Tag Archives: Chicago Teachers Union

CTU’s contract demands are a love letter to Chicago

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Ask any educator why they teach or work in a school in any capacity and they will undoubtedly say it is because of the kids — the students who make us laugh, make us plan and replan our lessons, make us stay late to sponsor clubs and coach teams. The students are what bring joy, occasional frustration, and love to our profession. 

Educators teach because we love our jobs and we know our students deserve so much more. Since Karen Lewis helped transform the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), Chicago Public Schools (CPS) educators also realized that it is not just enough to advocate for our students in the school buildings; we must advocate for our students in their communities. CPS educators want our students to have access to neighborhoods with housing, jobs, and opportunity. Chicago’s educators are bargaining for the common good of our students’ lives in and out of school. 

Our current contract demands are a love letter to the communities in which we teach, to the communities in which we live. We’ve written a love letter to Chicago. 

For the past 18 years, I’ve been a CPS teacher and from my first day of teaching in 2007 to now, I’ve never seen a school that has everything our students deserve. I’ve learned quickly that, in order to get what our students deserve, you have to fight tooth and nail for literally everything — from textbooks and computers, nurses, and functioning athletic facilities to libraries and social workers. You have to fight to get crumbling asbestos floor and ceiling tiles out of the school, to get new HVAC systems so your students don’t freeze or swelter, to get your school cleaned, to offer quality lunch for students, and to keep your school from being closed by terrible politicians trying to privatize our public schools. 

Now in 2024, we’re still fighting. We have a supportive mayor in City Hall with Brandon Johnson. We have supportive people in many elected positions in the city; however, the leader in Chicago Public Schools and his associates are still not thinking innovatively. 

The leadership of our school district should be fighting for state revenue for CPS. The district should be leading, so we don’t have these generational inequities in CPS. The district should be leading to make sure every kid has transportation to school. Educators are really good at planning, leading, and making positive changes for our students, schools and communities. Yet, the teachers are not only working every day to teach and educate our students, we are also having to work and teach and educate the people who are supposed to run our district. It’s beyond offensive; it’s exhausting. 

Pedro Martinez and the leaders of Chicago Public Schools need to step up. They need to join educators, parents, and the community, and fight for true educational equity, or they need to step back and sit down and let us bring in some real leaders, who aren’t afraid. 

I became a social studies teacher because I was inspired by people advocating for causes they believe in. Every person I look up to in my life has fought for things they shouldn’t have had to fight for. Whether they were afraid or not, they still did it, and they found people who were willing to fight with them. That’s what leaders do. 

I have worked at three neighborhood CPS schools on the South Side. My students have never had the resources that they deserved in any of those schools. 

In April, the Chicago Teachers Union submitted our contract proposals for our next contract. I am a part of CTU’s 50-person Big Bargaining Team that meets with leadership of CPS. We present our proposals, explain the current conditions in our schools, and how our proposals will help transform our district. We have even pushed for and held public bargaining sessions that are live streamed so the public can more easily see our proposals and the process. 

The negotiations are going much slower than they should be. Even though we have city officials observing at every session, CPS leaders are not agreeing to, or even countering, too many of our proposals. We are at a stalemate and the question is why? We have a mayor who supports the demands but a CPS CEO in Pedro Martinez who is the hurdle for transformative change for our district. 

The leadership of CPS is acting like they work for former mayor Rahm Emanuel, and not for Mayor Johnson, who actually wants to improve public education. So if the issue isn’t with the mayor, then the issue is with CPS leadership. 

CPS should have a leader who makes things happen, who understands that 30,000 CPS educators want a partner who understands our students’ needs and is committed to making the vision happen. The state owes more money. Let’s collaboratively go fight and get money from the state that we deserve. Let’s collectively create a vision, plan, and transform our schools.

Our governor J.B. Pritzker was in consideration to be a candidate for vice president and he has done some good things for our state, but unfortunately, like far too many traditional Democrats in Illinois, his help with public education leaves a lot to be desired. 

Illinois has never funded CPS appropriately, based on their own funding formula, and now that we’re asking for more money for our schools, Pritzker refers to it as a “bail out.” Stacy Davis Gates, elected president of the Chicago Teachers Union, says to our CTU members, “You can’t bail out something that you never funded to begin with.”

Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, spoke at the Chicago Teacher's Union (CTU) press conference near Chicago Public School Headquarters downtown on June 28, 2023. Photo by Tyger Ligon for The TRiiBE®
Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, spoke at the Chicago Teacher’s Union (CTU) press conference near Chicago Public School Headquarters downtown on June 28, 2023. Photo by Tyger Ligon for The TRiiBE®

On the state level, we want Gov. Pritzker and the government of Illinois to actually fully fund CPS and Illinois Public Schools. Selected vice presidential candidate Tim Walz fully funded Minnesota Public Schools. We want Gov. Pritzker to do the same here. Our contract negotiations between CPS and CTU are not with greedy teachers, demanding unreasonable things; we are asking for schools with safe drinking water in the water fountains and classrooms that are at a temperature that students can learn in. 

We are asking for the city and the district to lead in retaining and hiring teachers in Chicago. We need the district to believe there is a national and local teacher shortage, which there is.  

We need them to realize the current teacher evaluation system, REACH, is terrible and is not designed to help teachers grow nor improve our craft, but is just a “gotcha” system of bureaucratic checkpoints. REACH is the system in which educators are evaluated for their teaching, except this system has been proven flawed and negatively impacts Black educators specifically and educators who work in schools that need significantly more support. Be innovative, CPS; help us create a new system that educators and principals will actually find useful and help teachers continue to improve. 

At times, CPS seems like they could care less during the negotiations. We have provided proposals to transform the classroom, to reduce class size, to provide more support for our students, proposals to provide housing for our students, and to reduce our environmental impact with Green Schools proposals. 

Our contract demands were created by reading through thousands of proposals submitted by the 30,000 CTU educators across this city. The demands range from the diapering of pre-k students, making the school day better for elementary schools, and helping educators improve our practice, to housing our students and fighting to make our planet better for our students. 

My partner and I have two children who attend CPS. Being a CPS parent is probably harder than being a teacher at times. We have to navigate the super confusing system that is CPS. We had to realize how much of a struggle it is to find a school that works for our kids, to find a school that is well run, well resourced, well supported and safe. While we have an insider advantage because we are both teachers, trying to figure out CPS is still hard. The educators who work in the building aren’t the problem, it is the bureaucracy of CPS that is unwilling to change. 

Parents want a school that has every opportunity and resource that they can get. That is why parents from around the city will do anything they can to get their kids into certain schools, because parents know that certain schools have the resources that every single school should have. Even the schools that have more programs don’t have enough funding; those schools have high student fees for all the activities that exist at the schools. Those schools have only enough funding to hire the teachers to lead those amazing dance programs, drama productions, marching bands, choir, art programs and athletic programs. The school actually can’t fund all the greatness that comes out of all these programs — like recitals, costumes, instruments, microphones, travel expenses, competitions, art supplies- so they make the parents pay fees for those opportunities and experiences.  

We want the district to fully fund our schools, not make the parents pay the difference. We want all schools to have the programs and resources parents want, not just the few selective enrollment ones.

Pay attention to how CPS portrays the contract bargaining sessions. I’ve been in the meetings. I’ve been in the rooms. I’ve watched CPS say no to the things that don’t cost a dollar. I’ve seen CPS leaders not offer to advocate for more funding. I’ve seen CPS leaders claim pre-packaged curriculum is the greatest thing ever and that teachers aren’t really that good. 

CPS says there’s no money. We’ve heard this claim for the past 18 years and for generations before that. Chicagoans have learned that a budget is a political document, and that in order to reallocate money that the city has in another bucket into public schools, actions need to be taken. Students had to protest, boycott CPS and have freedom days in the 1960s to get rid of Willis wagons for Black students. We have seen TIF funds be used for the beautification of already beautiful neighborhoods, but not for our schools. It is beyond time that our district is actually willing to lead and be innovative. “Good enough” shouldn’t even be a phrase that exists in a public school leader’s vocabulary. Read the op-ed in the Tribune by Stacy Davis Gates calling on Pedro Martinez to truly lead.  

This next contract that we get with Chicago Public Schools isn’t teachers trying to take over, it’s a movement to finally give teachers, students, schools, communities, and everybody that we’re in coalition with, the sought after justice that’s been fought for in Chicago’s educational struggle for generations. 

Educators live in Chicago, work in Chicago, send our kids to Chicago Public Schools, and pay taxes. Yet, the elite and think tanks who want to privatize education attempt to portray us as greedy monsters who don’t care about our students. We’ve lost students and have seen empty desks. We go to therapy. We’ve lost the color in our hair. We stay late, we come in early, we coach, and we lead clubs for free. We work with every single student that comes into our door; we don’t turn them away. We lead clothing drives and college fairs. We help students land scholarships and acceptances. We meticulously plan our lessons to accommodate every student’s needs. 

If you think some Astroturf organization, like the Illinois Policy Institute, is going to last any longer than any of its privatizing predecessors, then you are sadly mistaken. These predatory privatizers have no real care or real stakes within Chicago Public Schools; they just want to benefit off of scandalous loan rates or find funds for their CEO pals who want to use a non-unionized charter school to pad their portfolio. Talk about scammers. 

On the city level, we want the school leadership of Chicago to follow the plans that our mayor, a parent with children in Chicago Public Schools and former CPS teacher, put forth. That’s the vision for CPS to work in coalition with educators, parents, and community members. We need CPS to stop acting like it’s 1995 and realize it’s about to be 2025.

Our proposals are a love letter to this city. Fighting for our public school system is our love language and this is our love letter to Chicago.

This piece was originally published on the Triibe, to view it there click here.

Our Union Called for a Cease-Fire. It’s About Our Students.

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Why the membership of the Chicago Teachers Union voted overwhelmingly to support a cease-fire—and how we see ourselves as part of a larger labor movement for peace and justice.

DAVE STIEBER JANUARY 18, 2024

If you teach, your absolute worst nightmare is that something tragic happens to your students. Teachers don’t just think about students when they are in front of us; we think about them throughout each day and night. They are a central part of our lives. 

When a young person steps into our classroom, the first thing we do is work to connect. That’s the best way students learn. When a student doesn’t live up to their own potential, we take it personally. We obsess about what went wrong.

Caring about students also means deliberately caring about the world we are helping them grow into. It has never been enough to only teach students when they are in the classroom; we have to advocate for them all the time.

For too many of us teachers, we have also had to wrestle with how to respond when something tragic happens to our students. And tragedy strikes at a devastatingly regular pace. Losing one student is unbearable; I’ve lost damn near a classroom over my 17 years, from intra-communal violence, police violence and tragic accidents. Thinking about and seeing the pain their families experience is soul-shattering.

Fundamentally, educators are really only in this profession because we care so deeply about young people and the promise they hold — not in our communities, but across the globe.

Watching what is happening in Gaza has been soul-shattering too. Some 10,000 children have been killed since October 7; many are now without parents; some have been held hostage. Every one of them is someone’s child, someone’s loved one, someone’s student.

I’ve been told directly that teachers need to stick to teaching, that international matters aren’t something we should talk about, and that educators don’t have any clue or right to comment on issues that may seem so far away.

But we know what it is like to lose students, to see young people suffer. Whether that child is in Chicago, Israel, Palestine or anywhere in the world, we don’t want anyone else to experience this pain. My partner encouraged me to finally start therapy because I lost so many students that I was no longer able to cope with seeing the empty desks, the social media eulogies, the funerals.

That’s why, for the first time in the history of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), we approved a resolution on November 1 to improve how we support students during world conflicts. That’s why we also approved another resolution, to add our name to a letter with other unions calling for an immediate cease-fire in Israel and Palestine. This decision wasn’t impulsive; our members met and thoroughly considered and discussed the various angles and issues. Our hundreds of delegates, all educators, further discussed and voted democratically. The support was nearly unanimous.

But I also need to note that, even though there was so much support, this decision wasn’t easy. Union leadership is in agreement with the resolution at its core, but it is naturally concerned about potential blowback — blowback we have seen come to so many people and organizations who have called for an end to the violence, blowback that our union has received because many on the Right are upset with what we’ve been able to achieve. 

The son of our president, Stacy Davis Gates, has become a target, and her parents’ home is under police supervision because of threats. Jackson Potter, our vice president, who is Jewish, has received antisemitic threats.

There’s also concern about how the CTU might be looked at going forward. Would elected officials stop supporting us in Springfield? Would they no longer endorse legislation we put forward? We had these internal discussions and thought about our values. As Potter said at a rally in Chicago in November, organized in part by Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow: ​“As a fighting union dedicated to the adherence of human rights, our most important representative body voted overwhelmingly in favor of a cease-fire to stop the senseless bloodshed of innocents and call for the return of all hostages.”

A big part of our motivation is that we know our students are watching the same videos and seeing the same news on TikTok and Instagram as we are. We can’t pretend like the issue is not affecting their lives, and we can’t pretend like youth in the United States don’t overwhelmingly want the violence to end. As always, our students are watching us and seeing if we will teach about what is happening. They know we’re not robots, and they wonder what our values are.

For me, too, it’s personal. My dad is a Vietnam combat veteran who was often emotionally unavailable growing up. Only after the Iraq War started, in 2003, did he meet and work with other veterans who were speaking out against wars; when my own kids were born, he finally started sharing more about his experiences. When my kids played, screamed or were loud, it took him back to a place he does not want to remember.

The killing of children and civilians, the bombing of cities, hospitals and schools, is not honorable. Death no matter where it takes place is unforgivable and destroys generations. A family doesn’t ever really come back from tragically losing a loved one.

This post was originally published on In These Times.

Ode to the Big Bargaining Team

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To the pushers of equity
40 plus of you
who have sacrificed
time with your loved ones
time for yourselves
for sleep

Since last winter
you’ve been trying to negotiate
You watch politicians make up lies
Lies about you
Say you are undemocratic

Say you are moving slow

You sit there
Knowing first hand
that this city doesn’t care
about our kids
with its “proposals”
lack there of
City says no money
No money for Black/Brown kids
You must want to jump across the table
Call them liars

Yell out “how dare you?”

You’re forced to watch the same lawyer
who worked for Daley
then Rahm
now Lightfoot
negotiate for the city
The lawyer whose orders are to save money

to ignore what our kids need

You see how this city opens up its accounts
for private developers
for policing
but then cries broke

when it’s for Black/Brown kids

You know from experience
to never trust this city
The city says a lot of things
You’ve heard the promises before
Their “just trust” us pleas
You’ve seen the devastation
You’ve worked in this system
Fought to create a new system
You’ve heard 6 year olds
beg
to keep their schools open
You’ve seen parents
hunger strike
for over 30 days

to get a school open

Know that while you are
advocating for our students
our schools
our city
demanding contracts
We are out here picketing/protesting/striking
While you are holed up in conference rooms
we will keep holding down on the picket line
Know that we aren’t going to go back easily

We want everything our kids deserve

We see you
We thank you
We support you
Thank you for fighting
to make our city better
for holding Chicago accountable
in writing
View this piece on ChicagoNow or MidWest Socialist

Chicago Educators Will Strike for Our Students, Because it’s Always Been Personal

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For 13 years I’ve been teaching in Chicago. 13 years of budget cuts, no librarians, part time nurses, not enough counselors. 13 years of of promises from Mayors and CEOs to improve our schools. Yet, educators always do more with less. That is why the city continues to take. It knows that because teachers love our students we will always do our best, even with no resources.

We love our students so much that we don’t share our teaching stories with non-teachers willingly. We are cautious, we don’t want anyone to judge our students or us. We have pride in our schools. Our schools become our identities. Our kids are on our minds long after the bell rings. We reflect on what went well and obsess on what we need to improve.

Contrary to what I believed when I was a student, teachers have lives outside of school. We are parents, partners, taxpayers, and relied upon by many others in our lives.

So when someone dare calls us greedy it is a right hook to our face. How dare they? Our love for our students and our schools physically drains us. We don’t get enough sleep, we over eat, over stress because of our professions. We stay after the school day ends to grade, to coach, to mentor, for free. We give up our time with our own families for people’s kids.

How dare you call us greedy. How dare you ignore us when we ask for better conditions for our students. It’s not easy for us to do this. We went into teaching because we love kids. We were told our career choice was noble. Yet, now we find ourselves being called greedy because we dare ask for better conditions for our students? We opened up, advocated and showed our love for our students out loud and you called us names.

Tomorrow we are about to perform a noble action taught to us by Gandhi, MLK, Chavez, and Raby. Tomorrow we will strike. We will strike for our students. We will strike for our schools. We will strike to improve our city. We will go without pay. We will risk outsiders talking badly about us. It will sting, it will be hard, but it’s past time that our students have the same basic necessities that every suburban student has had for years.

We will strike because we are noble. We will strike because we know our moral compass points to equity, it points toward justice and we know those are things the students of Chicago have never had.

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To view this piece on ChicagoNow click here

A Bad Law Must Be Broken- Why The Possible Chicago Teachers Strike Is Over So Much More Than Pay and Benefits

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My classroom is decorated with historical figures who inspire me. Every person on my wall worked to do what’s right, because they envisioned what a better future should be like for all people. These individuals cared so deeply about their country that they put themselves on the line to advocate for others even if what was right was not popular or even legal.

Classroom

I became a social studies teacher because of them. These individuals knew that those in power used legislation and laws to control, discriminate, harm, and dehumanize people. People like Dolores Huerta who broke an Arizona law that prevented people from saying the words “strike” and “boycott”. People like Sal Castro who ignored the laws that made it illegal for him to teach his students what their over-crowded and underfunded East L.A. school system was being deprived of and helped them plan mass walkouts. When these activists came across a damaging and controlling law, they would examine it, understand it and purposefully refuse to follow it.

In Illinois, there currently exists a damaging and controlling law, a law that became official in 1995. Known as the Chicago School Reform Act, this law was created to silence teachers’ voices calling for equity in public schools.  It gives the mayor full control of the school system and school board. And in an effort to make us look greedy it forbids teachers from striking over anything besides pay and benefits. The law makes it impossible for educators to force the city to admit that having over 30 kids in class is unjust, that not having a librarian in 9 out of 10 majority Black schools is unjust, that a critical shortage of nurses, counselors, and social workers system wide is unjust.

This insidious law makes teachers look greedy and weakens our power because the city only has to negotiate pay and benefits with us. This law continues to allow those in power to ignore the conditions and lack of resources in Chicago Public Schools.  This law makes the teachers who are on the front lines, unable to get the city to negotiate over truly improving our public schools.

This is why the Chicago Tribune, Sun Times and even our own school system calls us greedy by perpetuating these opinions. They want us to simply take a raise.They want us to just trust that the Mayor will do right by the students. They want us to ignore the fact that Chicago’s schools have been criminally underfunded for generations. Every student who ever attended CPS knows this fact. Every parent of a CPS student knows this. Every teacher who has ever taught in CPS knows this too.

Our schools should have so much more than what they currently have or have ever had.  This is why many politicians and people in power don’t send their own children to CPS, because the inequities are devastating.

94% of Chicago’s educators just authorized our union to strike. In 2012, when we went on strike we had 90% of teachers vote to strike. In 2012 Chicago Public Schools was trying to take pay away from us. Now CPS is willing to give us our cost of living increases without a fight, so why did more teachers vote to strike this time then in 2012? We are so fed up with looking into our kids faces every day and knowing this city truly doesn’t give a damn about them.  We are done waiting on verbal promises from the city.

Mayor Lightfoot claims she’s not Rahm. Maybe she wasn’t when she ran but since she’s become Mayor, I hear a whole lot of Rahm in her statements. Rahm called us greedy, Rahm talked badly about us when we had our strike vote and Rahm sued our union when we struck in 2012 because we wanted to negotiate over things besides pay and benefits. Mayor Lightfoot has done all of those things, besides sue our union. But if she continues the failing Rahm playbook I’m sure the city is already planning to sue the Chicago Teachers Union if we strike on October 17th. The city will sue us because as educators we dare to demand that our students have everything they deserve, in writing.

Mayor Lightfoot said a strike would be “catastrophic” for the students. In a series of posts on Twitter with the hashtag #PutItInWriting, educators and supporters detailed the real catastrophe and decade long catastrophic effects from the lack of funding and resources for our CPS schools and students.

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EVERYTHING that our students and schools deserve, in writing, includes:

  • Place full-time librarians, counselors, clinicians, psychologists, social workers and nurses in every school
  • Make sure all students get special education services they are entitled to by law
  • Hire special education teachers, case managers and paraprofessionals
  • Maintain real class size limits
  • Give us the freedom to plan, grade & be professionals on our teacher preps (the limited time during the day when we don’t have students in front of us)
  • Establish true restorative justice programs in schools
  • Take police officers out of schools
  • Make all schools sanctuary schools
  • Provide mental health services for all students and staff

If the city chooses NOT to give our students these requests in writing, then the city is following in the path of Mayors Daley and Emanuel by ignoring what the students deserve. If this city actually cared about the students it “serves” it would not be arguing with those on the front lines of education, the educators.

If this city cared about its children, it would happily fund our education system. Chicago quickly gave $33 million more to keep the police in the schools, even though many students, parents, and teachers objected. The city will hand over money to the police department to incarcerate our youth but will not do the same to educate them.

When Bernie Sanders was in Chicago recently, publicly supporting public school educators, he said, “…teaching is one of the most patriotic professions that you can do.”  It is our patriotic duty to do whatever it takes to get our students what they deserve.

The Chicago Teachers Union will strike over pay and benefits. But me, and many others, we will be striking to disrupt the status quo. We will be striking against systemic racism and generational neglect in our public schools.

We will be attempting to follow the lead of those people that I have on my classroom walls. The people that I’ve always aspired to emulate. There have always been bad laws used to harm, discriminate, and to silence people. It’s once again time to ignore laws like that.

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It’s time to do what is right for our students.

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To view this piece on SouthSideWeekly click here and for ChicagoNow click here

Op-Ed & Letter to Editor Media Links

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Chicago educators, I see your great social media posts. You should submit your writings for publication.  It will expand your outreach and help others understand our love for our students and schools. Teachers telling our stories is what will win gains for our students.

Use these links and submit your writings to all of these places. (Op-eds are generally around 650sh words and Letter to the Editors are about 250sh words)

Chicago Tribune- https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/chi-opedguidelines-story-story.html

Sun Times- https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeAjRiLG1Nl-mo_qPYaPtHr8n1Mfrjf9X3Y2U7RrVjzIHjbcw/viewform

Chicago Reader- https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/ReaderContacttheReader/Page

SouthSide Weekly- https://southsideweekly.com/contribute-2/

Crain’s Chicago- https://www.chicagobusiness.com/contact-us

NY Times- https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014809107-How-to-submit-an-Op-Ed-essay

Ed Week- https://www.edweek.org/info/about/submit-commentary.html

Jacobin- https://jacobinmag.com/contact

Rethinking Schools- https://www.rethinkingschools.org/pages/writers-guidelines

In These Times- https://inthesetimes.com/submissions/

Politico – https://www.politico.com/magazine/write-for-us

The Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/24/guardian-us-opinion-pitch-guidelines

USA Today- https://static.usatoday.com/submitcolumn/

 

All Chicago Public Schools’ educators want is everything that our students deserve

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Educators in Chicago are currently working towards getting a new contract that will truly improve our schools for our students. But this past week the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board wrote a piece telling us to “just take the deal” — basically take the money and shut up.

This is the same Editorial Board that had one of its board members write a piece in 2015 wishing for a Hurricane Katrina-type disaster here in Chicago. The article praised the disaster for giving “a great American city a rebirth.” The author, Kristen McQueary, stated “That’s why I find myself praying for a real storm. It’s why I can relate, metaphorically, to the residents of New Orleans climbing onto their rooftops and begging for help and waving their arms and lurching toward rescue helicopters.”

After the Tribune urged us to just take the deal, Chicago Public Schools shared that article on its social media. The message CPS sent its 40,000 educators is you are all a bunch of greedy educators who should just take the money we are offering you.

I’m beyond exhausted of the “greedy teacher” narrative. I’ve been teaching in CPS for 13 years. I’ve been through multiple contract negotiations, the strike of 2012, the Day of Action one day strike in the spring of 2016 and the last minute midnight contract signing in the fall of 2016.

I’ve heard the empty promises of Rahm Emanuel, which ended in devastation. I’m hearing the empty promises of Lightfoot. I’ve been lied to by 12 CPS CEOs. All of these people tell us that they know what’s best for Chicago’s kids and that we should just trust them.

What mayors and CEOs of CPS have done in my 13 years is slash school budgets, close schools, break special education laws, displace thousands of primarily black & brown experienced teachers, make parents hunger strike to open a school, unnecessarily extend school days and years and lay-off librarians, counselors, social workers.

Chicago makes students pay to take the bus to and from school. I’ve watched Chicago steal TIF money designed to go to neighborhoods and schools and put that money to things like private stadiums, the Riverwalk and hotels. I’ve seen CPS vote to give the Chicago Police Department millions of dollars to continue the school to prison pipeline while increasing class sizes and cutting school budgets.

There is and always has been money in Chicago. Money that Chicago should have been using to fully fund and improve its schools for generations.

Now CPS wants us to take the money and trust them to actually, finally help the schools. It doesn’t matter who is in charge of Chicago or CPS, the answer is no, we will never trust you until you put it in writing.

I would rather teach and be in the classroom but I’m ready to strike. I’m ready to strike until all of the following are put in writing in our contract:

  • Place full-time librarians, counselors, clinicians psychologists social workers, and nurses in every school.
  • Make sure all students get special education services they are entitled to by law.
  • Hire special education teachers, case managers and paraprofessionals.
  • Maintain real class size limits.
  • Give us the freedom to plan, grade & be professionals on our teacher preps (the limited time during the day when we don’t have students in front of us).
  • Establish true restorative justice programs in schools.
  • Take police officers out of schools.
  • Provide mental Health services for all students and staff.

In my 13 years as an educator, I’ve taught almost 2,000 students. I’ll strike for every single one of my students. I’ll strike for all my future students. I’ll strike for my two sons in CPS. It should come as no surprise that I will be voting yes to authorize my union to strike in next week’s strike vote.

So Chicago, know that the mayor and CPS have a choice to put all of our demands in writing to truly make our schools better or we will shut this city down until they do.

 

Click here to view this piece on The Chicago Reporter

The Education of Tribune Editorial Board Member Kristen McQueary

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Chicago Tribune Editorial Board Member, Kristen McQueary is back at again. Remember this past August, when she wrote a piece titled “In Chicago, wishing for a Hurricane Katrina”? She didn’t realize how terribly offensive and racist her piece was. (The Tribune apparently realized that, as they went back and changed her piece, including the title, which is why I provided an original PDF of the article.) Many people throughout the city expressed their outrage and actually tried to educate Ms. McQueary, as to why her piece was offensive. I wrote a piece titled why “Why Wishing for a Hurricane Katrina is the Equivalent of Putting on a Klan Hood” to help her understand. Now 7 months later, it seems the education the residents of Chicago tried to provide is not sinking in. Because she is back at it again with her piece, “Anti-Police Screed Goes Unchecked by CTU, Karen Lewis”. I tried to contact her, but Ms. McQueary, @StateHouseChick has blocked me on Twitter, and apparently does not like to be taught about her privilege and offensive comments.

So let us begin again, in the education of Tribune Editorial Board Member Kristen McQueary.

I pulled a few of her many quotes (I could’ve pulled many more) in her new piece, which most shows her need for an education. I will now direct the rest of this piece directly to you Kristen McQueary.

“Instead of focusing on improving education for Chicago kids, the union is the city’s latest command post for angst.”

Did you really just say that? You are saying Chicago’s teachers need to focus on improving education for the kids? Um, hello? Why do you think we were out in the streets on April 1st? We were trying to bring attention to the deplorable budget cuts that impact every student, parent, and person who works in schools in this city. Teachers are on the front lines daily. While you are downtown in your ivory tower. Many of us educators work and live in the communities that you hoped a hurricane would wipe out. When someone is shot in this city, who do you think is forced to counsel students and discuss their fears? Educators. Far too many counselors, social workers, and psychologists have been cut from the never ending budget cuts. So we educators have to help our students express their fears and pain. When Rahm closed 50 schools in 2013, we had to teach our students that they are not failures, just because CPS called their grammar schools failing and closed them. Every bad thing that happens in this city, we have to talk to our students about. So to state plainly or even imply for a second that teachers need to focus on improving education for our students, is one of the most offensive not to mention uneducated things you can say to or about educators.

“Chicago cops have been the target of some of that angst since November when the release of a video showing a white cop shooting a black teenager ignited protests over lack of accountability within the Chicago Police Department.”

Yes, as CPD should be. Chicago police killed Laquan McDonald by shooting him 16 times and then you know what happened to Officer Jason Van Dyke who shot Laquan? Jail? Nope, he got a job with the Fraternal Order of Police.  CPD operated a secret detention site in Homan Square where they would illegally detain and interrogate primarily Black citizens for years. The Guardian did a huge expose on it, in case you missed it. Dante Servin shot and killed unarmed Rekia Boyd in 2012, he was found not guilty and still has a job with CPD. Police officers instead of speaking up and out about the terrible things that have happened are staying quiet and covering up the abuses and murders by police. There is a lot of research out right now, as to the racist past and present of the Chicago Police. Read this report that just came out that says, “Chicago Police have no regards for the lives of minorities”.

Now Ms. McQueary, ask yourself this? Who do you think works with the people who are targeted by the police on a daily basis? That’s right, it is us, educators. We hear stories daily in our classrooms of police abuses against our students. As one of my favorite Chicago teacher’s Xian Barrett said to me, “There’s no way to create a safe, sharing classroom in CPS and NOT hear students’ fear and/or awful experiences with Chicago Police.”

Kristen, I honestly understand your struggle of not believing that police do terrible things to Black youth. Kristen like you I, I am white, and like you, because we are white we have the privilege of not having many negative interactions with the police. But all you need to do is listen to Black youth about their grievances with the police (well first you might want to try to not be racist, because otherwise no one will feel comfortable enough to even want to talk to you).

Kristen, I wrote a piece last week that explained how Black Lives Matter is educating Chicago’s teachers. Many teachers at first did not feel like the timing was right for Page’s comments, but then many of us, I know I did, really had to reflect on her comments.

As a Social Studies teacher I had to remember that even Dr. King was told that he was moving too fast, his ideas were not timed right, and to just wait. When he was locked in a Birmingham jail, a group of white religious leaders wrote a newspaper op-ed about asking him and the Civil Rights Movement to slow down. King’s response turned out to be one of the most important documents during the Civil Rights Movement, “Letters from a Birmingham Jail”.  Kristen you know how we white people love to quote King, but the idea of a movement like Black Lives Matter, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights or any other movement is to push thinking and force change. That is what Page’s comments at the rally are doing.

As you end your piece Kristen, you say, “The double standard is palpable”. I couldn’t agree with that last sentence more, for you, the double standard is palpable. You sit up in your Tribune ivory tower and write about things that you know nothing about, like education and how tragic events like a Hurricane would be good for Chicago.

But even worse, you write about things that you apparently have no desire to even learn about. That is the issue. You are just too comfortable. You refuse to challenge yourself and learn about your privilege. That is why people call you racist.

You have two choices, continue to be the fragile white person that is shocked when someone categorizes you as racist OR (this is the better option) you can really try to educate yourself. As I mentioned in my response to your Wishing for a Katrina piece in August, I suggested a starting point for you would be the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh, which details and explains white privilege and how it benefits all white people all the time.  Read books by Lisa Delpit, Theresa Perry, Beverly Daniel-Tatum, Howard Zinn, Bell Hooks, Ta-Nehisi Coates and many more authors. Even better, actually listen and hear the messages of the Black Lives Matter movement — or in your case, any black person who would take the time to try to educate you.

As a white person to another white person, your whiteness is holding your writing back. You need to not ask why the CTU didn’t rebuke the “F*ck the Police” comment, instead you need to ask why that comment was said. Interview Page, or someone from the Black Youth Project 100. Educate yourself Kristen. Because your current lack of education is damaging your career as well as this city.