SALON

Tuesday, Sep 18, 2012 12:15 PM UTC

Chicago teachers consider latest offer

A vote on whether to end the strike is likely Tuesday

By

Topics: Chicago Teachers Strike, Rahm Emanuel, ,

Chicago teachers consider latest offerOn Sept. 8, 2012, members of the Chicago Teachers Union distribute strike signage at the Chicago Teachers Union strike headquarters in Chicago. (Credit: AP Photo/Sitthixay Ditthavong)

CHICAGO — Teachers in the nation’s third-largest city will pore over the details of a contract settlement Tuesday as the clock ticks down to an afternoon meeting in which they are expected to vote on whether to end a seven-day strike that has kept 350,000 students out of class.

Some union delegates planned to take a straw poll of rank-and-file teachers to measure support for a settlement that includes pay raises and concessions from the city on the contentious issues of teacher evaluations and job security. But many warned the outcome remained uncertain two days after delegates refused to call off the walkout, saying they didn’t trust city and school officials and wanted more details.

“It takes a lot to start a strike. You don’t want to prematurely end it,” said Jay Rehak, an English teacher and union delegate who planned to survey his colleagues at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School before voting at a meeting scheduled for 3 p.m.

As parental support for the strike waned, teachers came under pressure to quickly decide on the tentative contract that labor and education experts — and even some union leaders — called a good deal for the Chicago Teachers Union.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, irked by the union’s two-day delay in voting on whether to send children back to school, took the matter into court Monday. A judge has called a hearing for Wednesday morning to rule on the city’s request for an injunction ordering the teachers back to work.

Members of at least one new parent group expressed frustrations that their children could not return to class after the teachers decided to stay out on Sunday.

“I was very disappointed,” said Erica Weiss, who has been dropping off her 6-year-old daughter at a district-organized program each day but has to arrange for someone else to pick her up. She initially supported the strike, but more than a week was unnecessary, she said.

On Monday, teachers’ picket lines appeared smaller and a passing jogger booed the teachers picketing at Mark T. Skinner West Elementary School on the near West Side.

“It’s risky to extend the strike when everyone was expecting the strike to be over,” said Richard Kahlenberg of the Century Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

Among the pending questions was whether Emanuel’s lawsuit would stir up more trouble.

“If he wants teachers back in the schools, he should have stayed away from that type of action,” Rehak said. “It only incites.”

Both sides have only released summaries of the proposed agreement. But outside observers said the tentative contract appears to be a win for the union’s 25,000 teachers. While teachers in San Francisco haven’t gotten an across-the-board raise in years, for example, Chicago teachers are in line for raises in each of the proposed deal’s three years with provisions for a fourth. In Cleveland, teachers recently agreed to the same kind of evaluation system based in part on student performance that Chicago has offered.

“The district went past the halfway mark,” said Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality. “They got a pretty good deal.”

Some union members in Chicago praised the school district’s move on what percentage of test scores will be factored into teacher evaluations, down from the 45 percent proposed to the 30 percent set as the minimum by state law. It also includes an appeals process to contest evaluations. The new evaluations would be phased in over the length of the contract.

The tentative contract calls for a 3 percent raise in its first year and 2 percent for two years after that, along with increases for experienced teachers. While many teachers are upset it did not restore a 4 percent pay raise Emanuel rescinded earlier this year, the contract if adopted would keep Chicago teachers among the highest-paid in the country. In Chicago, the starting salary is roughly $49,000 and average salary is around $76,000 a year.

The city also won some things from the union in the proposed settlement. Emanuel gets the longer school day he wanted and principals will have say over who gets hired at their schools, something the union fought. The district will be required to give some preference to teachers who are displaced and the school district will have to maintain a hiring list and make sure that at least half of hires are displaced teachers.

“We made a lot of progress,” said Susanne McCannon, who teaches art at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School. “I’d like to be back in the classroom, but I want to be back in the classroom with the best situation possible.”

More The Associated Press.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations