By Jocelyn Huber, DFER Director of Teacher Advocacy
As Day 2 of the Chicago teachers’ strike draws to a close, I want to implore everyone, teachers, parents, city and union officials alike, to focus on the best interests of the ones who have the most to lose in these negotiations: the students of Chicago public schools.
How many days of instruction do you think Chicago’s children can afford to lose this year? Two? Five? Ten? How about not one single second more? From students struggling to reach grade level to students gearing up for college application deadlines, as a former teacher I know every second counts. And what about Chicago’s newest students? The ones in whom we’re trying to instill a love of learning and education that will guide them through their lives. How does having your teacher walk out affect those eager minds?
“I don’t see a (reason) for a fight,” Davis, grandfather of CPS students said. “They could have come to a decision before kids even started school because my grandkids love going to school, they don’t want to be out.” (AP)
“There is no contract greater than our children’s future,” Leon Alexander shouted as he stood with his wife and three kids, holding up protest signs as they voiced their extreme displeasure with the strike…
He continued, “I understand the teachers’ concerns, and I’m with them with their concerns…I draw the line, again, at the fact that they’re taking our children and [saying] ‘Okay, I’m going to use him to get what I want.’ They can’t do that no more.” (See here.)
We can’t lose sight of who this fight SHOULD be about. In the discussions about longer school days and teacher evaluation and placement policies, the needs of Chicago’s students must be the focus.
This is about whether 402,000 kids get the education they need to perform well in college — and to compete in their careers. Or whether the teachers succeed in protecting jobs, watering down reforms, and dooming generation after generation of students to languish in classrooms where no one is responsible if a student doesn’t learn.
For the first time in 25 years, teachers have walked out of classrooms and onto picket lines. They abandoned the children they say they’re committed to teaching. They threw families into chaos. They tossed away whatever academic gains had been achieved in the first week of a longer day. When kids go back to school, they’ll start from scratch. (Chicago Tribune Editorial)
Yes, teachers have an incredibly difficult job and they need to be respected. I’ve been there. But guaranteeing the employment of adults should never become more important than the education of students. A rigorous system of teacher evaluations is essential to ensuring that all of Chicago’s students are getting the very best education possible.
“It’s mostly about teacher evaluation and recall rights,” said Tim Daly, president of TNTP… His group’s research on Chicago revealed that 99 percent of teachers were rated in two top categories, drawing national attention to the cause of revamping the way teachers are graded. “They’re the standard example of a district where evaluation wasn’t working,” he said. “It surprises me that they would take on a strike issue like that … It’s very risky because they’re asking the public to support them in a strike that is about whether they should be evaluated on how much students are learning.” (Huffington Post)