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Monday, September 10, 2012

UPDATE: “Why I’m striking.” « Fred Klonsky

“Why I’m striking.” « Fred Klonsky:


Ten minute drawing. David Vitale



CTU: “Recognizing the Board’s financial woes, we are not far apart on compensation.” But there are other major concerns.


Teachers and staff at Logan Square’s Darwin Elementary School at 6:30 this morning.
From the CTU:
“Recognizing the Board’s fiscal woes, we are not far apart on compensation. However, we are apart on benefits. We want to maintain the existing health benefits.
“Another concern is evaluation procedures. After the initial phase-in of the new evaluation system it could result in 6,000 teachers (or nearly 30 percent of our members) being discharged within one or two years. This is unacceptable. We are also concerned that too much of the new evaluations will be based on students’ standardized test scores. This is no way to measure the effectiveness of an educator. Further there are too 


“Why I’m striking.”



My friend, CPS teacher Xian Barrett in front of the Mayor’s house last February.
By Xian Barrett
CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard is on record saying both that CTU leadership is deciding whether or not to strike, and that “everyone knows that a strike would only hurt our kids.”
I just wanted to educate my boss a little on the history of Chicago, as he is relatively new to the area. Chicago is founded on the hard daily struggle of working people. It is the birth of the labor movement—not a movement just for wages and benefits, but a movement that stopped child labor so that each of the kids in CPS schools could attend school instead of working. It was a movement that stopped the practice of working conditions so unsafe


“I join my colleagues in calling on the media to ensure that women are part of this story — as teachers, parents, union members, and as journalists.” – Gloria Steinem

“Tonight, I proudly wear a red t-shirt in support of the Chicago Teachers Union strike.  They have been forced to strike – for the first time in 25 years – by the false economy of firing and penalizing the experienced teachers most needed by the students and by new teachers; by lengthening the school day as warehousing without educational services, healthy school buildings, and paid teachers; by what they have the knowledge to call the “apartheid-like system” of differential 


Teacher Retirees: These are our people. This was us. Join me at CPS this afternoon.

Dear Retired Colleagues,
This morning I walked over to my neighborhood school in Logan Square.
Darwin Elementary.
It is a large red brick school house. 100 years old.
One of my daughters went to that school 40 years ago.
40 years ago!
It is a community school. A neighborhood