CTU is Going on Strike

[StrangeSox]

I did find this on CTU's daily strike flyer:

 

Corporate reform groups such as Advance Illinois and Stand for Children claim teachers are the main factor in student academic achievement. Recent research shows otherwise: as much as 90% of variation in student growth is explained by factors outside the control of teachers.

 

Not sure about the strategy of telling the public how little you matter will work out...

[StrangeSox]

You can look at page 33 of CTU's plan for better schools to see their answers on funding.

 

You can disagree with them policy-wise on raising or shifting taxes in Chicago or on city and state resource allocation, but you can't pretend that the school budget is some fixed, impossible-to-change number. If we want to prioritize education over some other program or service, we can. There is not necessarily a direct trade-off required between classroom and school resources and teachers' wages.

[Y2HH]

You can look at page 33 of CTU's plan for better schools to see their answers on funding.

 

You can disagree with them policy-wise on raising or shifting taxes in Chicago or on city and state resource allocation, but you can't pretend that the school budget is some fixed, impossible-to-change number. If we want to prioritize education over some other program or service, we can. There is not necessarily a direct trade-off required between classroom and school resources and teachers' wages.

 

With all the tax, service fee and various increases in this city/state over the past few years, you'd think they'd have made a dent in their budgetary holes...but they haven't. Taxes in Chicago are insane. Name the service, taxes/fees have gone up on it drastically over the last few years, including property taxes...yet nothing has changed.

 

So I'm pretty f***ing sick and tired of people bringing up further tax increases.

 

How about you f***ing pay them since you want them so bad.

[Soxbadger]

Part of what they are fighting for is more equitable distribution of resources among CPS schools, so "more money" is a realistic option for many of the struggling schools. I believe they could also shift money from other parts of Chicago's budget or even from other parts of the CPS budget (like, say, recent administrator raises). There is nothing that says they only have exactly $x dollars and that this amount is completely inflexible.

 

edit: I'm looking to see if I can find something about proposed budget or funding from CTU. The above is my supposition.

 

 

If you started college with 1.5 years worth of credit, you definitely benefited. Hell, the fact that you were able to go to college shows that you benefited from better schools.

 

Okay sure, take away the administrator raises, lets be generous and say that is $200k a year. Now what. The problem is that each of these schools, teachers are out for themselves. Do you think that Whitney Young wants to give up money to another school?

 

 

I did find this on CTU's daily strike flyer:

 

 

 

Not sure about the strategy of telling the public how little you matter will work out...

 

Its a terrible strategy, but thats what CTU is doing right now. Terrible strategy after terrible strategy.

 

[StrangeSox]

With all the tax, service fee and various increases in this city/state over the past few years, you'd think they'd have made a dent in their budgetary holes...but they haven't. Taxes in Chicago are insane. Name the service, taxes/fees have gone up on it drastically over the last few years, including property taxes...yet nothing has changed.

 

So I'm pretty f***ing sick and tired of people bringing up further tax increases.

 

How about you f***ing pay them since you want them so bad.

 

They propose shifting state and local budget priorities, return of TIF money (?) to local areas and a more progressive state tax scheme for the top 5%.

 

Those who agree that Chicago’s children deserve the schools described above may wonder how we can afford

them. A better question might be: how can we afford not to have these schools? Where else is public money

being spent? We must invest in our children. The people of the city of Chicago have contributed nearly

$6 billion towards this year’s Pentagon budget. If less than 5% of that $6 billion were spent on Chicago

schools instead, every student would have access to a well-rounded curriculum and full-day kindergarten.

 

In 2007, Illinois spent over $1 billion on prisons; in 2010, it cut $32 million from pre-kindergarten

programs.94 The priorities here are clearly misplaced! As the highly-regarded Perry Pre-School research

shows, participation in pre-kindergarten dramatically reduces participation in juvenile and adult crime.95

Fully funding war and prisons in lieu of education is utterly irrational to parents, communities and the

larger public who care about a future for our children. What follows is a list of suggestions for changing the

allocation of resources to benefit children.

 

Fair Schoo l Fundi ng

Illinois is among the bottom three states when it comes to fairness in funding for education.

Illinois school funding — collected largely through local property taxes — is regressive, with communities

suffering concentrated poverty receiving less in school funding. Despite having the fifth largest state

economy in the U.S., Illinois ranks 33rd in the country in the percent of state Gross Domestic Product

(GDP) spent on public education.96 This regressive school funding system furthers racial disparities.

In Illinois, African American and Latino students receive little more than 90% of the per pupil

expenditure that white students receive, 93 cents and 91 cents for every dollar, respectively.97

Progressive school funding structures such as those found in New Jersey lessen these inequities.

In New Jersey, adequate funding for high-poverty districts has been a prolonged judicial and legislative

battle. The Abbott decisions are a series of court rulings since the 1980s which made funding in high

poverty districts nearly equivalent to the funding in their high-income suburban schools.98 The most

disadvantaged communities in Chicago and Illinois ought to receive as much educational funding as the

wealthiest; any less should be unconstitutional.

 

Ret urn TIF Money To Support Our Chi ldre n

Tax schemes like Tax Increment Financing (TIF) are supposed to boost private investment in blighted

neighborhoods and produce jobs. The reality is that the majority of TIF funds in Chicago go to our

downtown neighborhoods. One just went to a pizza restaurant! TIFs are deemed successful by developers

and investors because they’ve increased private investment (sometimes in wealthy neighborhoods) and

produced profits for businesses and real estate, all while helping create bathrooms for financial giants,

like Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and relocating corporations from one place to another, like

United Airlines. Much like the income gains of the top 1% in the past decades, there is no ‘trickle-down’

effect of TIFs when they are controlled by highly profitable corporations.

 

Taking public tax-money back from TIFs and into the service of school children must be a top priority.

At the end of 2011, there was $831 million in unallocated TIF money. The Responsible Budget Ordinance,

introduced October 12th to the City Council by The Grassroots Collaborative and Alderman Scott Waguespack,

proposes to return to the taxing bodies 50% of all unallocated funds in TIFs with more than $5 million

in unallocated funds. This can bring up to $159 million in revenue for schools.99 Put TIF money to use for

our children through schools, libraries, parks, and social services.

 

End Corporate Subsidies and Loopho les

Corporations do not pay their fair share of taxes. They use loopholes and their multinational reach to

dramatically reduce their effective federal tax rates from the nominal 35% rate. General Electric paid no

income tax in 2011, and Google had a 2.4% tax rate.100 Taxes paid by the drug industry are only 5.6% of its

profits.101 Abbott Laboratories has received millions in tax breaks from Illinois yet demands that workers

sacrifice their contractual pension benefits. Corporations profit from goods and services they sell to the

public and many of their workers were educated at the public’s expense. It is only right that a portion of

their profits be returned in the form of taxes, to be used to benefit the public good.

 

Progressive Taxation

Working families need to be supported. Median wages have remained stagnant for decades, and working

families have struggled while the country’s economic gains have been siphoned off by the top 1% of the

population. One hundred percent of the past decade’s growth in incomes was captured by those in the top

10%.102 The top 1% have tripled their take of national income since the ‘70s, now taking home one out

of every four dollars earned nationally.103 The very wealthy are now not only in control of the greatest

proportion of wealth in our nation’s history but are also facing record low tax rates. The top marginal income

tax rate was above 90% in the 1950s, it is now at just 35%.104

 

The total tax burden falls disproportionately on the working-class. This is especially true in the state of Illinois

which has one of the most regressive tax structures in the nation.105

 

In Illinois, while the poor and working-class pay an effective tax rate of more than 10%, the top 5% are

systematically advantaged by the tax code, paying a mere 4.1% to 6.5% effective tax rate.106 If the tax rates

for the top 5% wage-earners in Chicago were equalized, at least another $160 million in revenue would be made

available for children’s education.107, 108

 

The wealthiest Americans also control most of the financial markets, with the top 1% owning more than half

of all stocks, bonds and mutual funds and the top 10% owning more than 80%.109 A Financial Transaction

Tax takes either a small portion of the purchase price of a stock as a tax or implements a flat fee on each

transaction. This tax not only brings in revenue from Wall Street but can also improve the long-term allocation

of capital by reducing the volume of purely speculative trading.110 Instituting a Financial Transaction Tax

of just six-cents per transaction can generate as much as $110 million a year for CPS.111

 

Illinois should also implement a progressive capital gains tax to target the high-earners. More than 80%

of the annual profits gained from investment returns go to taxpayers earning over $200,000 in aggregate

annual income.112 Research shows that dividends and capital gains are the main contributors to increased

income inequality. While dividends and capital gains represent less than 1% of the annual income of the

bottom 80%, they represent 30% of the top 5%, and over 50% of the richest 0.1% of Americans.113 The

federal capital gains tax is now only 15%, down from a high of 39% in 1978.114 If Illinois taxed capital

gains for the top 5%, as much as $367 million can be generated for Chicago Public Schools.115, 116

By implementing these taxes on the wealthy, we can reign in reckless speculation, encourage longer-term

productive investment, and decrease income inequality while bringing needed revenue to services for

children and working families.

[Soxbadger]

You can look at page 33 of CTU's plan for better schools to see their answers on funding.

 

You can disagree with them policy-wise on raising or shifting taxes in Chicago or on city and state resource allocation, but you can't pretend that the school budget is some fixed, impossible-to-change number. If we want to prioritize education over some other program or service, we can. There is not necessarily a direct trade-off required between classroom and school resources and teachers' wages.

 

Okay great.

 

I agree that we should spend less money on prisons, how about we decriminalize drugs. I think you should then take the tax money made on selling drugs legally and give it to schools.

 

Oh wait, you mean that requires a vote and striking wont fix that?

 

TIF money, well that is a double edged sword. What happens if you lose Boeing, CME, etc? Less money for schools. You have to give a little to get a little. Before I just start taking away TIF money, Id need an accounting to see how much money was put back into the Chicago tax system over the time period the business stays.

 

End corporate loopholes, great, I agree.

 

Progressive taxation, great, I agree.

 

So what part of that does Chicago have control over?

 

Because when I read it, it said "ILLINOIS" should implement. Do you think that the people in Southern Illinois are going to vote for more money for CPS, when CPS strikes and has higher raises than the teachers in their district?

 

Once again, lets call a spade a spade here. They are going after Rahm. Rahm is not in charge of Illinois, Chicago does not have an income tax, Chicago can not implement what they want.

 

If they want Illinois to change, I suggest they start addressing Illinois, instead of Chicago. Because they are different entities.

Edited September 12, 2012 by Soxbadger

[StrangeSox]

Okay sure, take away the administrator raises, lets be generous and say that is $200k a year. Now what. The problem is that each of these schools, teachers are out for themselves. Do you think that Whitney Young wants to give up money to another school?

 

The CTU proposes a variety of ways to increase educational funding. You may not agree, but they are there. The school budget isn't a zero-sum game. The city and state budgets are, but that's the point: education should receive a higher priority.

 

Its a terrible strategy, but thats what CTU is doing right now. Terrible strategy after terrible strategy.

 

I don't think they thought that line all the way through.

[Soxbadger]

The CTU proposes a variety of ways to increase educational funding. You may not agree, but they are there. The school budget isn't a zero-sum game. The city and state budgets are, but that's the point: education should receive a higher priority.

 

 

/points up

 

Who here is saying education shouldnt receive a higher priority?

 

The question that no one wants to answer, how does striking against CPS, make voters in Illinois change their mind about resource distribution?

[StrangeSox]

Okay great.

[snip]

 

All great points, but a strike action (much like a protest) can bring broader issues into focus.

 

If this isn't the right time to strike, when would be? Should they work under the previous contract for another year, with none of their issues and concerns addressed? Could they even do that, given all of the changes?

[NorthSideSox72]

They propose shifting state and local budget priorities, return of TIF money (?) to local areas and a more progressive state tax scheme for the top 5%.

They want to tax financial transactions, at the state level? To fund schools? Sorry but that makes no sense. First, that needs to be done at the national level, if at all, or else you are just sending the business to other states, especially in the electronic trading age. Second, what does this even have to do with schools? Third, if you want to tax financial transactions, there is a real good reason to - to fund the oversight agencies that are overwhelmed and underresourced. Not to fund some unrelated thing.

 

Ditto on the cap gains adjustments - doing it by state is business-stupid as well.

 

[StrangeSox]

/points up

 

Who here is saying education shouldnt receive a higher priority?

 

Education receives the priority it receives right now. CTU believes it should receive more of a priority than it does.

 

The question that no one wants to answer, how does striking against CPS, make voters in Illinois change their mind about resource distribution?

 

Raises the issues up for discussion? I don't claim to know the CTU's long-term strategy, but I don't know what choice they really have besides signing the offered contract that they strongly disagreed with or striking.

 

[Soxbadger]

All great points, but a strike action (much like a protest) can bring broader issues into focus.

 

If this isn't the right time to strike, when would be? Should they work under the previous contract for another year, with none of their issues and concerns addressed? Could they even do that, given all of the changes?

 

How has this strike brought broader focus?

 

I havent heard Karen Lewis one time say: "The real problem here is the state budget not Chicago. And its not Rahms fault that the state of Illinois isnt properly funding the school system. I feel bad for Rahm not getting the right funding."

 

 

[StrangeSox]

How has this strike brought broader focus?

 

I havent heard Karen Lewis one time say: "The real problem here is the state budget not Chicago. And its not Rahms fault that the state of Illinois isnt properly funding the school system. I feel bad for Rahm not getting the right funding."

 

The CTU seems pretty crappy at messaging.

[Y2HH]

I don't care where they find the money, but they need to stop finding it in the form of tax increases.

 

IL/Chicago has the highest effective taxes in the nation now...and after the recent tax hikes in both areas, in almost everything they could find to tax, my local taxes have more than DOUBLED over the course of a year. Easy to say when you aren't the ones paying it...but I am. My income tax DOUBLED. What I pay on my house DOUBLED. We aren't talking a few bucks here...but thousands per year. With the highest taxes in the nation, they should be able to fix these issues without further taxation, it's gotten out of hand.

 

My family now has about 5,000 LESS because of these recent increases...and what have they fixed?

 

Not a single f***ing thing.

 

So to anyone who suggests even more taxes/fees...f*** you right in the face.

[Soxbadger]

Raises the issues up for discussion? I don't claim to know the CTU's long-term strategy, but I don't know what choice they really have besides signing the offered contract that they strongly disagreed with or striking.

 

Well if I was the head of the union here is what I would do if the real issue is about Illinois not funding education properly.

 

I would say that there is a major problem in Illinois, NOT JUST CHICAGO. I would say that I am going to talk with all the teacher unions in Illinois about a way to make a better education for ALL ILLINOIS. I would say that we are going to keep working during the fall semester. We are then going to present a plan to the people of Illinois and we want it to be voted on in the next election.

 

IF the people reject our plan, then we will have no other option but to strike.

 

That is how you ask the people of Illinois for more money.

[StrangeSox]

Should point out again, as ptact has said several times now, the main issues aren't even budgetary. However, thanks to the SB 7 law passed earlier this year, it's illegal for CTU to strike for non-economic reasons, so they have to play that aspect up.

 

The main issues of concern are teacher evaluations and the re-hiring of laid-off teachers.

[Balta1701]

I don't care where they find the money, but they need to stop finding it in the form of tax increases.

 

IL/Chicago has the highest effective taxes in the nation now...and after the recent tax hikes in both areas, in almost everything they could find to tax, my local taxes have more than DOUBLED over the course of a year. Easy to say when you aren't the ones paying it...but I am. My income tax DOUBLED. What I pay on my house DOUBLED. We aren't talking a few bucks here...but thousands per year. With the highest taxes in the nation, they should be able to fix these issues without further taxation, it's gotten out of hand.

 

My family now has about 5,000 LESS because of these recent increases...and what have they fixed?

 

Not a single f***ing thing.

 

So to anyone who suggests even more taxes/fees...f*** you right in the face.

A few bits of data from "The Chicago Reporter"

–¢ Due to the primary reliance on local property tax revenue for school funding, there are massive cumulative gaps in per-pupil spending, particularly in poor or minority communities. The 6,413 students who started elementary school in Evanston in 1994 and graduated from high school in 2007 had about $290 million more spent on their education than the same number of Chicago Public Schools students.

 

–¢ Many of the school districts that spent the most per-student received at least 90 percent of their money from local property taxes. Yet, these districts tended to tax themselves at far lower rates than their poorer counterparts.

 

–¢ The percentage of state contribution to school funding has decreased four of the last five years and is one of the lowest in the nation.

I don't know Illinois state government well enough to know where the money the state collects gets to, but I thought in particular the last nugget was particularly noteworthy.

[Soxbadger]

Should point out again, as ptact has said several times now, the main issues aren't even budgetary. However, thanks to the SB 7 law passed earlier this year, it's illegal for CTU to strike for non-economic reasons, so they have to play that aspect up.

 

The main issues of concern are teacher evaluations and the re-hiring of laid-off teachers.

 

lol come on now, you cant have it both ways.

 

You cant tell me the whole system is f***ed and that we are underfunding education. But the main issue is only barriers of entry for our job.

 

Let me just be clear, I hate barriers of entry, I absolutely hate them. My job has them, I think they are unfair and bulls***. If it was up to me, there would be no bar and no accredited law school requirement.

 

But believe me, a thousand lawyers will chime in telling you how its in the interest of the public that lawyers are trained, etc. BULLs***, its in the interest of lawyers who have jobs to prevent others from taking their jobs.

[Y2HH]

A few bits of data from "The Chicago Reporter"

I don't know Illinois state government well enough to know where the money the state collects gets to, but I thought in particular the last nugget was particularly noteworthy.

 

That's because they borrowed billions from the pensions and gambled it away...and now they have insolvent guaranteed public pensions they need to fix.

 

So, they raise taxes on the state/local level through the roof, and it can't even make a dent in the problem they created, so they start taking it from everywhere else, too...such as schools.

 

And IL/Chicago residents will continue to re-elect them.

[StrangeSox]

lol come on now, you cant have it both ways.

 

You cant tell me the whole system is f***ed and that we are underfunding education. But the main issue is only barriers of entry for our job.

 

Let me just be clear, I hate barriers of entry, I absolutely hate them. My job has them, I think they are unfair and bulls***. If it was up to me, there would be no bar and no accredited law school requirement.

 

But believe me, a thousand lawyers will chime in telling you how its in the interest of the public that lawyers are trained, etc. BULLs***, its in the interest of lawyers who have jobs to prevent others from taking their jobs.

 

They're not striking over job-entry barriers. Their #1 concern is teacher evaluations, and their #2 concern is to get already-tenured teachers who were laid off due to the numerous school closings re-hired ahead of others.

 

I'm not saying that their other concerns are a smoke-screen, but the big issue funding stuff is clearly not what's on the table in these negotiations.

[Soxbadger]

They're not striking over job-entry barriers. Their #1 concern is teacher evaluations, and their #2 concern is to get already-tenured teachers who were laid off due to the numerous school closings re-hired ahead of others.

 

 

Crab standing on the head of other crab drowning mentality.

 

If Chicago hires back those teachers at their very high salary rate, then Chicago cant hire newer teachers at a lower rate, which means that you have larger class sizes.

 

Why dont we hire people based on merit/cost?

 

Why is that such a bad concept?

 

As for the teacher evaluations, to me, that is just a way to ensure their place in the world. Its like a club, they want a doorman and only a select group to get in, regardless of how many are douches. I want a club with a doorman that doesnt let in douches, regardless of whether they belong to the right group.

Edited September 12, 2012 by Soxbadger

[CrimsonWeltall]

They're not striking over job-entry barriers. Their #1 concern is teacher evaluations

 

What do they WANT for teacher evaluations? They don't want to be judged on student outcomes. They don't want to be judged by administrators.

 

So what's the solution? Self-assessments? I'm doing a wonderful job!

[StrangeSox]

Crab standing on the head of other crab drowning mentality.

 

If Chicago hires back those teachers at their very high salary rate, then Chicago cant hire newer teachers at a lower rate, which means that you have larger class sizes.

 

Why dont we hire people based on merit/cost?

 

Why is that such a bad concept?

 

Whose merit? Is cost the best metric? Should we really be pursuing policies that allow administrators to fire older, experienced teachers and replace them with younger ones? To get that sort of replacement effect, wouldn't you need to seriously drive down the average wages of teachers? That doesn't seem like the best way to get a competent and capable workforce.

 

I don't know their exact opposition, but I'm guessing that they fear administrators using lay-offs as a way to get around tenure protection. "lay off" a bunch of teachers, then only hire some of them back while replacing them with other people.

 

As for the teacher evaluations, to me, that is just a way to ensure their place in the world. Its like a club, they want a doorman and only a select group to get in, regardless of how many are douches. I want a club with a doorman that doesnt let in douches, regardless of whether they belong to the right group.

 

I don't know what you mean here. The CPS is proposing one way to evaluate teachers. The CTU feels that it's too heavily tied to unproven standardized testing methods that, at least according to one of the Chicago Tonight guests, has a 50% margin of error. I sure as hell wouldn't want my "merit" being based on such an imprecise tool.

[SoxFan1]

This is from another teach friend of mine (but who does not work for CPS and is not on strike):

 

"I eat, breath, and sleep teaching. Love that i'm living my dream but I'm physically and mentally exhausted. Thinking of just moving into my classroom since I don't leave until 5:30 anyways. The sad life of a first year teacher."

 

5:30!?!?!? Wow. That must be rough.

[NorthSideSox72]

This is from another teach friend of mine (but who does not work for CPS and is not on strike):

 

"I eat, breath, and sleep teaching. Love that i'm living my dream but I'm physically and mentally exhausted. Thinking of just moving into my classroom since I don't leave until 5:30 anyways. The sad life of a first year teacher."

 

5:30!?!?!? Wow. That must be rough.

So... you are saying because you have a friend who complained about leaving at 5:30pm... what? All teachers are lazy or something? What is the point of posting this?