The latest in the Illinois/Chicago teachers v. the privatizers doesn't sound good

[Hannah Bell]

Anti-teacher bill up in the state leg:

CHICAGO - Under the guise of "school reform," big corporate foundations, banking and speculative hedge fund investors are pulling out all stops to ram a measure through the Illinois state legislature that outlaws teachers' right to strike, and eliminates tenure and seniority rights.

The measure, deceptively called the Performance Counts Act, was actually written by these same interests and is expected to be voted on in the state House within days.


The three teachers' unions, including CTU, have offered an alternative plan, but according to this commenter, it's still a give-away:

The General Assembly is notorious for last-minute deals that rarely work in our favor. So, why should it be different this time?

Going in to this lame duck session the teachers unions’ leadership had two goals.

Like with the runaway train in the movie Unstoppable, they hoped to be Denzel. Perhaps they could keep the train from becoming a catastrophe by slowing it down.

They also wanted the three main union players, the IEA, IFT and the CTU, to jointly agree upon an alternative proposal that a majority in the GA could agree to and was less draconian than the reformy proposals.

They also wanted the three main union players, the IEA, IFT and the CTU, to jointly agree upon an alternative proposal that a majority in the GA could agree to and was less draconian than the reformy proposals.

Given just about two weeks to draft an alternative proposal, lawyers for the Chicago Teachers Union, the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Education Association worked through the holidays and came up with a plan they call “Accountability for All.”

Although they differ in the details, the proposals have similar elements. Both would link a teacher’s classroom performance to the granting of tenure, recertification and decisions on dismissal for incompetence, filling job vacancies or reductions in force.

Performance would be measured in part by student achievement. Both proposals would streamline dismissal, but the union version would require better support for teachers in such areas as professional development and remediation.

While the members have been bombarded with requests to call our reps to support the union alternative proposal, I can’t bring myself to support the further erosion of our union rights, even if it is not as bad as the reformy one. It is not as bad by very little.

http://preaprez.wordpress.com/

[DrDan]

1. no surprise that this would be happening in Arne's back yard

[adnelson60087]

2. As we teachers and our unions fall

so does the future educational opportunities of so many children and our Nation's well-being.

[Hannah Bell]

3. More here:

The Chicago Teachers Union leadership went into overdrive Wednesday night, January 5, 2011, at the House of Delegates meeting to fire up an army of teachers to fight back against legislation proposed in Springfield that seeks to dismantle teachers' collective bargaining rights, tenure, and the ability to strike.

"It was eye opening how quickly they fired the gun at us," CTU vice president Jesse Sharkey told the delegates at the Union of Operating Engineers on January 5. "It's not clear we're going to stop this, but we will know we've made a conscious effort to stop it."

The fast-track proposed legislation called Performance Counts comes courtesy of the Gates Foundation and two foundation-funded Illinois groups (Advance Illinois and Stand for Children) to severly curb teacher union rights that include job protections and contract negotiations over class size and school schedules. "Performance Counts" is expected to be voted on by both houses of the Illinois General Assembly before the current lame duck session adjourns on January 11.

Lewis, also in stark contrast to her predecessor Marilyn Stewart who spoke more in short sound bites, informed her delegates about the rough game being played downstate.

She said CPS told politicians in Springfield that just the threat of a strike causes the Board of Education to "fold and give up everything," and that CPS has been begging for a longer school day. Lewis quoted some of the more dubious "studies" that CPS officials are using the blame the CTU for the problems of Chicago's schools.

Lewis also noted that former CPS Chief Executive Officer Ron Huberman, who resigned at the end of November, continues to bad mouth teachers and was actively lobbying against the CTU in Springfield, among other things by telling legislators that Chicago school teachers' ACT scores are "low" without telling the legislators how he got this information and what it means. This drew gasps from many in the crowd at the House of Delegates, who have been recepients of Huberman's memos and emails touting his data management and how wonderful a job the teachers are doing.

"We asked if there was a bill and they said no," Lewis said about the games being played in Springfield. "But sure, there was a draft of a bill and on Friday (December 17, at the hearing in Aurora). They asked us to 'turn to page 40,'" Lewis told the delegates.

She was referring to the "Performance Counts" proposed legislation... At the time Lewis spoke to the delegates, on January 5, it was technically true that there was no "bill" because nobody had agreed to sponsor a bill. But the document that had been circulating since December... Substance has also learned that the House "school reform" committee did not maintain a stenographer's transcript of the December 16 and December 17 hearings... It is almost as if the actual wording of the law will be kept secret until, at the last minute, members of the Illinois House and Senate are told to vote on it.

If the proposed legislation passes, Lewis said, all teachers can do is bargain for wages and benefits. The proposal that was discussed on December 16 and December 17 covered all union teachers in Illinois, not just Chicago.

Lewis detailed a warning about the impact of the corporate media on the unions' lobbying work in Springfield. "We are losing the PR battle after thirty years of teacher and union bashing," she continued. She told the delegates that we need to "flip the script." She said that she's been pointing out (of Stand for Children) that they're outsiders from Oregon...

During Lewis speech she received word that another anti-teacher bill just passed the legislature. The bizarre new law would void a teachers contract six months after a union election.

"You can wait for the union office to do something," Lewis told the delegates in conclusion, "or we can take the place back ourselves."

Lewis then asked the delegates to do "instant lobbying" from the meeting. Lewis, and the other officers, took out their cell phones and dialed their own state reps and senators, and many of the delegates did likewise during a short break in the meeting. The meeting then came back to order.

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1898§ion=Article