Chicago Teachers Union files 2nd suit against Rahm's board of education...intimidating questions.

[madfloridian]

Teachers applying for work are asked questions that go to whether they would stand up against attacks on collective bargaining. The pdf of the complaint to the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board says the questionaire asks "how the applicant would respond to violations of the collective bargaining agreement."

I doubt they would even ask that if they did not intend to do some violating of the collective bargaining agreement. And don't forget this IS Rahm's school board. He has mayoral control, he is in charge of the schools.

From the Chicago Tribune November 1:

Union files complaint over 'TeacherFit' survey

The complaint, filed Tuesday with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board, alleges that the lengthy survey included questions that, the union says, discouraged prospective teachers from joining together for protection against their employer or asserting rights under the teachers contract.

Union attorney Robert Bloch said such questions were used to weed out teaching applicants who might make complaints against their superiors or talk over sensitive issues with co-workers.

That is intimidating.

More NBC Chicago:

Teacher's Union Files Another Suit Against Rahm's Board of Ed

The Chicago Teachers Union has filed suit against the Chicago Board of Education, claiming the board is illegally interviewing teacher applicants about their feelings about collective bargaining.

If the respondents do not provide satisfactory answers on the "TeacherFit" questionnaire, the suit alleges, they are not considered for employment. This is the second suit the Union has filed against the city in recent months.

Here are several of the questions:

Question 22, sub question 7 asks the applicant to state how much he or she agrees with the statement, "I love to challenge the status quo."

Question 27 asks the applicant how he or she would respond to being assigned work that takes away from class preparation and requires working over lunch breaks, evenings and weekends (a direct reference to longer school days.)

Question 30 asks the applicant how he or she would feel about a job that would require the applicant to regularly work after hours.

Challenge the status quo? Wow, where I taught the last few years there was none of that at all. We questioned nothing. There was hell to pay if we did. I once got warned by the principal not to be critical of Jeb Bush at the teachers' lunch table. I was told it disturbed others.

So I guess the correct answer to the last two is that one would not mind at all. Right?

The Labor Relations Board ruled against Rahm on the first complaint, and they said he acted illegally.

Breaking: Illinois Ed Labor Relations Board rules Rahm acted illegally on longer school day.

The longer school day started at more than a dozen Chicago Public Schools should be halted, the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board ruled Thursday, essentially siding with the Chicago Teachers Union in its bitter dispute with district officials.

The move is a blow to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s push to implement a longer day this year, and district officials said they were “disappointed” with the board’s decision.

The school officials made it look like the teachers were against a longer school day, when in fact it was not true at all. They were standing up against a mayor who was bribing schools and teachers to go against their union contract and join with the reformers on the longer day. It's called union busting.

Chicago CPO threatened school closings, banned union reps from consulting with teachers.

“Asking our members to void parts of their own contract it is unethical and illegal,” union president Karen Lewis said today.

“We want them to cease and desist from its unlawful activity, restore our teachers’ rights, post appropriate notices of its intent to extend school hours and tell us how they intend to make the school day better for our children. We’ve asked them over and over to work with us, not against us.”

The complaint, filed with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board, contends CPS: threatened to close schools if teachers did not approve contract modifications; interrogated teachers about their union activities; directed teachers to report their communications with the union; wrote and distributed the contract waiver; and banned union representatives from consulting with teachers before they were coerced into waiving parts of their labor contract.

Public school teachers and their unions were not treated this badly and with this much contempt even during the Bush administration. The goals of the Bush I and II might have been the same...in fact the Obama administration is fulfilling those goals.....but they never publicly attacked teachers like this.

[Autumn]

1. K&R #5 and off you go

great post and your last sentence says it so well.

[madfloridian]

2. Thanks. Arne himself set up several confrontations with unions last year.

BTW the recs are going down, not up. :D That happens a lot, you know.

Arne warned states not to "water down" education plans to please unions.

"Mr. Duncan said in an interview that he welcomed the friction between union and state officials but warned against states weakening their overhaul plans simply to win buy-ins from unions. "Watered-down proposals with lots of consensus won't win," he said. "And proposals that drive real reform will win."

[chervilant]

4. And,

as you've noted so eloquently many times before, Arne hasn't offered us one scintilla of a hint what constitutes 'real reform.'

[saras]

14. Sure he has - just get out of the way of the corporations, and let them decide.

[madfloridian]

15. He has the same contempt for teachers as he has for liberals.

Rahm said not to let liberal wing have much say...2006...WP

""The complexion of the Democratic presence in Congress will change as well. Party politics will be shaped by the resurgence of "Blue Dog" Democrats, who come mainly from the South and from rural districts in the Midwest and often vote like Republicans. Top Democrats such as Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) see these middle-of-the-road lawmakers as the future of the party in a nation that leans slightly right of center.

In private talks before the election, Emanuel and other top Democrats told their members they cannot allow the party's liberal wing to dominate the agenda next year. Democrats will hold 30 or 35 seats that went for Bush in the past, meaning that Democratic candidates such as Brad Ellsworth in rural Indiana are likely to face competitive races again in 2008. Still, their interests are likely to collide with those of veteran liberals such as Reps. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.) and John Conyers Jr., (Mich.), who will chair committees."

[madfloridian]

3. I would say that Rahm and his ed cronies like Brizard...don't get the OWS message

at all.

[madfloridian]

5. Union head was asked what about about Arne's "golden aura." Said "he's tall."

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/Felsenthal-Files/November-2011/Chicago-Teachers-Union-Pres-Karen-Lewis-on-Rahm-Brizard-Arne-Duncan-and-the-Longer-School-Day/

[midnight]

8. Too funny.....

[Divernan]

11. Arne completely unqualified; hired because of his U.of Chicago ties to Obama

Says union president, Karen Lewis.

Later today, this blog will post part two of the interview, where the black female professional educator from Chicago's south side discusses Obama's presidency, the Occupy Chicago movement, her experience at Dartmouth College, and why she left the class room for the board room.

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/Felsenthal-Files/November-2011/Chicago-Teachers-Union-Pres-Karen-Lewis-on-Rahm-Brizard-Arne-Duncan-and-the-Longer-School-Day/

But in person, Lewis, 58—South Sider (grew up in Hyde Park, now lives in the Oakland neighborhood), CPS lifer (Kenwood, ‘71), daughter of two teachers, former high-school chemistry teacher (Sullivan, Lane Tech, King College Prep), wife of a now-retired CPS P.E. teacher—has a sharp sense of humor, and intelligence and articulateness to spare. After an hour spent with her at a conference table at the CTU’s headquarters in the Merchandise Mart, if someone asked me to choose a few words to describe her, I’d say “substantial, self-confident, direct.”


CF: So you have an issue with Arne Duncan?
KL: Yeah, because he has a bachelor’s in sociology from Harvard and played basketball ? I think he’s completely and totally unqualified to do this job. And to me, it’s sort of indicative of how education is such a political tool now, as opposed to having a real bent toward education. I think this is a way for Obama to try to make an olive branch with Republicans. There’s this mentality that outsiders and people with no education background are the… experts…. They want to privatize public education…. Arne’s policies here were a disaster.

CF: Give me a couple of examples.
KL: The whole idea of school closings and turnarounds and charter schools…. children were not going to other schools, especially in high school. They were choosing not to go to school…. They had never thought about the ramifications of what a school closing means. So if I close a school here, now this means that my children have to walk through gang territory…. There was just no understanding of community…. There was somebody sitting with a spreadsheet and making decisions without having any experience in that community.

CF: So Arne Duncan becomes Secretary of Education because he has the ties to the Obamas through the University of Chicago Lab School?
KL: Yes.... From what we understood—and I wasn’t in the room, so who knows—there was a choice between Linda Darling Hammond—who is a respected researcher, has a PhD—and Arne Duncan, and you pick Arne? …. To me this would be like having a custodian in a hospital be the Surgeon General. He has worked in the hospital. He’s had some experience, but now you’re going to put him in charge?

[madfloridian]

12. That was a good interview by Lewis.

All unions should fight like that.

[midnight]

6. So teaching style and or skill sets are not as important as workers rights

issues when applying for a teaching job.... A very strange agenda for our public schools to be taking up....


P.S... Workers Rights have been developed over years and years of work, and use to be considered a common sense expectation.... Now teachers are being questioned out by how they view these working rights....

[theaocp]

7. Who still supports Rahm Fucking Emmanuel?

You can either claim Obama had him as CoS due to:

1. he was well-qualified and you support him in his endeavors
2. he was ignorant of his machinations

Which is it? Ignorant or complicit? Both?

[Divernan]

9. His BFF, Barack Obama. You can tell a person's character by the company he keeps.

[truebrit71]

10. Yup....

...Which is worse, the republican that announces that they are going to fuck you over with an extreme agenda, or the Dem who fucks you over with an extreme agenda and gives you the "Who me?" face...

Fuck the DLC and fuck their disciples...

[madfloridian]

13. Chicago librarians protesting Rahm tactics as well.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/Photos-Librarians-Protest-Rahms-Budget-132936413.html

Slide show.

[bertman]

16. More of the same from our DLC Democrats. REC. nt

[madfloridian]

21. Yep, the group may be changed, but the leaders linger.

Rahm and his choices imho lost us 3 seats in the FL legislature. They kicked good people out of the races and put their own choices in.

[bertman]

23. Yes, I remember. And now one of his henchwomen is head of the DNC. nt

[immoderate]

17. A wingnut said that teachers demanding smaller class size was "greed."

Really caught me speechless. My response was "that's too stupid to deal with."

Lest you think me not empathetic, I will explain that with each encounter his response has been less rational. As an educator, I always assume that some progress can be made. I seem to make this guy stupider.

From the beginning Obama seemed to be picking the wrong people for a progressive administration. But remember, he was playing three dimensional chess, and twenty-seven steps ahead of us. But Clinton, Geithner, Duncan, Summers, Emanuel did not bode well. Obama became what I thought Clinton would be.

Thanks for the post. :hi:

This made me think of a training exercise that I participated in when I was on the founding faculty of a new middle school that would emphasize social action. They brought in some facilitators from Coro Foundation, and they ran this game for us. One of the most profound and illuminating experiences of my intellectual life. (I know, it's not saying much. :))

Here's a good short description of how it works:
http://www.sustainer.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn151starpowered



--imm

[madfloridian]

18. Wow, ugly game.

"Then comes the insidious part. For the next trading round the Squares draw from a bag laced with high-value chips. The Triangles' bag has low-value chips. After this round a few players change fortunes and switch to a higher or lower group, but mostly the Squares stay Squares, the Triangles stay Triangles, and the gap between them widens.

At this point the Squares are given the power to change the rules. They can reshuffle the chip bags, give away free points, do whatever they like. They can consult the other players on rule changes, if they want to.

They almost never want to.

.."A simple, unpleasant game. A crude representation of a much-more-complicated world. Unforgettable to those who play. It's one thing to know intellectually about social classes. It's another to spend an hour experiencing the rage of a Triangle or the self-righteousness of a Square."

They used to subject us to all kinds of stuff like that during in-service training, but I never encountered that one, thank goodness.

[immoderate]

19. It was a marvelous experience, but then, I was a square.

The game doesn't take long. And nobody wants to play it again. But it's a hands-on compression of a multitude of human interactions. It stars off fun, and then turns into a night mare. People freak out and it's just over worthless chips.

One of the participants was at the bottom of the triangles. By the end of the game he was slumped and despondent; took on the hopeless demeanor I would see in the homeless. I would point out there is catharsis in the session afterward, and the "losers" get to vent and recriminate, and get much sympathy from the group. :)

There are other variations for different levels. But they start at eighth grade.

The official education edition is $249. ! $275 for business, and it's just a bag of chips, and a couple of display cards.

--imm

[madfloridian]

20. Rahm will keep doing what he does in spite of labor board ruling. Wow.

http://www.wbez.org/story/emanuel-defends-longer-school-day-despite-labor-board-ruling-93337#

From Oct 20 when the ruling was in favor of the union:

"Emanuel says he's done nothing wrong and will stick with his plan.

"Our teachers are good. Our kids are great, and the system is stacked against them," said Emanuel. "I know legally we've done the right thing, but I know also we've done the right thing by our kids. And i'm going to stick with it, because it's the right thing for our children today as well as tomorrow."

The labor board will now refer the case to a state circuit court for review. Attorneys say the process could take weeks."

Wow...

[ooglymoogly]

22. Rahm is a closet fascist...He just hasn't figured out his closet

is made of glass.

[freshstart]

Mad...can you get a thread with this article?

dupe...self delete.

[freshstart]

24. Mad...can you get a thread with this article?

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-adler-teachers-20110916,0,2592824.story

I don't know how to do it...and it is excellent. I had these two profs in school...and they know their stuff.

:)

[freshstart]

25. I figured it out!

And started a thread.