follow Chicago news, the Chicago Public Schools is an entity unto itself. It is a taxing body; has an executive director and a school board. It runs high schools and grammar schools in a wide range of areas, safety levels and manages everything from state of the art brand new buildings, to 100-year-old infrastructure that is failing and crumbling.

Often the safety, newest and least crowded schools happen to be in the middle and upper class areas of the city, while the poorest, most dangerous and most minority areas are home to the most crowded schools with the oldest buildings in the roughest neighborhoods. In areas such as Englewood and Little Village, predominately black and Latino communities, multiple shootings, mostly gang motivated, occur daily. Last year when Chicago consolidated two high schools into one building, accidently crossing gang territories, fights occurred daily until a 15-year-old was beaten to death walking home. Only when the death, captured on a cell phone’s video, was played did the city rally to step in to defuse violence.

And if it isn’t enough that some children have to literally risk their lives to make it to school, when they get there, they are often faced with inferior teaching tools in inadequate buildings.

But this summer things changed. A new schools’ superintendent was brought in. A new Chicago mayor was elected. And they have mandated some changes.

Anticipated, negotiated, but economically fundable raises for teachers were suspended this year. And then changes came.

The first issue on the table was the city’s demand teachers stop being kept on year after year simply because of tenure and that like most of us in private sector, teachers be evaluated annually by performance. Union management fought the change. Then new Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel targeted the actual hours of learning children receive in the classroom.

Currently Chicago has a five and a half hour school day, one of the shortest in the country. And Chicago Public school teachers, while many are hard workers who care a great deal about their students, are some of the highest paid in the county. And the Chicago Public School District spends less per pupils that almost any other district in Illinois. Whether those details are the same related or not, is debatable.

School funding has always been a hot button issue in Illinois. While Chicago schools struggle, downstaters fight increased taxes feeling they shouldn’t pay more for Chicago struggles.

Recently the district made the teachers’ union an offer. The district would provide a 2 percent raise in return for a 90 minute extension on the school day. The teachers’ union responded with a resound ding “Thanks but No Thanks.” According to the union president, the raise would require a 30 percent increase in workload while only working out to be about $3 per hour more.”

Three dollars an hour times seven hours time five days equals about $105 per week. In most middle-income households that is considered a great sum of money. For folks struggling to make ends meet even half of that could be an extensive improvement in the quality of living for a lot of people.

And perhaps 50 percent of the Chicago Public Schools students come from families where that sort of increase would be make a huge difference.

While CPS teachers frequently say that they are working toward the common good of their children. But their actions sure don’t speak to it. Perhaps if all involved put the children first, this situation would be more about them and less about everyone else.