Chicago strike ends, but debate continues over how we regard and treat teachers in America
A relieved Chicago sent its children back to school today as teachers agree to tentative contract. (AP Images)
Today, 350,000 students return to school in Chicago where the striking teachers’ union has agreed to a tentative contract.
Much commentary has been written about the seven-day strike but I found this piece by New York Times columnist Joe Nocera among the most interesting. He talks to noted education researcher Marc Tucker, quoted here on the blog a few months on why Finnish schools perform so well.
An ongoing frustration with education debates — including many on this blog — is that we focus on things that don’t matter, that appeal to ideologues and bumper sticker voters who don’t have time to read the fine print.
Georgia is now in a frenzy over a charter school amendment that will do nothing to dramatically alter school transformation. Millions will be spent in the battle, a fair share coming from for-profit education companies that see Georgia a potential new market for their wares.
And the amendment won’t do a thing ultimately for the overall performance of students in Georgia. How do I know? Because we have the examples of other states that have gone down this road before us. And they did not find redemption. Not one has seen remarkable improvements by a dramatic expansion of charter schools. As I have noted again and again, the states that are gaining on us are doing so by investing in standards, curriculum and teacher quality.
But we don’t seem to benefit from anyone else’s mistakes or successes, locally or abroad. The countries transforming their education systems have trained, lifted and empowered teachers, elevating the profession to the status of doctors and lawyers. They have not beaten teachers down, marginalized them and run them off.
I agree with the frequent observations of many folks on this blog — Lee, for one — that every profession is working a lot harder for a lot less. I have done something in the last few years that I never did before in 25 years as a journalist, walked away from unused vacation because my workload won’t allow me to take the break.
Here is the difference. If I get burned out and quit, the consequences are not dire. The blog could fade away without loss to the state’s well-being or future. Or Jerry, Bootney, Dunwoody Mom, Dr. Henson, Jordan Kohanim, Catlady or any number of talented writers could apply for the job.
But if we lose teachers in large numbers, there are serious consequences to the state. Their contribution to the public good is more important than many other professions. If you want to see what happens to a country without an effective, functioning education system, look at the third-world nations.
Here is an excerpt of Nocera’s interview with Tucker. Please try to read the full piece before commenting.
“It is not possible to make progress with your students if you are at war with your teachers,” says Marc Tucker.
Tucker, 72, a former senior education official in Washington, is the president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, which he founded in 1988. Since then he has focused much of his research on comparing public education in the United States with that of places that have far better results than we do — places like Finland, Japan, Shanghai and Ontario, Canada. His essential conclusion is that the best education systems share common traits — almost none of which are embodied in either the current American system or in the reform ideas that have gained sway over the last decade or so.
“We have to find a way to work with teachers and unions while at the same time working to greatly raise the quality of teachers,” he told me recently. He has some clear ideas about how to go about that. His starting point is not the public schools themselves but the universities that educate teachers. Teacher education in America is vastly inferior to many other countries; we neither emphasize pedagogy — i.e., how to teach — nor demand mastery of the subject matter. Both are a given in the top-performing countries. (Indeed, it is striking how many nonprofit education programs in the U.S. are aimed at helping working teachers do a better job — because they’ve never learned the right techniques.)
What is also a given in other countries is that teaching has a status equal to other white-collar professionals. That was once true in America, but Tucker believes that a quarter-century of income inequality saw teachers lose out at the expense of lawyers and other well-paid professionals. That is a large part of the reason that teachers’ unions have become so obstreperous: It is not just that they feel underpaid, but they feel undervalued. Tucker believes that teachers should be paid more — though not exorbitantly. But making teacher education more rigorous — and imbuing the profession with more status — is just as important. “Other countries have raised their standards for getting into teachers’ colleges,” he told me. “We need to do the same.”
Second, he believes that it makes no sense to demonize unions. Instead, he points to the example of Ontario, where a decade ago, a new government decided to embrace the teachers’ unions — to treat them as partners instead of as adversaries. The result? Ontario now has some of the best student achievement in the world. (Alas, relations between teachers and the government have recently deteriorated after a two-year wage freeze was imposed.)
High-performing countries don’t abandon teacher standards. On the contrary. Teachers who feel part of a collaborative effort are far more willing to be evaluated for their job performance — just like any other professional. It should also be noted that none of the best-performing countries rely as heavily as the U.S. does on the blunt instrument of standardized tests. That is yet another lesson we have failed to learn.
The Chicago teachers’ strike exemplifies, in stark terms, how misguided the battle over education has become. The teachers are fighting for the things industrial unions have always fought for: seniority, favorable work rules and fierce resistance to performance measures. City Hall is fighting to institute reforms no top-performing country has ever seen fit to use, and which probably won’t make much difference if they are instituted.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
86 comments Add your comment
Bubba
September 19th, 2012
3:07 pm
“I can beat my employees with a 2 x 4 …”
Been hearing this one for several years. Guess what – there are teachers for every classroom, if a teacher quits – a qualified replacement is found in a couple of hours, no problem – and the scores are REALLY going up.
A recent non-partisan study was summarized in USA Today. It found that in aggregate, teachers that leave the profession – make 1/2 of what they did as teachers (compensation/benefits, etc.). As mentioned above – in aggregate, teachers in the US are toward the bottom of academic achievers and their degrees in education aren’t worth much outside teaching. Hence, they haven’t and aren’t going anywhere in any kind of numbers that are making a difference.
AngryRedMarsWoman
September 19th, 2012
3:14 pm
@another comment September 19th, 2012 12:53 pm
Small world. We grew up in the same town. Do you ever go “home” for Reunion Weekend at Fireman’s Field?
Mountain Man
September 19th, 2012
3:17 pm
“Pride: I’m gonna go ahead and call you out on the racist nature of your comment about language.”
So it is racist to expect a black (or any color) person to speak proper English? When you go to your next job interview, use that kind of language and see if you get hired out in the business world.
Mountain Man
September 19th, 2012
3:20 pm
“Guess what – there are teachers for every classroom, if a teacher quits – a qualified replacement is found in a couple of hours, no problem – and the scores are REALLY going up.”
Bubba, I think you are wrong. The teachers who leave are the top 50% of the teachers – they are the ones who can easily get a job in business. The ones who are left are the dregs – the bottom 50%. And yes, maybe you can find a “qualified ” (but not experienced ) teacher in a couple of hours – one who will leave in less than 5 years. Or you can go with theTeach for America teacher who is there only temporarily. Why can South Dekalb High school not find enough math teachers to outfit their classes?
Mountain Man
September 19th, 2012
3:26 pm
“Guess what – there are teachers for every classroom,”
Not at South Dekalb High school – not for math.
Ray
September 19th, 2012
3:39 pm
My guess is that most people who think public school teachers are overpaid either did not do very well in school, or went to private school.
Bubba
September 19th, 2012
4:05 pm
My guess is that most people who think public school teachers are overpaid …
You guess wrong
Further, the study mentioned in USA statistically showed that given their skill set/education, in the private sector, teachers are relatively OVER paid.
re: The ones who are left are the dregs – the bottom 50%.
I didn’t say anything about the quality of teachers that stay vs leave.
If your belief is true: the good ones leave, then that combined with the findings on the compensation of teachers who leave the profession (on aggregate they are compensated at 1/2 the rate as they did as teachers) points an even bleaker view.
Bubba
September 19th, 2012
4:09 pm
Why can South Dekalb High school not find enough math teachers to outfit their classes?
Likely reason:
Like most everything else associated with Dekalb government – administrators didn’t bother to arrange for the correct number of teachers soon enough.
Cobb had 1,000 more students than expected – requiring 30 additional teachers. I wonder how quickly they will be able to get the additional teachers in place.
Jordan Kohanim
September 19th, 2012
4:29 pm
Bubba- do you have a link to that article? I cannot seem to be able to find it.
Ray
September 19th, 2012
4:30 pm
Bubba, I could be wrong, but I doubt it on this one.
Bubba
September 19th, 2012
4:46 pm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/story/2011-11-14/teacher-salary-chat-andrew-biggs-jason-richwine/51202204/1
Ray
September 19th, 2012
4:57 pm
Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute authors. Hmmmm. And they say teachers are overpaid by 50%. Hmmmm.
Ron F.
September 19th, 2012
5:10 pm
“So it is racist to expect a black (or any color) person to speak proper English?”
Never said that, now did I? I fully expect someone to speak “proper” English, especially as a teacher, but I think Pride’s example failed to include those who don’t speak English as a first language or those from different regions of this country who pronounce words differently. If we’re going to critique pronunciation, we have a lot of other groups to include. I have some colleagues with thick southern accents who don’t use a nice, neutral American pronunciation. I have a colleague from “up North” who pronounces words differently. So do we fire them all if they don’t speak like a newscaster?
Lee
September 19th, 2012
6:10 pm
“I agree with the frequent observations of many folks on this blog — Lee, for one …”
Smart lady, that Maureen….
Lee
September 19th, 2012
6:23 pm
Once again, teacher pay, when prorated for days actually worked, equate well with similar professionals. You can go here and get the salaries for the Atlanta/Marietta area from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_12060.htm
On that site, we find that the average annual salary for a Elementary/Middle/High school teacher is about $54,750. Extropolate that 190 day pay rate to 235 days, which is what the average private industry employee works, and that equates to about $67,700 per year.
Average accountant/auditor makes $72,710, so you are within $5k. The average Mechanical Engineer is slightly higher at $79k.
For those who say their plumber makes more, well, the average plumber makes $47k, or about $20k less than a teacher’s full 12 month equivalent salary.
I hear Roto-Rooter is hiring, so feel free to take the, er, plunge…..
Lee
September 19th, 2012
6:52 pm
Speaking of septic systems, Walter Williams on the sorry state of college diversity and liberalism….
http://cnsnews.com/blog/walter-e-williams/academic-dishonesty
mountain man
September 19th, 2012
7:17 pm
“Extropolate that 190 day pay rate to 235 days”
Everyone wants to compare teacher’s pay by the day. That is why I have always advocated teachers being 12-months employees, with summers devoted to high-intensity “catch-up” classes (summer school) for those who fail their grade. Then retain them, of course, if they fail summer school. Increase teacher pay so they are paid equivalent to other professionals.
Beverly Fraud
September 19th, 2012
7:37 pm
“Or Jerry, Bootney, Dunwoody Mom, Dr. Henson, Jordan Kohanim, Catlady or any number of talented writers could apply for the job.”
Should I feel slighted????
Beverly Fraud
September 19th, 2012
8:00 pm
“Or Jerry, Bootney, Dunwoody Mom, Dr. Henson, Jordan Kohanim, Catlady or any number of talented writers could apply for the job.”
Just because I’m posting from my mother’s basement doesn’t mean I have nothing of value to say!
bootney farnsworth
September 19th, 2012
8:47 pm
@ Beverly,
there’s a job somewhere? a job?
let me at it. I’m still out of work.
bootney farnsworth
September 19th, 2012
8:59 pm
it’s an amazing thing – we’re the only industrially advanced society on earth which belittles and denigrates its teachers.
its like ignorance and rank dishonesty are values to be promoted and emulated. I suppose to the Morty/Pride/Solutions/Slob/Half crowd, maybe they are.
before nearly every brutal, totalitarian, regime came the disenfranchising of the educators. even before seizing the means of communication.
the Fran Millar crowd isn’t just advocating for the hamstringing of America – they’re actually working to make it happen. as dangerous as I think Obama is the long term future of America, he pales next to the anti education mob.
Ron F.
September 19th, 2012
9:51 pm
“it’s an amazing thing – we’re the only industrially advanced society on earth which belittles and denigrates its teachers.”
And we’ll pay a price for that, the cost being the next generation(s) of kids without qualifed teachers. I honestly believe in the next ten years, as the baby boomers retire, we’ll see teacher shortages again, and what will the anti-education crowd do then?
Truth in Moderation
September 19th, 2012
11:55 pm
Dedicated to the Chicago teachers….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bF9X7qnWro&feature=related
We had real talent back in the ’70’s…..Let’s bring it back!
Cindy Lutenbacher
September 20th, 2012
7:06 am
Thank you, Ron F., for calling out “Pride and Joy” on the obvious racism.
Soccermom
September 20th, 2012
9:34 am
@Bootney – There are many of us who hold teachers in high respect. I sub and teach a non-academic subject privately. I also truly enjoy learning. However, I am tired of the whining that seems to be so pervasive among teachers.
Soccermom
September 20th, 2012
9:59 am
Also, I do not feel that ANY public employees/professions should be allowed to unionize. Unionization of public employees is not in the best interest of our country.
Yes, I agree that unions have facilitated great advances in job safety, working conditions, and fair pay – in the past. Now, we have laws and agencies for those things and unions are obsolete and counterproductive. And in the case of governmental jobs, I think that unions actually hold “We, the People” hostage.
Looking at financial realities, if there is no money, THERE IS NO MONEY! It doesn’t matter that you (or the teachers of Chicago, in this case) feel you are worth more money or that your job duties have increased without a commensurate increase in pay. If your employer is on the edge of bankruptcy, there is no money. This position is not one of denigration. It is a position of realism. To stomp your foot (or go on strike) and demand that you get your pay increase even when there is no money is to act as a child with no real understanding of current financial realities. And, unfortunately, our supposed “recovery” from the Great Recession seems to be a three year old myth.
d
September 20th, 2012
10:04 am
Fortunately, @Soccermom, the Constitution of the United States disagrees with you about the ability of public employees to unionize, associate, speak as a group, etc.
bootney farnsworth
September 20th, 2012
11:48 am
@ soccermom
taking you at face value, you lost credibility when you pulled out your broad brush.
then you tossed it out the window when you acknowledged the good unions have done
for you, but then stated your wish to deny US citizens their constitutional rights to organize
and seek redress of grievances.
laws do the job? really? you notice the articles in the AJC about the state ignoring the
ethics laws they passed. laws in themselves only matter as long as they are respected.
bootney farnsworth
September 20th, 2012
11:51 am
I wonder why all the whiners complaining about the wages of teachers aren’t spending near this level of energy shutting down Sonny’s fish camp? or demanding their legislators live within their means?
wait, I know. it requires effort, integrity, and a willingness to admit they were wrong.
bootney farnsworth
September 20th, 2012
12:01 pm
I worked at GPC until I was laid off. $25mil in debt, GPC couldn’t afford 282 worker bees, but made virtually zero cuts in the administrative class. despite rampant redundancies in their work force.
for the last 5 years my wages were frozen. except for the year I got furloughed, then I took a wage cut.
during that same period, GPC spent nearly 1 million dollars on wooing Jimmy Carter with the now defunct Atlanta Center for Indentured Servitude. and GPC kept adding staff. even after the layoffs, they have continued to hire.
GPC staff yelled, howled, screamed about the waste of money, but nothing was done. the USG turned a blind ear to it. ethics complaints about GPC were funneled to GPC for internal investigation.
and on and on and on.
and you see us and our desire for a go between as the problem?
bootney farnsworth
September 20th, 2012
12:07 pm
could a union have stopped Tricoli and co from spending us into oblivion?
could a union have protected some of the jobs of worker bees and forced GPC to make real cuts?
could a union have kept GPC from removing Chris Albers over his refusal to violate state rules?
who knows.
but obviously, the state couldn’t be bothered.
from where I sit today, an out of control USG system, multiple county managements, and a worse than do nothing legislature are a FAR bigger threat to “We the People” than a union.
if you really don’t want us to unionize – and that day is coming fast- you the voters do a better job electing legislators and ride them 1/5th as hard as you ride us.
Dr. Monica Henson
September 20th, 2012
11:01 pm
Thank you Maureen, for your kind mention. I sincerely hope you don’t burn out and quit the blog.
I’ve been away this week at a funeral for my first cousin in Ohio who died suddenly of a brain aneurysm–I drove my parents up there and back because my dad won’t fly–and visiting another first cousin in Tennesee who is in hospice care at home with cancer. I’m just now catching up with this week’s new topics.
“It is not possible to make progress with your students if you are at war with your teachers,” says Marc Tucker.
Agreed, 100%. I’d qualify this statement, though, by pointing out that you can’t make excellent progress with all your students if all your teachers aren’t at least good at what they do. The big lie perpetuated by CTU, aided and abetted by decades of lax administration, is that all (or at least 95%+) of Chicago’s public school teachers are excellent to superior.
If that were true, then we’d see a commensurate showing by Chicago’s public school students in reading and math. As it stands, about 80% of eighth graders in CPS are below grade level in both.
There is no mental gymnastics on this earth that can be performed to make reasonable people believe that almost every CPS teacher is excellent while 4 out of every 5 middle schoolers enter high school reading and calculating below the 8th grade level. Herein lies the reason for the battle that is urban education reform.
The stakes are simply too high for society, the consequences too devastating to young lives, to permit this evil charade to continue, much less to keep on pouring barrel after barrel of money into a payroll that the city can’t afford. In fact, this is true whether we’re talking about Chicago or any other school district in this country.
I lay the blame and responsibility for not executing teacher supervision & evaluation on time, with sufficient attention and the respect it deserves, directly at the feet of the administrators who put this paramount task near the bottom of most of their priority lists. We are now seeing in Chicago the result of decades of administrative neglect–nearly every teacher who breathes earns tenure and the heftiest paychecks in the U.S.
However, it is the unionistas who willfully ignore the enormous elephant sitting on the school district and strangling the life out of it. Until they are willing to accept at least a small measure of accountability and acknowledge that not every person who enters the teaching profession is NOT good enough to stay in it, and that there are some folks who need to go and perhaps never should have been tenured to begin with, they will never have credibility with the American general public. And they can thank CTU for shining a blazing spotlight on the true purpose of the NEA and AFT: to secure the highest possible salaries and the smallest possible class sizes, with zero accountability for performance and little to no regard for the research base when it suits their purpose to ignore it.
Soccermom
September 21st, 2012
9:33 am
@Bootney – You, of course, are entitled to your opinion of my credibility. However, you are not entitled to having your own version of reality presented as fact. As to “constitutional rights to organize and seek redress of grievances” – the Wagner Act specifically excluded government employees at all levels. AND, FDR himself (a Democrat) wrote the following:
“All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations … The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for … officials … to bind the employer … The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives …”
“Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of government employees. Upon employees in the federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people … This obligation is paramount … A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent … to prevent or obstruct … Government … Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government … is unthinkable and intolerable.”
In the Sixties, by executive order, Kennedy granted federal employees the right to organize. But, they were not (and still are not, as far as I can tell) permitted to bargain on wages or benefits and were forbidden to go on strike.
So I will again assert that just as a child outgrows certain items (such as pacifiers) and practices, so has our country outgrown unions. There are laws. We simply have to have the backbone and willpower to insist that they be enforced. And IMHO, this insistence should include enforcing the immigration laws currently on the books. You, or anyone for that matter, can’t have it both ways. If you scream for enforcement of the laws, then you should support enforcement of ALL of them! And if there are obsolete laws on the books, an effort should be made to clean up our Codes of Law – on all levels.
Soccermom
September 21st, 2012
9:35 am
As for “demanding their legislators live within their means”, isn’t that what the government of Chicago is trying to do – live within the means of the city? But the teachers’ union wants their raises by golly, no matter if there is no money to fund the raises. And never mind if the teachers (some) are deficient in their craft.
Phillip Jackson
September 21st, 2012
6:39 pm
Chicago Strike Over: City, Teachers Union, Chicago Public Schools All Claim Victory
While Black Children Continue to Lose
By Phillip Jackson
What is different for Black Chicago children two weeks after a grueling, internationally-watched, hard-fought strike than two weeks before the strike? By most accounts, Black children will go back to the same schools they attended before the strike with few difference-making improvements.
There is an old African proverb: When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled. When big cities and school boards fight with teachers’ unions, it is the children who get trampled!
Here are the shockingly abysmal educational, social and economic realities for Black children in Chicago:
• Only three out of 100 Black young men “educated” in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) earn a college degree by age 26.
• Only 39% of CPS Black male students graduate from high school.
• The Chicago Public School system has the highest suspension, expulsion and arrest rates of Black students anywhere in the world.
• In 1995, 45% of CPS teachers were Black. In 2012, 19% of CPS teachers are Black (trend expected to continue).
• Less than 2% of CPS teachers are Black men.
• 52% of Black men in Chicago (most of whom attended CPS) are not working.
• In 34 of 104 Chicago high schools, less than 10% of CPS students met or exceeded Illinois State Standards in math and reading on the 2011 Prairie State Achievement Exam. Those schools were predominately in Black communities.
• In 52 of those 104 Chicago high schools, less than 15% of CPS students met or exceeded Illinois State Standards in math and reading on the 2011 Prairie State Achievement Exam. Those schools were also predominately in Black communities.
• After the agreement between Chicago and the teachers’ union, the city is expected to close between 80 and 120 elementary and high schools in the near future, mostly in Black communities.
• Illinois had 11,775 Black men students in its 22 largest colleges in 2010 while there were 24,914 Black men caged in its 22 largest prisons that same year.
• One out of three Black males born in America after 2001 will be incarcerated in prison or jail.
• Chicago has become the murder capital of the world for school-aged Black males.
Black children are not being adequately prepared to successfully compete globally or to participate in any meaningful way in the 21st century. While Black parents may be relieved that Black children are back in a structured learning environment, how can we truly celebrate a resolution that fails to significantly benefit Black children? Black people will not rest while this educational genocide continues to decimate the Black community.
It is time for Black parents and Black communities in Chicago to strike a blow for all Black people across America and across the world. We must take over the education of our children. We must occupy the schools!
We must take the control of the education of our children from charter schools, public schools, private schools, corporate schools, city administrations, unions, school boards, voucher proponents, elected officials, foundations, businesses, school reform organizations, the media and any other entity that fails to put the best interest of Black children first.
Black people should not be distracted by settlement “wins” in this round of the vicious battle between the City of Chicago and Chicago Board of Education versus the Chicago Teachers Union and supportive local and national unions. Rather, let’s be concerned with who lost. Black children lost and will continue to lose unless Black parents and communities rise up and take control of the education of Black children.
Pride and Joy
September 22nd, 2012
7:31 pm
Phillip jackson – when you do what is right for black children, you do what is right for all children. You don’t need to “take back” schools from white people. That’s what you mean of course when you cite your statistics. If you replace white teachers with black teachers or replace women with men, you won’t improve education. Darker doesn’t mean better; it just means darker.
If teachers are bad in Chicago, then go find and hire some good ones. A good teacher is a good teacher, regardless of race.