Chicago Teachers: It's Not the Money

As I watch the events in Chicago, affecting many students, parents, and teachers I know well, I am struck by how superficial much of the media coverage of this strike have been. When teachers finally reach the point where they are willing to risk everything by going on strike, it's not money. When money becomes the only thing left to argue about, it means many other things have gone very, very wrong for a very long time. 

Thankfully, there have been some real nuggets buried in the coverage. For example: On her show this past weekend, MSNBC commentator Melissa Harris Perry included on her panel a Chicago high school teacher who spoke passionately about working with 170 students a day while trying to pursue quality education. 

Layered within the CNN coverage have been testimonies, such as this story on one special education teacher:

Her students need special supplies, so she's spent $4,000 to $5,000 of her own money since she began teaching three years ago, she said....

'I teach special education in Chicago because regardless of the working conditions, I am going to find the resources somewhere to make our classroom function,' she wrote on CNN iReport.

These comments and many others are best summed up in a recent blog post about the strike by my Teacher Leader Network colleague and co-author, Barnett Berry in which he focuses on the issues of teacher working conditions and mistrust. Says Barnett, 

Today, Chicago teachers point to their current working conditions that have appeared to have substantially deteriorated—conditions that hurt students and their ability to learn.

Chicago is not the only school system in the nation in which the conditions for students and teachers have worsened. Some teachers, many of them excellent educators, have left either the public schools or the profession in hurt and frustration. Others have chosen, often at the expense of their own families and careers, to stay with their students, trying to do what they can for as many as possible. The CTU teachers have resorted to striking as a means to publicize and change the situation for them and their students. 

In another article, earlier this year, Barnett made "A Revolutionary Suggestion" that one of the best ways to truly reform American public education is to rebuild our trust in teachers: 

We could draw on the expertise of accomplished teachers to craft better student assessments, additional evaluation measures (like peer observation), and systems that support the professional growth of all teachers (whether in their first year or their twentieth).  

Teachers are well-suited to inform teacher development and evaluation. They understand the nuances of the work they do each day—and can help create equally nuanced systems for gauging and supporting teaching effectiveness. They grasp the complexity of their profession.

Will the situation in Chicago be a model, or another missed opportunity to address the real problems?

Comments

[David B. Cohen]

“Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person. The Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti writes that if you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story, and to start with, 'secondly.' Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans, and not with the arrival of the British, and you have an entirely different story. Start the story with the failure of the African state, and not with the colonial creation of the African state, and you have an entirely different story.”
- Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie, from her TED talk, "The Danger of a Single Story"

Start the story with the teachers on strike, and not with the years of deteriorating conditions and destabilizing policies. Start the story with the failing schools, and not the failing social compact.

http://accomplishedcaliforniateachers.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/the-danger-of-a-single-story-part-one/

[Myra Richardson]

My name is Myra Richardson. I am the Director/Producer of the documentary, DYING TO TEACH: The Killing of Mary Eve Thorson, "Educators Who Bully." In commemoration of National Anti-Bullying Awareness Month in October, I am providing a copy of the film to all colleges, universities, and organizations with “Education Programs” within the state of Illinois and beyond. The film premiered in June at the Beverly Arts Center here in Chicago, and was requested by the Save Our Schools organization for their convention in Washington, DC, this past August. It's now being considered by Sundance as part of their festival program in 2013. This issue is extremely important. Teachers are killing themselves due to bullying...it’s shameful. I am providing several links which might be of interest.

Thank you.

www.marythorsondocfilm.com

http://saveourschoolsmarch.com/workshop-panel-presentations/documentary-dying-teach/

https://www.change.org/petitions/congressman-sponsor-anti-bullying-bill-protecting-teachers-from-abuse-by-administrators?share_id=gypMXMVKfN&utm_campaign=mailto_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition