On January 28, 2012 an auditorium at Truman College in Chicago, Illinois packed with parents, students, and concerned residents chant “no more charters” at Chicago Public Schools (CPS) bureaucrats and consultants. The meeting was intended to be a discussion on school closings in Chicago and CPS claimed it wanted input from the community. The community rose up and said no to all school closings.

Keeping reading at Daily Kos http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/30/1183309/-Parents-and-Students-to-Chicago-School-Fat-Cats-No-More-Charters-VIDEO

Rahm Emanuel, Give the Community Voice in the City Budget!

Dear Mayor Emanuel,

We are writing to express growing concern among Chicagoans about recent changes to the City budget process that, taken together, represent a complete break with past precedent and serve to virtually eliminate public participation in the process. The City of Chicago has a long history of engaging with communities as part of the budgeting process; however, your refusal to release any specific information regarding the budget, potential cuts and to hold town hall meetings prior to your October 10 city budget address are a troubling development, and demonstrate your administration’s lack of transparency with respect to our communities.

At a time when Chicago is experiencing record unemployment, record foreclosures, record poverty, and continuing school closures, the City must ensure that the budget does not further burden Chicago’s working families. Budgets are moral documents – they lay out a city’s values and priorities. Our members have credible solutions to offer – progressive revenue solutions that need to be heard. It is negligent to leave those who are most impacted by spending cuts—our neighborhoods and communities—out of the budget process. Community groups and concerned citizens should be given ample time to review the proposed budget and to engage with their Aldermen and your office prior to the city budget meeting as part of the democratic process. Further, we are deeply concerned about your administration’s lack of transparency with respect to our City’s budget process.

As a recent article in the Chicago Tribune noted, you have indicated that you will not increase taxes, fines and fees, and will include a number of unspecified cuts to essential programs and services, in next year’s budget. It is highly unusual that at this point in the process—less than two weeks before the October 10 budget meeting—we do not have a preliminary budget to review, especially considering the impending cuts that may impact the programs and services which Chicago’s most vulnerable depend on.

As members and leaders of Chicago community, labor and faith organizations, we the undersigned are joining together to request that the City honor past precedent and provide for transparency and community participation in the budget process. We demand that you release a proposed budget immediately and schedule public town hall meetings to ensure that our communities are included in all steps of this process.

Signed,

Concerned Chicago Residents

President Karen Lewis Puts the Chicago Tribune on Notice

Dear Editor,

The Tribune’s editorial of August 23 was full of misleading and false statements. Its general premise is that the way to improve teaching and learning is to identify the best teachers and fire the rest. In the real world, teachers become great through experience, self-reflection, and collaboration. Researchers at University of Virginia found that students taught by seasoned grade level teachers for 4 years in a row scored approximately one grade level more than students taught by beginning teachers. University of Pittsburgh researchers found that teachers working collaboratively raised student math scores by 6 percent. Great teachers employ practices to teach the whole child, not just to teach to the test. Yet, if teachers’ jobs depend on their students’ test scores, they are more likely to do just that.

The idea that education will improve if we rank and sort teachers according to their students’ test scores, is wrong for many reasons. Ranking tells us nothing about quality. The last place runner in an Olympic event is not a slow runner. The standardized tests used to judge “teacher quality” are invalid for this purpose. For example, an Op Ed piece in the Tribune Friday described a teacher who changed the author’s life. There is no standardized test to measure compassion or the ability of a teacher to instill confidence in students.

The Tribune should not celebrate the fact that so many New York teachers were denied tenure. There is already a revolving door of young teachers who leave the profession because they are unsupported and expected to work long hours for low pay. In Chicago, over half of new teachers leave their schools within five years. This instability in the education profession is harmful to students, particularly those without other sources stability. Research done in New York City schools found a negative and significant effect of teacher turnover on student achievement.

Tenure is not, as the Tribune says, an “inviolable job guarantee”. Teachers receive tenure after four years only if school administrators have found them to be a good fit for the profession. Many leave before achieving tenure. In a recent period, 32 percent of teachers left CPS before attaining tenure. Before celebrating, the Tribune should have the decency to see if their prediction is correct—that denying tenure to so many will improve student performance.

Socio-economic status is the largest predictor—up to 75 percent— of student success. All the talk of reforming teaching ignores that fact. Finland has the top schools in the world because they have chosen to value equity. In Chicago, over 100 schools needing the most support have been closed and replaced with low-performing charters that make money for their owners but do nothing to improve instructional outcomes. Recent state tests show that only one group of charters beat the CPS district-wide average passing rate.

Finally, the editorial says that CTU wants to water down standards. This couldn’t be further from the truth. CTU wants evaluations to be fair, to be done in a way that helps teachers grow, and to be based on proven measures, not just another experiment on low income students! Follow the research-based practices proposed in CTU’s “Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve,” and then there will be progress in Illinois.

Sincerely,

Karen GJ Lewis

President, Chicago Teachers Union

Watch Stand for Children admit to “making up” the talking point about length of school day. Watch Tea Partiers working in concert with Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

CNN.com My View: Chicago school day: A teacher responds

My View: Chicago school day: A teacher responds

Courtesy Madonna Ramp By Xian Barrett, Special to CNN

This article on the Chicago school day originally appeared on CNN.com. Click here for the original link.

Editor’s note: Xian Barrett teaches law and Chicago history at Gage Park High School in Chicago, Illinois. In 2009, he was selected one of ten Classroom Teaching Ambassador Fellows by the U.S. Department of Education. This article is in response to comments on a previous story about Chicago teacher work days.

Educators will often observe with some frustration that our profession is one of the few that people from all walks of life feel comfortable commenting on and often criticizing. Precious few know the intimate details of what our days are like. While the negative feedback can often be disheartening, I think we must regard the public’s interest in our work as a great opportunity—it shows that people care deeply about the calling to which we have devoted our lives.

If some people’s perceptions of what we do with our workdays does not match up with the reality, we have an obligation to inform them of that reality. This need has been particularly noticeable in the public discourse on the length of our school day.

Much has been made of the shortness of our school day, especially here in Chicago. The oft-cited 296 minutes is the amount of time Chicago elementary school teachers are in front of students. As a high school teacher, my contract requires that I teach five 45-minute periods each day. On Fridays, each class is shortened by 4 minutes to allow for a 30-minute homeroom period. Doing the math, that’s 225 minutes each day, with 235 minutes on Fridays.

I can understand how that sounds like a short day.

However, to count a teacher’s working minutes by looking at the time we are directly teaching students is like only counting the minutes that a dentist has the drill in your mouth.

Just as you want to your dentist to prepare before operating on your teeth, parents should want educators to prepare before we teach your child. We have many duties beyond the time we are directly instructing students.

How much time do I really spend each day?

Most Chicago teachers give our all in very challenging conditions. A recentGates study suggests that the average teacher works 53 hours per week, whileUniversity of Illinois researchers found that Chicago teachers work approximately 58 hours per week. Several years ago, I counted my own hours and found that I was consistently working between 70-90 hours each week. Through challenging conditions, we impact hundreds of students positively every day; sometimes in small ways, sometimes in earth shattering, life-changing ways.

I teach 9^th grade world studies. In a given day, between classes, organizational activities, hallway interaction, phone calls and social media interaction, I will engage between 200-250 students, former students and parents. At my current school, I report to work at 7:22 a.m. and can clock out at 2:15 p.m. with a 45 minute lunch period. This compares similarly with the lengths of school days in the higher performing suburban districts. In Chicago, public high school days that are the “shortest in the country” exist only in the minds of those attempting to impose a longer school day.

In addition to teaching five classes, one 45-minute period at school is reserved for preparation; we get four of these each week. There is little time to prepare anything as students are there as well, catching up on work or participating in our “restorative justice program,” where students help each other design constructive programs to restore damage they caused by breaking rules. This program saves us time in the long run; a reduction in student misconducts has reduced missed time dealing with discipline and has lowered the number of students failing for disciplinary reasons.

Another period is dedicated to our mandated common planning time. We review the district’s latest initiatives or analyze our student achievement data. The students spend nearly four weeks of class time taking standardized tests

The last period of the day is spent with my cooperative special education teacher as we plan for the next week. We trade advice on how to support some of the students struggling a bit in each other’s classes.

When the end of the school day comes, I head down the four flights of stairs to the basement where I meet our Youth Summit organization members. Our meetings last until 3:30 and we often will schedule collaborations with other student groups or trips in the late afternoon. We also travel and perform service-learning projects most Saturdays during the school year.

On any given day, I will spend two hours at home creating my own lesson plans or adjust existing materials to the specific needs of my students. I will also sit down to grade papers and return calls and messages. Many of my texts, emails, Facebook, Twitter and phone messages are from current students, usually regarding homework and several are from former students needing a letter of recommendation or support on some life emergency.

The other day, I finally called back my mother who’s been calling me for days. She says, “You sound tired, I’m going to let you go.” I set my alarm for 4:30 a.m., and glanced at my cell phone. It was 1:14 a.m. I fell asleep on the couch.

Last month, our hundreds of elected union representatives voted unanimously to reject a recommendation of an 18.2% pay raise in compensation for an extended school day. We want improvement in our schools, and we would like to be compensated fairly for our work. There are just far more effective ways to support our students’ learning.

Both the Chicago Teachers Union and the VIVA (Voices, Ideas, Vision, Action) teacher group I work with have created reports on how to better use time in our day to maximize student learning. (You can click on the links on their names to see those plans.)

Personally, I simply wonder where the extra time would fit in. I don’t want less time with my students, I want more self-directed time where I can give my students what they need rather than give them more district proscribed testing and test preparation.

I am happy to work on solutions—one year I did a policy writing fellowship with the U.S. Department of Education while teaching five classes—but too often community, student, parent and teacher-generated solutions are ignored. I don’t think this is unique to Chicago.

My hope is that we can get beyond the common teacher bashing narrative to acknowledge that we share a great deal: we all want what’s best for the children of America; I and those in my profession just express that desire through our direct work while others express it through their desire for school improvement. If we can respectfully dialogue and build solutions, we can reach the best possible future not only for our students but also for our nation at large.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Xian Barrett.

Diane Ravitch: Thanks to Teachers in Chicago for Saving Me

This reader writes about the teachers who changed his life:

I had four CPS public school teachers to thank for recognizing and nurturing my strengths in English, writing and creativity, in 7th through 10th grades: Miss Fox, Mrs. Langdon, Miss Schwartz and Mrs. Gordon.

Until middle school, I did not think I had any academic strengths. In part, this was because, in 4th grade, when my mom remarried, I gained a step-father who frequently referred to me as “dumb”. He often said that, in his estimation, I was just too stupid to be able to excel at school. He turned out to be an example of how wrong non-educators can be about students and learning.

Thanks to these great CPS teachers, I developed confidence in my abilities, was inspired to broaden my interests, and I graduated with straight A’s from high school and summa cum laude from college. I will be forever indebted to them for rekindling my love of learning, because in spite of my achievements, my step-father never did change his views about my capabilities and always found a way to downplay my academic success. Thank goodness I learned at an opportune time in my development that his opinion didn’t matter as much as the professional judgments of those who are skilled in learning and teaching.

Jim Cavallero studies convention resolutions on his e-reader.

CTU’s Carol Caref breaks down what’s going on in Chicago for the Illinois Delegation at the AFT Convention.

CTU member Joni Jones “This is the strongest @CTULocal1 has been in years and we sent the mayor a message” #aftconv12

President Lewis receives a standing ovation. #aftconv