THE TRUE long-term impact of the Chicago teachers strike may be not be known for some time. But there is no mystery about its impact in the immediate term — anxiety, panic, and disruption for myriad mothers and fathers left in the lurch when 30,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union walked away from their classrooms last week just as a new school year was getting underway.
“Parents and guardians frantically sought last-minute child care, pleaded with their bosses for leniency, and hoped that their kids would return to school sooner rather than later,” reported the Chicago Sun-Times. “Citywide, for thousands of families, stress was high.” The paper quoted Martina Watts, a mother in West Garfield Park, one of the city’s rougher neighborhoods: “I might be losing my job over this. As long as they’re on strike, I can’t work. I’m not getting paid.”
Comments
It is always so easy for Jeff to demonize workers in any field. Teachers in Chicago make 76K. Does Jeff believe they are immune to the high cost of college? Does he believe they don't have the same monumental college debt as others? In Jeff's world only CEO's can make outrageous salaries, although I don't consider 76K outrageous. As to the teachers causing stress. Certainly they caused stress. They caused stress to their employers, the public. That is the point of a union, to gain leverage through numbers in order to counter the employers overwhelming and absolute power. The City of Chicago makes its demands as it has a right to, the employees counter as they have a right too. Neither side is evil and neither side has "good" on their side it is an economic struggle. Their are some like Jacoby who would say that public employees have no right to look out for their own economic interest as if upon entering the sphere of public service one is required to seek sainthood and give up all pretense of personal and economic rights.(NP) Is it healthy for teachers to strike? Having said all the above. I would say, No. I would prefer to see binding arbitration over the public sector but government fears that it would lose. The biggest problem with govt. employees is the problem caused by people such as Jacoby. For them to work in the public sphere is to somehow belittle oneself, it implies an inability in the private sector. None of which is true as many of us moved from private to public or viice versa during our careers. After all for the most part professional public employees are highly educated, highly motivated and expect to be highly paid, regardless of the propagana spread by those who hold govt. in low esteem.
Now Mr. Jacoby your candidate Mitt Romney thinks teachers, police, and fire fighters are expendable elements in an economy not human beings in a society. This strike will be resolved. No harm will come to the children and with better morale from a contract acceptable to both sides education will improve, not its opposite. By the way do you just take whatever salary or benefits or working conditions your employer offers you? Of course not. You negotiate. The majority of the citizens of Chicago supported the strike. Your concern is only for an employer's power over an employee and consequently diminishing people's ability to have dignity in their work and some comfort in their private lives. I can assure you public employees that belong to unions are not living extravagant lifestyles. To demonize your fellow citizens and taxpayers because they bargain for what they think they deserve is wrongheaded. It is what free people do. As long as cheap labor with awful conditions are hidden from view or can arouse jealousy among those who undeservedly earn less you will have advocates for your side. The real question is if you work on a certain level, do you deserve to be paid appropriately for those efforts so you can pursue a livable life?
Tired argument, Jeff. Sure the students 'lose' out a week. But the soon benefit and that benefit lasts a lifetime, as the positive institutional changes kick in. In this case the CTU agreement insures that experienced teachers will get Positions instead of new, cheap teachers. Kid benefit.
Newsflash Jeff, many of the teachers most likely live in the city of Chicago, PAY TAXES THERE TOO, and send their own children to the schools. You can't compare all public sector employees in terms of salaries. Most teachers likely have a least one Master's Degree or two. Years and years of education and experience merit higher pay--even in the private sector. Your rhetoric is really old. Sing a new tune.
Gee, no prejudice against unions by you ! You are one of the most hatful columnist I have ever read. You supposedly love America, but hate Americans. They are merely subservient minions there to benefit the rich.
Only in government work would employees claim that so lousy a record entitles them to still more hefty raises, or to a level of job security virtually unheard-of in the private economy.
Seriously? You wrote this line with a straight face? CEOs and execs at AIG? Goldman Sachs? Lehman Brothers? Merrill-Lynch? B of A? That is one of the most evil, misleading lies I’ve ever seen printed. I’m surprised your keyboard and your face didn’t melt.
You are considered a top columnist, working at a prestigious newspaper owned by the “paper of record.” You have a journalistic responsibility, not to be perfect, but to at least be truthful. Think about it next time you compose and submit a terrible lie. Because those hurt "poor people” a lot more than a one-week teacher strike.
It does not work to compare teachers salaries to average workers as a way to convince me that they are paid too much.Teachers are highly trained and their salaries should be compared to private sector workers with similar education and training.You also can't blame teachers for low college graduation rates. There are thousands of cultural and economic variables that go into that statistic. So if the teachers are getting paid too much Jeff, and the graduation rates are so low, tell me how in the world will that problem get better by paying the teachers less?
In one place Jeff says the Chicago teachers are making $76,000 a year average.
In another spot he says their pay is up 42% from 9 years ago.
Crude math suggests that nine years ago the average pay there was about $53,000 which seems low for hard core city schools, and for people mostly with masters or beyond.
Or, the union held the city hostage and received absurd raises. If Chicago is anything like most stressed systems, the really good, new (not necessarily young) non-tenured teachers are making dead-low salaries, while the lazy, tenured hacks are pulling the big bucks. Tenure must go.
These same ordinary citizens you claim are the ones getting hurt are, in fact, the ultimate employers of the teachers.
While there are layers of government beauracracy between them and the teachers, they are as taxpayers the employers.
Alas, most "Masters" degrees that are "earned" by :educators" are granted by for-profit degree mills. They do nothing to improve the quality of instruction, and are merely a particularly egregious example of how education has been commodified over the past twenty years. Have you listened to some of the teachers on the picket lines? Have you listened to the embarrassment of a union president? While I ave no doubt that there are many dedicated educators on the Chicago system, their leaders and spokespeople do not do much to convince me they should be inside classrooms teaching children. Their salaries are obscene, and the performance of the district pitiful. While I am no Rahm fan, neither have these educators" done anything to convince me that they truly care for anyone but themselves.
Your "for-profit degree mills" comment makes it obvious that you have no clue what work and dedication go into achieving a degree AND earning teaching certification. VERY few teachers earn degrees at for-profit institutions. And to call their salaries obscene is an insult but likely one that you'll never understand. It's the importance of our next generation's education that's at stake and even higher salaries are justified but, unfortunately, the salary levels are determined by politicians. As others have noted here, few people can be described as having obscene salaries, and they tend to a) head corporations, b) earn obscene compensation even when corporate performance is poor, c) focus on short-term, profit-only goals devoid of any social responsibility or impact on our overall economy, and d) spend heavily on lobbyists to continue this outrageous game. If those who lambast teachers the way you do were to put even a fraction of your passion into returning fair governance to corporate law, we would be far far better off as a society. But, instead, we have a handful of exploitive billionaires wreaking havoc in our system and a tide of droog followers bending over and playing out their talking points.
"Alas, most "Masters" degrees that are "earned" by :educators" are granted by for-profit degree mills."
Any link to proof of that claim? In my experience, most teachers' degrees are earned at public colleges and universities, because that's what teachers can afford.
Jacoby is opposed to all strikes by whatever union. In fact, he'd opposed to unions altogether. Anything he has to say on the subject is a foregone conclusion and not worth reading, much less commenting on.
And closing hundreds of neighborhood schools in chicago doesn't hurt children and their families?
The fact that the city opened some schools during the strike so that many children could get a meal shows that there is much more to student failures than teacher evaluations. It would seem to me that the only people who actually care about the children of Chicago are the teachers and their families. The rest are either "Edu-formers" whose goal is to turn the schools over to for-profit companies or those who want to end public education altogether.
Just as intended??
Teacher strikes hurt teachers, too. It is tough to forego 1-2 weeks' salary at the $72,000 per year level, and additionally, unions are fined for every day of the strike. In their rush to demonize teachers, the mainstream media, who grant facile legitimacy to birthers and climate change deniers, have ignored the issues at stake in Chicago schools. Parents are inconvenienced, but many can continue to use whatever daycare arrangements they have used for the past nine weeks of summer.
Many factors other than teacher performance impact student test scores, particularly in at-risk urban schools. Don't demonize the teachers who are willing to deal with these at risk students! As the salary and benefits of teachers decrease, so too will the quality of the teachers willing to do this important work.
public unions do not care...In my famiy are police, nurses and I always said they do not have the right to strike...don't like that, do not take the job. How many teachers that cannot get a job would have been glad to step in and take theirs, especially at $76 thousand plus benefits and summers off.
If only you'd had really good teachers, perhaps your comment would not be so embarrassing to you. Your post is really kind of sad. I hope the cops and nurses in your family are kind to you, despite your envy of their jobs, which require education, training, and the abilty to communicate effectively. Also, you desperately need a new handle, because "debater" does not suit you.
Your salary figure is off. The average teacher salary in Mass is 70,000, which is the second highest state after New York. Elsewhere in the country teachers make as little as $40,000.
When you consider the education required, plus the necessary continuing education usually during summers, not to mention the responsibility of being surrogate parents for half a child's day, teachers need to be paid well. We don't need ignorant teachers who make stupid comments on message boards.
As mean_willie mentions, I had teachers that affected my life to such an extent that I still remember them.
There are so many holes in Mr. Jacoby's argument it is almost laughable.
First, compare teachers to employees of equal eduaction and experience, then argue try to that they are overpaid.
Second, when businesses no longer get to hire and fire employees, and the managers in charge are judged by the performance those employees that they did not select and cannot fire for lack of performance, then it will only begin to become appropriate to compare business to public education.
When teachers strike, they still have to make up the days in the end. It isn't like those work days disappear.
But to me, the overarching questions here are: If teaching is so easy and teachers are overpaid, why aren't there enough "good" teachers, why is there a 50% attrition rate within the first 5 years with new teachers, and why don't all you who spend time bad mouthing teachers try it yourselves?
Wait, having your children at home is comparable to having the garbage pile up?
Schools are not babysitting services and they do not exist to take one's children off one's hands.