Yea because all those union teachers are right on the cusp of voting Republican.
This is strictly Rahm's deal and means less than nothing to the national election.
Right in time for the election, no doubt . . . . how convenient
Yea because all those union teachers are right on the cusp of voting Republican.
This is strictly Rahm's deal and means less than nothing to the national election.
It's a huge negative to unions and teachers that the Obama campaign really doesn't want to see this close to the election. This subject will resonate in every swing state in the country. Not really important in Illinois, but in Pennsylvania, Florida, Colorado, Nevada etc. it's a big issue.
Yea because all those union teachers are right on the cusp of voting Republican.
This is strictly Rahm's deal and means less than nothing to the national election.
This isn't about them. It's about Republicans hammering away on a message that Union members paid $76k are out striking for $100k. The rich getting richer off tax payer dollars.
What's the prominent theme of this topic? Money. Everyone is doing their best to paint the issue that way. High paid folks going on strike looks terrible, and if it becomes a national narrative that Dems are running wild with tax payer money - then it won't look good to the fence sitters and it may sway their vote.
Born and raised in Chicago. First off, that's an average which means exactly shit. Second off, that's not exactly a lot of money for Chicago.
I am generally not a fan of unions and am not defending these teachers but discrediting them based on their salary being too high is foolish, because it's not.
Sounds like that teacher did "teach to the test" - just the wrong test. Had she been doing her job, her students would have known the material they were supposedly mastering. The boogieman of "teaching to the test" is all too often just a cover for incompetence. And incompetent teachers get tenure all the time - it's very hard to find a teacher with enough experience to have tenure who does not have tenure and wants it.Garbage. It's not "nearly impossible to fire a teacher." We can see cases left and right where teachers are fired very rapidly. What tenure guarantees teachers is due process: you cannot be fired without good cause. The only way an incompetent teacher gets tenure in the first place is if the principal & superintendent of the schools completely drops the ball.
Teachers don't mind being evaluated on student performance. What they want is a reasonable & fair way to evaluate this. There was a case in NYC of a teacher evaluated on her performance. She did incredibly poorly - one of the worst math teachers in NY based on their rubric. Her 8th graders had previously been in the 99th percentile. Following the 8th grade specific test, the students dropped to the 89th percentile. That was one of the biggest class drops. Was she ineffective? Not by any stretch of the imagination. She did not "teach to the test" for the state 8th grade test. The students did quite well on that test, though they missed some minutiae that in the grand scheme of things are irrelevant toward further success in mathematics. What her 8th graders did was prepare for the 9th grade exam (Integrated Algebra) - they were advanced. A significant percentage of her class aced the exam. I don't personally know any teachers who get more than a couple percent of their students to get a perfect score on that exam. Her class was among the very best in the entire state on the 9th grade exam, but her performance was poor, because the kids did poorly on the 8th grade exam.
You might be thinking, "yeah, but what idiot wouldn't *realize* that her students were advanced and did so well on the 9th grade exam." The problem is, these rules have to be written down. It's pretty hard to craft a policy that has to be followed to the letter, yet also completely applies common sense.
Think about this for a second. If a teacher knows they are being strictly evaluated based on their students' performance, and ranked against other teachers, what do you think they're going to do? They're going to teach to the test.
So, here, we have you, the public, saying that teachers need to do a better job, they need to do more than just teach to the test. And at the same time, rig the system so that any teacher who goes outside teaching to the test is penalized. The teacher's union has thought this through; hence the objections.
I can see two possible honest advantages in teachers' unions. First, without some sort of protection it's entirely possible for a superintendent or even a principle to move one teacher out in favor of a relative, lover or political supporter.
Second, while I am 100% in favor of testing teachers and holding them accountable, I remember one teacher in a local failing school saying (more or less) "These kids come into 8th grade not able to read and you're going to evaluate me on how well I teach them chemistry?" A union can in theory prevent this kind of no-win situation.
"teaching to the test" should mean doing your damned job.
Born and raised in Chicago. First off, that's an average which means exactly shit. Second off, that's not exactly a lot of money for Chicago.
I am generally not a fan of unions and am not defending these teachers but discrediting them based on their salary being too high is foolish, because it's not.
Unions being held to the fire for more performance (debatable on the metrics uses), more working time, and greater flexibility by the schools to hire by Obama's former chief of staff is a sign of Democrats running wild with taxpayer money. The intellectual twists required to reach that conclusion boggle the mind.
That would be the only difference, "just" $25K? You also work eight months/yr, have a generous pension, plus Cadillac medical and dental?! You must be rich.
Getting ready for a test is called studying. Studying is called learning.
CPS offered the teachers 16% salary increases over four years, plus incentives for better performance. The teachers weren't asked to take on the extra hours without compensation.
You mistakenly attribute the rise in productivity and standard of living of workers due to the innovations of the industrial revolution to the organized labor movement. I don't blame you though, since simple logic and basic economics are not taught in schools any more, replaced now with political slogans and taglines.
Oh certainly, unions have increased wages and reduced work hours...for themselves - the ~10% of the unionized labor force, but at the expense of the 90% whom are not. But the existence of unions is not the reason for the prosperity we have today. Unions did not invent the middle class or the weekend. The increases in productivity brought by freedom, laissez-faire capitalism, and the industrial revolution did.
my boss forces me to work additional hours for the same pay. so fuck the unions. bunch of over paid entitlement minded babies. get to work you fucking pieces of shit or find a different job!
Sounds like that teacher did "teach to the test" - just the wrong test. Had she been doing her job, her students would have known the material they were supposedly mastering. The boogieman of "teaching to the test" is all too often just a cover for incompetence.
I dunno, 76k for 8 months of work seems pretty fucking good to me.
I looks like my explanation wasn't clear enough for you. The kids didn't know some of the minutiae. That is, trivial things that have nothing to do with future skills in math. You're right - education is NOT about remembering how to do specific problems. However, the rest of your statement doesn't necessarily follow. First of all, I didn't say the kids failed. They still managed to score at the 89th percentile. That is, her class did better than 89% of all 8th grade classes in the state - on material that they didn't specifically learn. But, because they "slipped from 99th percentile to 89th percentile", as a result of the rules for evaluation, the teacher was rated as ineffective. Let's put it another way; I'll use a bit of hyperbole. Imagine a teacher takes 8th graders and extends their learning at an accelerated rate until the entire class gets a 5 on the Calculus BC exam, while in 8th grade. But, because one day, they had to stop learning and take some state exam, they didn't ace that exam, because, just how many regular polyhedra are there? How do you calculate the square root of 20 to 4 significant digits by hand? (Never mind that they could just write a MacLaurin series to find it - the person correcting the test will likely have no clue what they were doing & would score it with a zero.)Education is not about remembering how to do specific problems that will be used on specific tests, but general and enough knowledge to tackle all problems of that kind. So saying they failed those tests because they prepared for a different test is stupid, when they should already have the knowledge from a teacher how to tackle those problems, and any problems they may come across.
Sounds like that teacher did "teach to the test" - just the wrong test. Had she been doing her job, her students would have known the material they were supposedly mastering. The boogieman of "teaching to the test" is all too often just a cover for incompetence. And incompetent teachers get tenure all the time - it's very hard to find a teacher with enough experience to have tenure who does not have tenure and wants it.
THEY ALREADY DO. Not that I personally consider the tests that rigorous, but there are national & state tests specifically of subject matter that the teachers must pass in order to be certified to teach those subjects.We need to first test the teachers to make sure they are competent in their fields
*shrug* An independent arbitrator that both the school and union agreed to said it was unfair. While I don't think the report is out there yet I think its safe to assume the arbitrator had significantly more information available than we do here.
The city had already agreed to 4%. Then they changed it to 2% with a bunch of other requirements. They then offered 16% with those requirements. Seems like they don't care about the money - they just want the other stipulations in there. Why else go from 4% to 2% to 16%?* Why even change the raise levels if you were ok paying 4x the originally agreed to amount unless you had some ulterior motive?
* Otherwise it just sounds like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ9EJIvi8PU
it's Chicago. they don't fucking care about the money.
they will fuck over the rest of the state to do it.
second only to california in living the liberal dream!
yeah but that's not what is happening. they are teaching the kids a TEST 1. How to take it, and just the information ON it. not flat out knowledge.
it's Chicago. they don't fucking care about the money.
they will fuck over the rest of the state to do it.