Pretty much everyone covers the Debbie Lynch announcement at Gage Park HS from yesterday (which, by the way, I wish someone had told me was coming), but it's covered slightly differently by each outlet.
The Sun-Times coverage (Ex-teachers union chief wants job back) features vivid descriptions like "cantankerous campaign" and calls Lynch and Stewart "bitter rivals."
The Tribune (Ex-union chief seeks job back) gives incumbent Stewart a chance to respond to Lynch's criticisms -- Stewart says Lynch is "attacking me on things that were caused by the contract she negotiated" -- and lists Lynch's running mates (Jacquelyn Price Ward, Marquette Elementary teacher, for vice president; Collins High teacher Archie Moore, for recording secretary; Curie High Clerk Maureen Callaghan for treasurer; and Garvy Elementary teacher Steve Jones for financial secretary.)
Over at WBEZ the brief segment contrasts Lynch's focus on professional as well as salary issues with Stewart's focus on bread and butter issues (Former Chicago Teachers Union Head Wants Old Job Back). Says Lynch: "We're a union of professionals. We should be as good on the professional education issues as on the bread and butter issues -- we can and should be."
Anyone who threatens a strike before negotiations even begin is obviously not fit for the job. We don't need an alarmist running our union. Maybe Stewart can institute a color-coded warning system, like Bush did, as to how close we are to a strike. Please, help us teachers look really silly, why don't ya?
(and don't try to feed me that bull that she is simply warning the members so we can save money in advance of a strke. If this were the case, she would have sent it out via email and local reps....not the local press)
Posted by: | January 17, 2007 at 02:16 PM
I agree with you. My colleagues and I voted for Stewart in the last election. Not one of us is going to do it again. She is embarrassing us.
Posted by: | January 17, 2007 at 03:27 PM
Well the time has come for district 299.com to begin its discussion of the coming CTU election. I have no doubt it will be acrimonious to say the least. The Sun-Times article contained this statement from President Stewart: “She (Lynch) has run four times. This will be the fifth I'm not surprised she's running. It's what she does."
Now I have no doubt that President Stewart said far more than this but the reporter picked that comment out for quotation. That was simply a pathetic comment and it was demeaning as if Lynch was some type of marginal teacher constantly running for President for the sake of running.
Former President Lynch is quoted in the Sun Times as saying at her press conference; "Whoever gets elected will represent the union at the bargaining table. They say you can't fight City Hall. We say you can, and we did and we intend to do it again.”
This statement is based on what? How did PACT when in power fight city hall? Did President Lynch stop using PAC funds to support Daley’s puppets? I recall well an October 2002 House of Delegates meeting where PAC’s endorsement of Daley camp supporters was questioned and challenged and President Lynch continued to support Daley hacks.
Where was this big CTU push against Daley during the time PACT and Lynch were in power? In 2003 the Chicago Federation of Labor endorsed the Mayor for reelection; the CTU did not oppose that endorsement as far as I know. Lynch was President of the CTU at that time, the union had a seat on the CFL Board as I recall. Right now today, the CFL has declined to endorse Daley’s reelection and Stewart is on the Board of the CFL, which is reality. One of the reasons the CFL did not endorse Daley is stated on the CFL website as being Daley's endorsement of non-union charter schools. That is a good thing and President Steward needs to be given credit for this development.
What I want to know is how fromer President Lynch can explain away what she informed us of at a November 2002 delegates meeting. Here is the Substance report of that meeting:
"Lynch said that our repeal 4.5 bargaining rights bill has been discussed with the coalition of unions, that Mayor Daley’s lobbyists have all gotten the word, that it will be heard by a sitting legislature, and that we have reached out to all groups – community groups and parents.
She said the City of Chicago and the Board of Education have reached out to the business community to ensure all needed support for the legislation. The business community has promised to support our 4.5 bill if we support the business community’s initiative on doubling the number of charter schools in Chicago from 15 to 30. On the positive side, it would be one charter to a charter holder (no opening of branches allowed), and 75% of the teachers would have to be certified, pluses that led the CTU to be a co-sponsor. She concluded by saying that once we got our bargaining rights back, we could then proceed with contract negotiations."
Now what President Lynch failed to tell us in November 2002 was that the revision to the Charter School law still did not allow charter school teachers to become members of our union! In fact the truth of the matter was the deal with the business community included the provision in state law that bared charter school teachers from becoming CTU members. Here is that provision [105 ILCS 5/27-A(11)]: “a bargaining unit of charter school employees shall be separate and distinct from any bargaining units formed from employees of a school district in which the charter school is located.”
My concern now is with the fact that the charter school law as it is written does not require CPS to bargain with the CTU over decisions to grant or deny a charter school proposal, decisions to renew or revoke a charter, or the impact of those decisions on our union. But the law does not prohibit such bargaining by the CPS and CTU. Will either Lynch or Stewart force the CPS to stop charter expansions and will either be willing to go on strike to stop this expansion? Will either Stewart or Lynch fight to remove the anti-CTU provisions of the charter law that block charter school teachers from joining our union and being paid on a standard scale.
From a delegate who voted for President Stewart
Posted by: | January 17, 2007 at 04:14 PM
It is time that we begin to elect our leaders based on the content of their characters and not on the color of their skin. It is time we put petty differences aside and begin to think of what has become of our schools our working conditions and our jobs. Much like our country needs to change course in Iraq we as a union also need to change course in our leadership and elect Debbie Lynch as our new President.
Posted by: Anita | January 17, 2007 at 05:44 PM
5:44 ok, so drop the 'color of skin' crap. Who brought that up?! You! This isn't a black/white thing, ok idiot? I donate $500 to Obama. I'm volunteering for Dorothy Brown's campaign. But I don't back Stewart.
Posted by: | January 17, 2007 at 07:37 PM
Uhm, I'm pretty sure Martin Luther King brought up being judged NOT by the color of their skin but by the content of their character (in reference to his own children, and, I think, all of our children, too). I've no doubt that race plays a part in CTU elections, and in every election in this city.
Posted by: | January 18, 2007 at 12:38 AM
Sure, race plays a part, but what indications are there it is the main part, or even a determinning factor? No one mentioned it, until 5:44 decided to.
So, back to the main issue, Lych or Stewart? Let's hear some pros and cons, and try not to insult or get distracted. I for one would like to hear who is better and why.
Posted by: | January 18, 2007 at 07:19 AM
4:14 p.m. asked (and I assume not rhetorically) "Where was the big push against Daley at the time Lynch was in power?"
Both the facts and the context are important, if anonymous bloggers really want and answer. It's always hard to tell when someone asks one of those "And when did you stop beating your wife?" questions....
Maybe there was no one "big push" but from the first day until the last there were hundreds of pushes. The mess left behind was pretty big when Debbie Lynch, Howard Heath, and the rest of them walked into the CTU offices July 1, 2001.
Before discussing what Debbie did or didn't do during three years, please remind yourself about the Stewart record. Remember that Stewart's group (the United Progressive Caucus) had gone along with Daley's corporate "school reform" from 1995 on.
That's one of the reasons why you can read some of the stories from those years on the Substance website but none of those stories on the Chicago Teachers Union website. CTU has a budget of more than $20 million per year, and every union meeting agenda and every union newspaper is within 100 feet of where Marilyn Stewart sits at work every day.
Why hasn't anyone asked why the union newspaper -- complete -- is not on line in PDF format at this point? Why hasn't anyone asked why the packets given out at each union meeting are not also posted on line on www.ctunet.com?
Someone here recently quoted the Substance arvchives, and we'd love to get the rest of our back issues up. But with an annual budget that is lucky to top $50,000 a year, we can't do it right now. At least people can read some of the things that happened in the CTU between 2002 and this month at www.substancenews.com, where one recent quote came from.
You should be able to read everything going back to 1936 at www.ctunet.com.
That simple dishonesty is just one example of what you get when the United Progressive Caucus (UPC) is in power at the Chicago Teachers Union. Call and ask them why their back issues aren't on line. I can give an answer. Can they?
Report it here if you get one. Marilyn and her staff of more than 80 people can surely find the time to answer one simple historical question. I've already made my jokes about it. This bunch is like the old Soviet historians, who produced the famous 1936 Stalin encyclopedia. They left out anyone they didn't like from the official history. (In one droll case, they airbrused out the heads of people in a photograph, but left in the feet).
This kind of thing has been going on a long time with that bunch. That's why people get anonymous questions here, rather than straightforward stuff.
But this morning it's worth some of my time to address a couple of those questions, even if I have a hunch they are coming from some strange place.
So here goes.
USUAL WARNING. THIS IS LONG. SORRY. THE DIACLECTIC OF HISTORY IS COMPLICATED. IF YOU WANT SIMPLISTIC ANSWERS, GO TO KARL ROVE OR MARILYN STEWART'S SPIN PEOPLE (plural).
Other people can fill in some of the things I'm recounting from memory here. I hope they do. For example, I was only in Springfield a couple of times during those years. Remember that during most of the 1990s, Springfield was not a friendly place for union people. Gingrich was not only in Washington, D.C., but Gingrichism was alive and well across Illinois as well. Etc., etc. ,etc.
Chicago teachers were stripped of our bargaining rights under Illinois labor law by a coalition of Republicans (Jim Edgar, Pate Phillip, etc.) and Republicrats (Rich Daley) in 1995.
The leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union told us (I was in the House of Delegates representing Bowen High School back then) that everything was OK, because Mayor Daley, Paul Vallas and Gery Chico (and the hordes they were bringing into CPS) were our "friends."
Early on, Lynch's predecessor (Tom Reece) had invited Paul Vallas to a union meeting. Stewart's colleagues in that caucus had led the cheering for Vallas -- even while he was busting other unions and privatizing thousands (yes, thousand) of union jobs.
I was the only person in the House of Delegates that night who asked Vallas a critical question from the floor. The microphones were packed with UPC people lined up to ask Vallas to tell us how wonderful her was. For my trouble I was booed by the Stewart (UPC) group and Vallas just smiled. He was their rock star hero. The union newspaper published a page one collage of the Vallas visit, showing UPC leader Pam Massarsky smiling in Vallas's direction. It was hugs all around for the guy who was privatizing more union jobs and wasting more money than any other school leader in Chicago history.
It was under the Stewart caucus from 1995 into 2001 that the union became Daley's lap dog. The other unions were being attacked or even busted and the cost of the same work was tripling or quadrupling through privatization. But CTU was also under attack. To take a major example that many people here feel to this day: back in the 1980s, I'd begin every school year with the "class size" information request and by October 1, my principal would have the class size grievance if every class weren't within contract maximum (no averages, by the way, except in art, music, and PE, which I opposed).
Under Vallas, we got a "memo of understanding" and that creeping class size increase that was to become a horror to many teachers (most of whom are now afraid to even speak out).
But the collaboration of UPC and the Daley people was ongoing, and some times it was a bit silly (and certainly not necessary).
One of the most poignant Board of Education meetings for me took place at the Brentano Elementary School in February 1999. It was memorable to us at Substance because I had just been sued for $1 million (Phil Hansen providing the critical mendacity in his affidavit to the federal judge) for publishing CASE in Substance. Debbie Lynch and her colleagues were picketing the Board meeting because of another round of cuts.
In walked Tom Reece (again with Massarsky, we still treasure that photograph here). Standing at the microphone, Reece told Vallas and Chico: "This is the best Board of Education we've ever worked with..." They let Reece go on and on (the only other speaker that night who got the same smiling time was a very confused mother who was propped up there to complain that I was a "racist" when dealine with her tragically sad gang banger son at Bowen High School, but that's another story for another time...).
By February 1999, the Board had busted the trades in the schools (and eliminated its own in house printing plant in order to get rid of 16 union printers and graphics people), cut and privatized more than half the custodial jobs, and ripped through everybody but the ranks of the teachers. Reece and his people stayed in bed with Daley right to the bitter end in 2001. In February 1999 it was almost laughable, if you hadn't been on the receiving end of Daley's version of "school reform" (e.g., as a teacher at one of the "reconstituted" high schools in 1997, to take one example; of as a child who had "failed" the Iowa test).
But there were Marilyn's people, sucking up to Daley and his appointees.
In 2001, Paul Vallas told Crain's Chicago Business that Tom Reece was the best candidate for CTU president, endorsing Reece and trying to put his "muscle" beind Reece. It backfired, of course, but Reece never said a word about it. It was just the last dismal moment of the union's lap dog days under the UPC. When Reece lost, he and his people were shocked as Vallas was. (And a few weeks later, Daley told Vallas it was time to go. One of Vallas's mistakes had been assuring Daley that Reece would stay in power, so the sucking up could continue).
Almost as soon as Debbie Lynch took office in July 2001, she announced that she was going for a repeal of the Amendatory Act. The Amednatory Act is the 1995 law that gave Daley dictatorial power over CPS and stripped the Chicago teachers -- and Cook County College Teachers Union -- of most bargaining rights.
Springfield, despite the fact that the Republican monopoly of 1995 was weakening (remember, it didn't collapse until the Ryan messes) was still a problem because Chicago "Democrats" were sill split on the Amendatory Act.
In the real world, also, Debbie Lynch had to deal with the reality of Daley's political power. The combination of Daley Republicrats and Republicans was always a powerful force in Illinois.
The ultimate result was compromise on the Amendatory Act. That compromise only happened because Debbie Lynch made it clear she wasn't going to negotiate that 2003 contract without some changes in the Amendatory Act. So she compromised and worked with the reality, a pragmatism that got us a lot further than the collaboration under her predecessory had gotten. It was imperfect, but workable. It was also one of the reasons why part of the current contract is imperfect. Again, in an ideal world the USA would never have invaded. In the real world...
Oh, never mind. Try to line up votes in Springfield or Washington on a hot issue and get back to us here. Life's always easier from the outside looking in.
But this brings us to the compromises that took place in order to get the 2003 contract (the one that expires June 30, 2007).
No one thought that the Chicago media would allow Arne Duncan and CPS to create a "school" whose "campuses" stretched from Peterson Ave. on the north side past 95th St. on the south side (Chicago International Charter School) withoiut laughing the idea out of town. It's the equivalent of lumping all the selective enrollment magnet high schools into one College Prep High School, with campuses from "Lane Tech" and "Whitney Young campus" all the way out to the "Gwendolyn Brooks" campus).
But that's what happened. Those campusizations were allowed, even though they were almost unthinkable. And now we have campuses for everyone from Aspira and UNO to Perspectives and Noble St., with those corporate crooks at Chicago International simply way out there in front.
So one of the compromises Debbie Lynch and the Chicago Teachers Union accepted in 2003 was on the charter school cap in Chicago. (Factually, what happened was that Chicago got the right to use the 15 charter spots that went to the suburbs, leaving 15 for "downstate" and the total still at 45).
There were others. At the end of Lynch's first term in 2004, Chicago teachers' (and Cook County college teachers') bargaining rights had been half restored. Public employees working in Chicago public schools (and Cook County colleges) have fewer legal rights than public employees working anywhere else in Illinois. That's an example of the hypocrisy and nutsiness of Daleyland.
Since Marilyn Stewart took over in 2004, it's been up to her to establish a pubic record, in Springfield, in Washington, D.C., and here in Chicago. Those records are much easily to get to nowadays, thanks to the Internet and Google, than they were 20 years ago, when I had to save every piece of paper somewhere.
Since Stewart took power, he main objective has been to get reelected this year by blaming Debbie Lynch for everything. There has been almost nothing done to restore the rest of those rights.
For all the blather about loading up for a strike (and that nasty ghetto talk about a "beat down" for anyone who scabs -- except those who get hired to work for $100,000 a year at CTU? -- in the face of real world politics, Illinois and Chicago style, Stewart and her lobbyists have gone along with Mayor Daley's plans. Look at what has happened to Chicago's schools since they took over in 2004. Ask to see the legislation they've tried to pass to completely eliminate the Amendatory Act. Ask them to show the legislation and lobbying record to eliminate the ban on CTU organizing charter schools. For that matter, ask to see their own legislation (or local paperwork) to stop CPS from using its powers under Daley's dictatorship to close schools.
After a few perfunctory complaints, one really silly demonstration, and some media posturing, Stewart pulled back even from a sustained opposition to school closings, which are one of the pillars of privatization through charters under "Renaissance 2010." And the union's "Renaissance 2010" committee has been strangled -- by Stewart's people!
The only instances of challenges to the school closings and charter giveaways have been weak ones. Stewart hasn't even been to the Board of Education meetings the past four months (except to stand up and praise Tom Reece!). School closings and charter privatization are linked. The fomula is that CPS pays to rehab a building -- Bunche; Englewood; Collins -- then Arne Duncan and CPS give the property away for five or ten years to privatization, amid a big flurry of propaganda like we see at every Board meeting. Often (ACE, Chicago International Washington Park; Englewood High School) the deal also involves a crooked alderman like Arenda Troutman (whose ward has the largest number of charters or soon-to-be charters (like Wadsworth and Englewood).
Stewart mumbles a few words and then disappears. She does just enough so that she can claim she was "doing" something, but she's continuing her tradition (from 1995 on) of being Daley's lapdog on the key issues of corporate "school reform."
Let's take a big example of the difference, one that changed the location of every other Board meeting for the past four years...
From the first "Renaissance" attack on democratic public schools, Debbie Lynch was in opposition across the board (and across the Board). The first "Renaissance" came a year before "Renaissance 2010" -- the closing of Williams, Terrell and Dodge. Lynch held meetings at the schools, organized public protests (with the use of the union's massive resources) and took the fight to every corner of the city.
People here might remember that the old Board of Education used to hold its meetings every other month at schools. But most people don't remember that the reason Arne Duncan and Michael Scott got frightened away from those school based meetings was that in April 2004 (when Marilyn Stewart and her colleagues -- who weren't there -- were doing everything they could to sabotage Debbie Lynch prior to the May 2004 election) Debbie Lynch led more than 1,000 (my first count; I was there) teachers and other union members (including members of the other staff unions) in massive opposition to those closings at the Board's meeting at Herzl Elementary School on Douglas Blvd.
The Board members, Arne Duncan, and guys like Eden Martin (the Ayn Rand crazy who wrote "Renaissance 2010" for the Civic Committee) were so frightened by that April 2003 Herzl meeting that they never again allowed Chicago's Board of Education to meet outside the tightly sealed confines of 125 S. Clark St. That's the main reasons why Chicago Board of Education meetings never have enough seats for citizens and everyone is packed into those "overflow rooms" on the 19th floor. It's not that they fill the small number of seats with highly paid administrators (and every month or two, with "social worker trainees" -- a big favorite of mine). It's not that Jeannie gets to save 40 seats for the charter school touts (like two months ago) while everyone else is up on 19.
It's because Arne Duncan and the Board have been afraid to meet at a truly public place since April 2003, when Debbie Lynch brought teachers and parents to a Board meeting to protest against the early "Renaissance."
Even after Debbie Lynch "lost" the 2004 election, she continued to lead protests and protest against the school closings and charterizations.
Most recently, early 2006. From January on (when Arne proclaimed that "deficit" that has now been proven to be a lie by the annual audited financial reports), 950 teaching and aide jobs were threatened with elimination by Arne Duncan from the special education ranks, Debbie Lynch and some of her colleagues (while teaching full time) protested at the Board of Education and at the Board's annual budget hearings.
Marilyn Stewart didn't even bother to send one of her $100,000-a-year staff people to any of the three budget hearings last June (at Lincoln Park HS, Finkl Elementary, and Harlan High School). Of course, Marilyn can't understand the Board's deliberately obscure budget, and she doesn't have anyone on her bloated patronage staff who can read and explain it, either. So maybe it was best she not try to talk about the budget -- even as the special education ranks and the children she claims to love so much were under attack!
After she didn't do anything about the budget or the budget hearings, Marilyn Stewart continues to do what she usually does: little, nothing, and sometimes a bit in between those two extremes.
So she didn't do anything for the June 28 Board meeting -- until the other unions and the disability rights groups invited her to say a few words at that massive protest against the cuts on June 28, with the big press conference in the lobby. CTU didn't organize that event, and CTU barely had an impact on that event. In fact, if you read what Marilyn actually said when the TV cameras were rolling, you'd laugh if you didn't cry. Remember, special education was being cut, union jobs were being lost, and children were going to be placed in danger.
Once Marilyn Stewart was off the TV, however, she went back to doing nothing about the special ed cuts, even though hundreds of her members were cut after July 1. The Corey H case has been in court at least once a month since July. Only once did Stewart have someone in court (and then, a low ranking legal flunky from the expensive outside law firm the union put back on the dole after Stewart took over).
Since then, the protests have been led by the other unions (most notably SEIU Local 73, which represents the bus aides, child welfare attendants, and speciial educaton classroom assistants, more than 300 of whom were cut) and the disability rights groups like Access Living Chicago and Designs for Change.
Since July 1, 2006, Stewart has once again betrayed those of her own union's members who had their jobs cut when the Board of Education (lying about its "deficit" as I've reported and others have backed up) cut $26.5 million from special education services.
Not only did Stewart sit in silence, but her own staff couldn't to this day tell you how the law and budget work in releation to these cuts, let alone point to a record -- during the past six months! -- of either supporting the rights of the disabled children she once taught or the rights of the union members who've lost their jobs while she watched.
Sorry for going on so long.
I hope this answers those anonymous rhetorical questions, but if not, I'll stop by this thread Saturday and see how things are going. It's a very bust time, as those who will be at PURE tonight or those who are following mayoral elections know.
One last point (for today): Barack Obama would not be in the United States Senate today if Debbie Lynch and her team had not forced the unions to back him when he was still the Number Two candidate for the Democratic nomination. Marty Magreal has already clarified that little bit of history. At the time, Marilyn Stewart's Daley fans and most of the Regulars were backing Dan Hynes. Debbie (along with Howard Heath and the rest of her team) pulled out all stops to get some real muscle behind Obama.
By the way, what's CTU's current leadership doing in relation to the City Council elections? Or will they get around to that after March 1 -- when the election is being held February 27. Given Marilyn Stewart's record in political and legislative action (forget about their being able to read and articulate a critique of the Board of Education's budget; let's just look at what they claim to be "smart" about), you can count on her doing nothing against the Daley incumbents who have now dotted their lawns with signs daying "Daley _____" (fill in the name of the local alderman: Reboyas; Levar; even Helen Schiller have their names on the same sign as Daley!).
There is a lot of politics going on right now.
While Marilyn Stewart sits on the sidelines and tries the same strategy she had between 2001 and 2004: sabotage everything and then try and blame Debbie Lynch for the mess.
Posted by: George Schmidt | January 18, 2007 at 07:57 AM
Wow. You convinced me. So what can a normal teacher (non-rep) do to help elect Lynch?
Posted by: | January 18, 2007 at 08:30 AM
So basically, Stewart calls for a strike, but keeps getting her 100,000 salary?!?! That's like Bush taking us to war when he's never gone himself.
Posted by: | January 18, 2007 at 08:40 AM
George talks about allowing charter school teachers to join the CTU, but is there any evidence that charter school teachers, as a group, have any interest in joining the CTU.
I think if you allow for the natural progression of things this whole charter thing will work itself out. If charters don't start to show that they are truly outperforming traditional public schools, those that aren't will be forced to close because of lack of funding. Large foundations are starting to look at charters with a lot more scrutiny as they invest their dollars.
Meanwhile, the charters that do start or continue to perform at higher levels than traditional public schools, might actually develop some best practices that could be implemented in other CPS schools. That is if public charters and traditional public schools decide to swallow their pride and attempt to learn from one another.
At the same time, if charter school teachers ever feel like they are getting a bum deal as non-union members, they'll form their own union. But seeing as how most charters are paying competitive or better salaries than CPS, with comparable benefits, I don't see that happening.
In the end, a union strike over the expansion of charters could be a huge mistake at this point in time, as it would do little to rouse the sympathies of the tax-paying public, and is certainly not(at least in any way that I can see) in the best interest of our students.
Posted by: A Charter Proponent | January 18, 2007 at 08:51 AM
Who would want to join a union that is threatening to force a strike, forcing its members to lose pay? I'm in the union and I want out! Or at least more competent mature leadership. I'll only strike if Stewart agrees to forfeit her own pay while we do ours.
Posted by: | January 18, 2007 at 01:02 PM
8:51 AM states that George “talks about allowing charter school teachers to join the CTU, but is there any evidence that charter school teachers, as a group, have any interest in joining the CTU.” George in his post never talked about this it was raised by “a delegate who voted for President Stewart.” As this anonymous delegate indicated it is illegal for any charter school teacher’s group to join the CTU and I think by the wording of the law quoted by the delegate it might also be illegal for a stand alone charter school union to join the American Federation of Teachers and its Illinois affiliate.
George seemed very miffed that this anonymous delegate actually quoted Substance to show how Lynch publicly presented the deal she cut in order to get the amendment that allowed the 4.5 bill to be passed. What is clear from George’s own paper is that Lynch was less than strait forward in her presentation to the House on this issue completely leaving out the fact that the amended charter law she and the “business community” agreed on continued to retain language that prevented charter school teachers from becoming part of the CTU. George in his post avoids this issue like the plague.
George goes on and on about the crimes of the UPC and how they were in bed with Daley. No doubt true, but the CFL and the CTU were in bed with Daley’s machine long before Tom was president when Lynch was part of the CTU Quest Center along with the late John Kotsakis, who was an assistant to Jacqueline Vaughn who George ran against for the CTU presidency in 1988 getting 40% of the vote.
George writes: “In the real world, also, Debbie Lynch had to deal with the reality of Daley's political power.” I do not disagree with that, but how is that consistent with her comment quoted by the anonymous delegate: "Whoever gets elected will represent the union at the bargaining table. They say you can't fight City Hall. We say you can, and we did and we intend to do it again.”
If Lynch intends on fighting Daley like she did before we are in trouble for sure. 8;51 AM does raise the issue of whether the CTU going on strike over the "over the expansion of charters could be a huge mistake at this point in time." Does George argee, more importantly does Stewart and Lynch agree with 8:51?
Posted by: | January 18, 2007 at 01:05 PM
I would like to suggest that the reason Union candidates have shied away from Mayoral politics is that the majority of CTU members have been and, sadly, still are likely to support Daley in the next election. However, He has proven that his policies are not in our best interests and the current CTU leadership has done nothing to stand in the way of those policies. This year, it should be different. This year, our union leadership should be joining forces with Daley's opponents and putting the mayor on notice that we will not accept his current policies in our next contract. Beyond that, the current leadership should be making it very clear to all of us what exactly is in its contract proposal. Why are they so willing to share their demands with the CPS attorneys and not with those of us they represent? This entire election should be about stemming the tide of the Daley education agenda and the details of the next contract. Whomever offers real, public solutions will get my vote. The last thing we need is an August surprise or a strike orchestrated to offset any raises we might gain. If our leadership is already talking strike, they had better be damn clear about why we're striking.
Posted by: Andrew Martinek | January 21, 2007 at 11:38 PM
People who take things like major contract negotiations seriously prepare in many ways, one of which is through research. So tonight the name to remember is James ("Jim") Franczek and the full name is "Franczek Sullivan."
For those who are reading back issues of various papers to try and make sense out of the past five, eight, or twelve years, one stop might be the little piece I did about Franczek - Sullivan. Franczek Sullivan is the law firm that represents the Daley empire at the bargaining table with all the unions. Franczek Sullivan (specifically, the main guy, Jim Franczek) was who Debbie Lynch actually negotiated with in 2003.
Franzcek - Sullivan takes in millions of dollars a year from the various public budgets that pay for the firm's work. They also represent the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) in front of Judge Robert Gettleman on the "Corey H" special education case (discussed here at various points since July 1 when the special education cuts went into effect in Chicago).
Franczek's entire objective is to "reduce labor costs" and weaken the rights of the people who work for the various departments of Daley's empire. Daley's lawyers do this by negotiating to reduce benefits, undermine job security, and, of course, freeze or reduce pay -- for "represented" employees.
Their presence in Corey H was something of a mystery until this year, when the Board's violations of special education children's rights became a way of "reducing staff position..."
One of the big jokes around town nowadays is the idea of Marilyn Stewart and Ted Dallas, neither of whom has a clue as to what is in the Board's $5 billion annual budget (or even where) negotiating with Jim Franczek and coming out with even their socks.
Anyone who wants to check this out should go to the CTU and ask to see the union's research library of materials on the Board's budget. For the current (FY 2007, 2006-2007) school year, that material should include the preliminary budget, the final budget, and various position files, a tracking of the Board's expenses since the budget was passed, and the audited financial statements and annual report (which was approved by the Board at the December 20 meeting and mailed to everyone who has requested it last Thursday and Friday).
Nobody on the CTU staff has any idea what's in any of those documents. And I was told they threw out (as in the garbage) the library of those materials going back through FY 2004 that I had put together over there. They really didn't want to know.
Clueless, however, is not cute when you are responsible directly for your more than 30,000 members, indirectly for the other unions (whose contracts will be patterned on CTU for the big ticket things), and (more indirectly) indirectly for the system's more than 400,000 regular public school children (including one of my sons by September) and their families.
Marilyn Stewart has had more than two years to learn how the system works, and that learning requires understanding those numbers in those budgets. As everyone who has paid attention knows, she and her "team" spent the years since 2004 slandering and attacking Debbie Lynch like a swarm of undereducated Karl Roves, just as they spent the years between 2001 and 2004 disrupting the union from the inside and trying to blame the leadership at that time (Lynch, Howard Heath, etc.) for everything that was "wrong."
So today, with an enormous job ahead of them, they couldn't even answer ten questions on the simplest multiple choice test about the CPS budgets, things like TIFs, or any of the other facts and realities that will underlie the next six to nine months and yield many dramatic headlines.
As the stories say: "Be afraid. Be very afraid."
Posted by: George Schmidt | January 22, 2007 at 03:58 AM
With friends like George Schmidt, Debbie Lynch doesn't need any enemies.
Posted by: | January 22, 2007 at 01:11 PM
Schmidt's first piece in the string is pretty disgusting. Especially his attack on the black parent who called him a "racist." He then goes on to dismiss her son with one word--"gang banger"--proving his parent critic to be correct and giving the reader some insight into Schmidt's own approach as an educator.
Posted by: | January 22, 2007 at 01:23 PM
Wait a second! Charter school teachers make the same if not more than CPS teachers and we have to pay union dues and are forced to live in the city where the cost of living has skyrocketed? WHAT A DEAL!
Posted by: | January 22, 2007 at 03:06 PM
3:06,
Where did you hear that charter teachers make more? They negotiate. Many at much LOWER salaries.
Posted by: | January 22, 2007 at 03:30 PM
3:06 is very confused. If you look at ISBE school report cards for CPS charter schools you can easily see that the average teacher in Chicago charter schools is making seriously less money than the average CPS teacher.
One of the very best paid charters is Nobel Street charter high which in 2005 paid their average teacher $44,362. Their average teacher had 8.3 years teaching experience. A CPS teacher with the same experience and only a BA would have made about $18,549 more than this average Nobel Street Charter High teacher. In addition the CPS teacher would have recieved a pension pick up of $3,697 a year. I have no idea how much of the required pension payments if any is picked up by Nobel Street. If you want to see the basis for this information go to:
http://www.ctunet.com/___media/contract_information/TSCHA-01_05.pdf
3:06 says that charter school teachers have to pay union dues. They do not have to pay union dues. They by law must pay into the Chicago teacher pension fund. To put it simple this charter school teacher is confused or has been fooled by his charter administration.
a delegate who voted for President Stewart
Posted by: | January 22, 2007 at 04:01 PM
So why do the teachers who teach at Nobel do it for $18,500 less than they could get at a non-charter school? There must be some other reward. Of course, as 3:06 said, they don't have to pay union dues so that's a savings, and they don't have to live in the city and that could be another savings. Maybe it's just that working with children whose families are more likely to be supportive of education is worth it in the minds of these teachers.
Posted by: cermak_rd | January 22, 2007 at 05:35 PM
I am 3:06 and I said we as in CPS teachers have to pay union dues and live in the city, so 4:01 please get your fact straight before responding. Also, I was also questioning another post that said charter schools pay the same or above CPS union salaries (But seeing as how most charters are paying competitive or better salaries than CPS, with comparable benefits, I don't see that happening. From 8:51).
The $18,000 difference is taxed higher so that negates some of the difference, union dues take out another chunk and who is to say that the pension pickup is actually going to be there when we are set to retire? How many pension funds have gone belly up? There are no guarantees. I agree with cermak rd completely!
Posted by: | January 22, 2007 at 07:27 PM
One of the best ways to get facts straight, 7:27 p.m., is to start with facts -- or at least asking the right questions to the right people or agencies.
I'm a little confused about where the facts cited here are coming from (both from "cermak rd" and "7:27" in this thread).
SOME MUSINGS....
USUAL WARNING HERE. LENGTHY...
There seem to be two big factual issues swirling here, and I like both of them: pensions and comparative salaries (charters versus publics).
Pensions first...
Rhetorical questions like "How many pension funds have gone belly up?" are not very helpful. The answer (insofar as those "When did you stop beating your wife?" can and should be answered) is that very few public sector pension funds have gone "belly up" (metaphors often get in the way facts, so factuate that, too). Six years ago, when the economy was booming during the dot.com bubble, Chicago's teacher fund was well over 90 percent funded (and that's a slippery number, by the way, that you need to get behind before you can talk about it). Today that is not so, but the Chicago teacher fund is not the TRS (the Illinois Teachers Retirement System) that has been in the press because it became such a political football. The Chicago fund, nearly 100 years old, is currently paying pensions from a few dollars to more than $100,000 a year (Cozette Buckney; Phil Hansen; and a couple of other Vallas cronies) to retired Chicago teachers, principals, and administrators.
As to the private sector Defined Benefit pension funds that have been ended, there are some very complicated factual questions about those. Many of those questions pertain to corporate practices right here in Chicago, beginning more than two decades ago at Wisconsin Steel, which was then a subsidiary of International Harvester. If you really want factual precision, steer clear of those fatuous metaphors that can clutter the mind.
As to public funds in Illinois (and Chicago), the recent screaming headlines in the Sun-Times about the public funds came from a report by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club. Factually, the recent screamer about public pensions in Illinois was the work of Eden Martin, the same guy who wrote "Left Behind", the plan behind "Renaissance 2010". Martin is a propagandist for corporate thinking, and fairly good at it. But his stuff (read "Left Behind") is filled with some economic and political assumptions that skew every fact he renders for public consumption. He's marketing a privatization agenda under the guise of "reporting." Just because he wears thousand dollar suits and is backed by CEO money doesn't mean what he says is accurate or that his facts and claims shouldn't be doublechecked. What he says will just get broader play in Chicago's current media realities than some alternatives. A lot of "news" in Chicago today is simply corporate propaganda.
Anyone who simply quotes "facts" as spun by the city's corporate CEOs (which is who makes up the "Civic Committee") needs to at least read the data charts and footnotes carefully nd critically.
Charitably, these guys are filled with Enron-type methodologies. A lot of them are really "Atlas Shrugged" zealots. Not exactly mainstream, but powerful. Review their claims before quoting, either about the charterization of public schools or the doomsday scenarios for public pension funds.
But even if many (private) pension funds have gone "belly up". (Actually, they were usually stripped by corporate raiders, or looted by crooks). So what?
The question is whether a particular public defined benefit fund is doing well (in this case, Chicago's teacher fund).
The facts there are very open. Anyone can attend the meetings of the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund and their activities are subject to the Freedom of Information Act. They have a website that is much easier to navigate (and much more detailed) than the CPS swamp. While we both agree that facts are important, please do a little fact checking before you go down this road again. (lame meataphor; meaning clear?)
What's neat about this thread is that Eden Martin has weighed in with corporate propaganda on both questions here: public pensions and charter schools.
Your second set of "facts" (and here I'm definitely using quotation marks, because the stuff you're saying about charter school pay is not factual) also need some fact checking.
Let's take charter school teacher salaries. I don't know how anyone can have anything to say about them, since they are (to use the word Cross City Campaign used to describe the CPS budget) "murky." If you can direct us here to a charter website (and they really love to promote themselves on their websites) that actually lists teacher-by-teacher salary-by-salary, please do. I haven't looked in a week, but you can go to most school districts and get the answers to these questions. Or you can go to most local school councils and get the answers to these questions.
But can you with Chicago's charter schools?
Factually, CPS salaries are, with a little pushing, transparent. Last week, after some months of pushing, CPS provided me with the current Position File and the final Position File from FY 2006. That's public information, although they sabotaged a couple of tries up in the data centers when I asked for the information back in August. I suspect that they did that because Arne didn't want the details of the special education cuts coming out, but all I know factually is that it was back and forth from August, through September, into October, November and December regularly requesting the position files, and then, Voila!, last week they were in front of me (and are on the hard drive on this computer now, as I've noted here at District 299...).
So the facts about how much everyone at CPS is getting paid are available to the public. This is as they should be. The position file, which gives salaries, and is updated throughout the year, can be gotten under FOIA. That's how I can say that Hosannah is currently budgeted at $145,000 a year, that she is using the name "Mahaley" in that iteration of her iterations, and that there are now dozens of assistant principals earning more than $100,000 a year. CPS should make each fiscal year's position files public on the CPS website, but that's another question. If you ask, you can get the spreadsheets.
Now let's talk about the charter schools, and how much they are spending on people (from executives to teachers).
An honest question "7:27" and "cermak" -- Where did you get any information -- facts -- about charter school salaries this year in Chicago?
You didn't get it from the charter school websites. Cute marketing, but not a lot of facts. Most public school district websites are boring, but they usually give the basic facts. Visit any of the suburban district websites and you can see what I mean. Last year, I spent some time going around both physically and on the Web from Evanston all the way out to Lincolnshire, and at each stop it was easy to get lots of information. Beyond the information anyone can get from the districts themselves, there is still "The champion..." website, which likes to rail against public school teacher pay. Even the puerile Chicago Teachers Union website (and many of the sites of the other union locals across Illinois) gives the teachers' contract, which includes all the salary schedules.
Where is the same transparency from the Chicago charters, which this year will become one of the four largest school districts in Illinois (in terms of students)?
It's one of the bigger scandals in the state that all those tax dollars are pouring into Chicago charters is such unaccoubtable ways. Not a scandal because it hasn't hit the Tribune or Sun-Times? Think about that...
The charters' websites are more like those pop up ads you get on the Internet. Lots of marketing, few facts. Some of them have a strange zealotry to them, and maybe some doses of mystical intensity. But a few bare bones facts about who gets how much to do what? No.
If you didn't get the facts from the charter websites, where did you get them?
Not from CPS, which claims the charter school salaries are not part of their position files.
From what I've seen (partial, to be sure), the charter schools, in general, are paying teachers significantly lower than CPS, and radically lower than suburban high schools. The lack of "transparency" about salaries is part of that "at will employee" schtick that's their base line, when all is said and done.
Anyone who wants to can take the CPS position files, job by job, and compare the salaries directly with the salaries at the charter schools. If you can get salaries for charter school people.
Since the CPS position file also includes the "Start Date" for each employees, you can get a rough estimate of the seniority of each employee.
But where are the data for charter school salaries, benefits, and other employee perks?
The charter schools made it difficult, if not impossible, to get facts about what they are paying their people, and a great deal more about their general operations.
This seems especially true when we get into the more exotic executive realms. The information is certainly not being provided through CPS, despite the fact that Board of Education property taxes are going to the charters to pay those salaries (and those exotic job titles).
I agree with one thing you said 7:27: "Please get your facts straight..."
Let us know how long it takes you to get a current list of every employee at every charter school (er., "campus") in Chicago. Then see if you can get anything near the information CPS will provide you if you request, under FOIA, the current "Position File".
As to the Chicago teachers' pension fund, your opnions on that, too, could use a little facting before you venture forth into the realm of fact again...
Posted by: George Schmidt | January 23, 2007 at 04:38 AM
George, I usually tend to agree to some extent with you, but my post above, which you took issue with, started as an if Noble street charter teachers make 18,500 less, which was what the person above me had as their average difference. My post was about the question, why do teachers do it and suggesting that non-tangible differences may play into it as well as the tangibles of not living in the city and not paying union dues.
Posted by: cermak_rd | January 23, 2007 at 01:50 PM
I think the 18,500 was a little high, more like 10,000 from what I saw on the CTU pay schedule. But the delegate is also assuming that the 8 years of experience listed in Nobel St. Charter High School's ISBE report card would be accepted by CPS as step years. Since a lot of these teachers were not certified in IL, my guess is no.
So I think when charter teachers say they are getting paid the same or more than CPS teachers they are talking about step 1 lane 1.
I think the answer as to why these teachers with 8 years of teaching experience would work for so much less can be found in the fact that their prior teaching experiences were in private schools without certification or outside IL. Therefore, they never would get to step 8 in CPS. No doubt there are also people who are willing to work for less because they believe in Nobel St., live by it, or whatever.
The pension payments are clearly killing these charter teachers, I do wonder how much of these costs if any are picked up by charters. If anyone knows please post.
Posted by: | January 23, 2007 at 02:34 PM