Chicago Teachers Union contract demands are totally divorced from reality – Wirepoints
May 8, 2024
36 Comments
Details emerging about Chicago Teachers Union’s upcoming contract show just how divorced its demands, both extreme and expensive, are from the reality at Chicago schools. It’s not just about massive salary increases, but also about money for migrant students, climate initiatives, abortions and gender-affirming care. About blocking parental notification. Count on CTU’s demands to veer further from reality until the public finally says no.
Weekly crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department: Report through 5/4/2024.
Gov. JB Pritzker calls it “ethics” reform.
It’s rare to see city leaders in Chicago take an open, unabashed stance on the collapse of literacy. To complain is deemed as too political, too racist or too anti-public schools. So it’s refreshing to see Willie Wilson, a successful businessman and leader of the black community, call for a literacy initiative “with the goal of getting 100% of Black students reading at grade level.”
Imagine if hospitals had patient outcomes at that relative failure rate! Only a small percentage of patients surviving at the standard of care expected norm! Well we in Illinois might find out if we keep pandering to teachers at the expense of taxpaying vital workers like nurses. I think students taught by nurses, who are trained critical thinkers, would be better off than taught by current batch of whatever is generating current client outcomes and whining that they need more money. Illinois nurses should all immediately quit and become teachers. Illinois teachers make far more per hour than Illinois nurses,… Read more »
Public schooling was supposed to be the great equalizer. Allowing those with little means to get a good education and to thrive in society. The argument for individual assistance should not be every child every day, but on exceptions when students need additional help. There are millions of public taught people who have succeeded in life, in fact a majority. They also had 6-8 classes a day and they had parents busy with work. Why are the results for these public schools now so low? We have more money then ever being pushed into these schools and yet the results… Read more »
Senator Stadelman argues we need better compensation for teachers so they can give students the attention they need.
What are they, the teachers, doing now if they are not attending to the needs of the students? 9 month a year job with pretty much a 6 hour day of classroom time so more money with less responsibility is the solution. Brilliant!
Yes, but each high school teacher might well see 125 or more students each day. The mathematics of doing that in the usual 5 classes with the typical 45-minutes-on-rask expectation amounts to 225 minutes of required contact time each day. Now, probably on average at least half of that in most cases is lecture time. Now, at most that leaves less than a minute of classrrom time to devote to “individual help.” Are you starting to get the mathematical problem here? For most high schoool teachers you are asking for something that has no realistic possibilty in a meaninful sense.… Read more »
The day is broken up into 8 periods, 5 class, one lunch and 2 prep/help periods. 95% of the teachers are nowhere to be seen for the prep/help periods. Some are lucky to schedule those 2 periods at the end of the day and then adios, gone. Some have the first 2 periods and well the start time for them is about 10am. I saw this behavior for years as I was part of the support staff. Prep/help time was not used or rarely used for it’s intended purposes. It was more like 2 free 50 minutes periods for extended… Read more »
The typical work 8-period workday for high school teachers is 5 class teaching periods: 1 non-teaching period for general duties as assigned by administration: 1 period for some combination of class preparation, grading, and future planning of such things as curriculum changes and creation of classroom materials; and 1 period for lunch or other personal matters—all usually followed by another variable time to conclude the contracted work day and to be used on site as one chooses. Some teachers may have an uninspiring job or enough years of experience to use that last period in ways that you may well… Read more »
So the commoner factory worker is a much less important individual than the teacher who is in your opinion a superior individual. Inflated ego ever give you a headache?
I didn’t use that term “important” at all. That’s on you. As far as I’m concerned we all have a role to play, and its not my nature at all to rank people. That’s a word from your own mind, perhaps an issue of yours psychologically. You may think you speak with incite without knowing me, but you have no formal training to do so, I’d bet. You are simply “wingin’ it.” Any person who does his life’s work well and feels good about doing so shows a person of value as far as I’m concerned. The rest merely engage… Read more »
Support staff work and teacher work are ENTIRELY different in skill-set requirements at the very least. Who is either one to judge the other until “walking in their shoes.” To the extent that some teachers have schedules that allow them to come late or leave earlier I’d bet that’s not permissable in their contract. If I am right, then anyone doing so should be subject to discipline. Whether they are not disciplined and allowed to “skate” by late arrivals or leaving the work site with great repetition should not be up to supervisary discretion.
And I would like to thank the two CTU commentators for their enlightenment on the topic.
I’ll suppose you are slamming me. I don’t work for the CPS system and never have. As I said moments ago in aother reply to you “that’s on you.” Putting your thoughts out regarding a person you don’t know at all may say more about you than it does about that person. Ever considered that? Probably not. Go slam someone you actually know.
Settle down teach, go take a bite out of that Golden Apple
Oops, wrong spelling there on my reply of a minute or two ago. Make “incite” read as “insight,” the correct spelling.
Here is an article from WREX 13 Investigates. Some teachers blame “social promotion” as a reason why kids are passed on despite the inability to barely read or write but administration says that is not the case. Single parent household to blame? TV as the babysitter at home? Too much emphasis on sports in school and not learning the basics? Many reasons with difficult solutions.
https://www.wrex.com/news/13-investigates/13-investigates-rps-205-teachers-say-failing-students-still-get-moved-on-to-next-grade/article_8b8b9850-7042-52d4-8301-530f0b8293c2.html