Another teacher strike?

In fall of 2012 the highly anticipated (based on who you ask) Chicago Teachers Strike ensued. I was a parent that was impacted as a mother of a first grader, matter of fact my kids and I went to the picket lines with my daughter's teachers. My connection to the strike was more than being impacted as a Chicago Public Schools parent, but as an organizer that has worked on education issues and working in solidarity with Chicago Teachers Union leadership for years. We have worked together around the pressing issues that have been impacting Chicago Public Schools, and the issues that impact my own community where public education institutions are critical to community development.  With this, the contract negotiations were always more than just about the longer school day debate and fair pay (please don't hate that teachers are making living wages and most of us don't have a union to support us to receive a fair living wage), but was about the larger issues facing Chicago Public Schools students and parents, their contract included classroom improvement demands like:

• Smaller class sizes.

• More playgrounds, recess time and physical education classes.

• More art, dance, theater, music and foreign language instruction.

• More funding for libraries.

• Healthier school lunches.

• An end to the "apartheid-like" Chicago Public School system today and to "discipline policies with a disproportionate harm on students of color."

• Guarantee pre-K and full-day kindergarten for all students.

• Higher teacher salaries and more teacher "autonomy."

• Better bilingual and special needs programs.

• Higher-quality school facilities.

Unfortunately contract negotiations did not win many of these classroom changes, so as we move forward into new contract negotiations it is still critical that the new demands, which revisit many of the 2012  classroom demands, are again on the table and pushed through. Despite that budget issues are even more pervasive. We do know (see previous blog) that the finances of the district are not always what they seem, and while the district has made cuts that have been impacted certain communities in the name of austerity, the district has moved forward with problematic spending, even recent scandals have shown this to be true. It has been proven that financial dooms day has been used as a distraction, so I press on in the name of winning classroom changes for my community, my children, and schools across the city. Optimal learning conditions or teacher working conditions are important and are necessary for closing the achievement gaps and anchoring positive spaces of learning throughout our city such as;  restorative justice coordinators in each school, decrease nurse ratio per student, smaller class size through fees for large class size.

But the question is how do we create the environment for these important issues to be negotiated and be exempt from the question of "who's going to pay". What the contract negotiations begin to start is a dialogue around not only the potential of a teachers strike,  the budget crisis, continued privatization, and the mass closures of 2013, but a dialogue that should be happening around public schools and the financial reforms that must take place in order to fulfill many of these classroom demands that CTU is negotiating around such as: 

Establish lower and compulsory class size limits in all schools.

Ensure that every school has: the necessary clinicians and a school counselor and nurse; a truant officer, restorative justice coordinator, librarian and playground instructors; and art, music, physical education and other teachers to create robust and effective educational programs.

Restore adequate preparation time and enforce paperwork limits for teachers.

Dedicate resources previously committed to Teach for America to the Grow Your Own Program instead to develop a more diverse and local teaching force directly from CPS student graduates.

Engage in legal action against big banks to retrieve upwards of $1 billion for our classrooms; end contracts with these same financial institutions that refuse to renegotiate excessive fees and penalties.

Return diverted revenues from the tax increment financing (TIF) program to the schools.

Expanded pre-kindergarten (Pre-K) for parents at 300% of the Federal Poverty Level.

Establish 50 sustainable community schools and strive for policies to achieve increasing integration of students and increased access to curriculum which reflects the experiences and identities of our students.

The upcoming publicity aka "the spin" will be focused on the challenging financial conditions of the district, despite the oversimplification around "lack of funds" and "greedy teachers",  it is important we maintain these critical pieces of classroom and school improvements and the ways to fund them be pushed forward in the new contract negotiations. The CTU has brought forward a number of new revenue mechanisms that are PAINLESS, and worth making investments in Chicago's children education.

This is what is important for both sides, improving the learning conditions for our children.

To become involved in learning more about the contract negotiations, and learn how to advocate for these changes there are forums happening across the city. Blocks Together will sponsor a forum on Wednesday, June, 10, 2015 from 6-8pm at the Kelly Hall YMCA, 824 N. Hamlin. Representatives from the CTU bargaining team will be there, CPS has declined coming to the event to discuss the negotiations.