4
hours
ago
Sitthixay Ditthavong / AP
Chicago
Teachers Union delegates arrive for a meeting Sunday in which they are expected
to review a proposed contract and vote whether to suspend the week-long strike.
By NBCChicago.com
Updated at 1:15 p.m. ET: A Cook
County Circuit Court judge on Monday declined a request to hold a same-day
hearing for an injunction to immediately end Chicago's teacher strike.
During a short meeting,
Judge Peter Flynn postponed the requested hearing until Wednesday, city law
department spokesman Roderick Drew said. That comes after the Chicago Teachers
Union's delegates are scheduled to meet and vote on a proposed contract.
Earlier in the day, Mayor
Rahm Emanuel ordered a 700-page injunction request be filed to get kids and
teachers back in class. It seeks a temporary restraining order and asks a judge
to immediately end the strike. The complaint states the strike is illegal
because it's based on non-economic issues and because it presents a "clear
and present danger to public health and safety."
The move came after union
delegates on Sunday deferred their vote to end the strike and asked for more time to
review a proposed teachers' contract drafted by school officials and the CTU.
"I will not stand by
while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within
a union," Emanuel said Sunday in a statement. "This was a strike of
choice and now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children."
John Gress
Chicago
Teachers Union members leave a House of Delegates meeting on the seventh day of
their strike in Chicago, September 16, 2012.
"This continued
action by union leadership is illegal on two grounds," Emanuel said.
"It is over issues that are deemed by state law to be non-strikable, and
it endangers the health and safety of our children."
Union officials released
a statement Monday calling Emanuel’s complaint "vindictive."
“CPS’ spur-of-the-moment
decision to seek injunctive relief some six days later appears to be a
vindictive act instigated by the mayor. This attempt to thwart our
democratic process is consistent with Mayor Emanuel’s bullying behavior toward
public school educators,” said the union in a statement. “As teachers,
paraprofessionals and clinicians continue to fight to make our city’s public
schools stronger, the mayor, CEO Brizard and members of the board want to
trample our collective bargaining rights and hinder our freedom of speech and
right to protest.”
Union delegates aren't
scheduled to meet again until Tuesday out of respect for the Jewish holiday,
Rosh Hashanah, which began at sundown Sunday.
More than 26,000 teachers
and staff walked out last Monday, leaving more than 350,000 students
unattended. For five days, thousands of teachers picketed outside schools and
twice converged on the Board of Education headquarters downtown.
'Not happy'
In earlier developments, delegates from the Chicago Teachers Union told their bargaining team Sunday that they want to meet with the schools they represent before making a decision about whether to end their strike.
In earlier developments, delegates from the Chicago Teachers Union told their bargaining team Sunday that they want to meet with the schools they represent before making a decision about whether to end their strike.
"They’re not happy
with the agreement and would like it to be a lot better for us than it
is," Union President Karen Lewis said in a news briefing Sunday evening,
adding that they are returning to their schools with the proposal because they
do not want to feel rushed to make a decision.
A union bargaining team
and city officials had hammered out a proposed contract that would move away
from merit pay and allow teachers to appeal their evaluations.
A faction of the union
sees it as a "back room deal" that does not have unified support. A
source close to the union told NBC Chicago that Lewis' caucus shouted
obscenities at her and other leaders late Saturday night, saying, "You
sold out" and, "Rahm's getting everything they wanted, what the hell
did we get?"
Lewis, exhausted from a
tense week, indicated that she's done negotiating and asked "Will my own
caucus defy me?"
Sitthixay Ditthavong / AP
Public
school teachers rallying at Chicago's Congress Plaza protest against
billionaire Hyatt Hotel mogul Penny Pritzker, who is also a member of the
Chicago Board of Education on Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012.
At the heart of those who
oppose this new deal -- they feel the negotiating team did not fight for
paraprofessionals and special education teachers and students.
Some delegates shouted at
Lewis there is "no way to vote on something we haven't seen."
Teachers revolted last
week against sweeping education reforms sought by Emanuel, especially
evaluating teachers based on the standardized test scores of their students.
They also fear a wave of neighborhood school closings that could result in mass
teacher layoffs. They want a guarantee that laid-off teachers will be recalled
for other jobs in the district.
"They're still not
happy with the evaluations. They're not happy with the recall
(provision)," Lewis said of delegates.
Still, Lewis seemed
energized in a statement Saturday night, buoyed by the agreement, which came
after a weeklong strike that began on Sept. 10.
"This union has
proven the Chicago labor movement is neither dormant nor dead," Lewis said in a statement on the union’s blog late on Saturday.
"We have solidified our political power and captured the imagination of
the nation. No one will ever look upon a teacher and think of him or her as a
passive, person to be bullied and walked on ever again."
Emanuel's chief
negotiator, School Board President David Vitale, said the union should allow
children to go back to school while the two sides complete the process.
"We've done as much
as we know how to do," Vitale said. "We reached an agreement with
their leadership, we think it's a good agreement. It's time for the teachers to
get back in school."
The contract includes
what Lewis called victories for the 29,000 union members, which she outlined on
the union’s website:
As the Chicago teachers
strike enters its second week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel hopes to get students back
into schools by heading to court. City lawyers are seeking an injunction to
force teachers back into the classroom as soon as possible.
PAY:
The teachers union
wants a three-year contract that guarantees a 3-percent increase the first year
and 2-percent increases for the second and third years. The contract also
includes the possibility of being extended a fourth year with a 3-percent
raise. A first-year teacher earns about $49,000, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality;
the highest-paid teacher earns $92,227.
Chicago Public Schools
would move away from merit pay for individual teachers.
EVALUATION: Teachers
would be evaluated 70 percent in terms of how they teach (“teacher practice”)
and 30 percent in terms of how their students improve (“student growth”).
Evaluations will not affect tenured teachers during the first year, and
teachers may appeal their evaluation.
HIRES: Responding to
parent demands, Chicago Public Schools would hire more than 600 teachers
specialized in art, music, physical education and foreign languages, among
other teacher specialties. More than half of large school districts rehire
laid-off teachers,according to The New York Times; the Chicago school
board has pushed to leave control to principals.
Those new hires will
allow for the longer class day -- which will be seven hours for elementary
school students, up from five hours and 45 minutes. Chicago had been known for
one of the shortest school days in the country -- a point that became a
sticking point for Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Of those new hires, half
must be union employees who were previously laid off. (Higher-rated teachers
would have a better chance at being rehired, the Chicago Tribune reported.)
BULLYING: The
contract demands ending bullying by principals and managerial personnel to
“curtail some of the abusive practices that have run rampant in many
neighborhood schools.” Principals, however, will continue to exercise power
over hiring teachers, the Tribune reported.
In one instance, according to CBS Chicago, dozens of complaints were
made about a principal at Josiah Pickard Elementary School during his five
years on the job. A union representative told CBS Chicago that the volume of
complaints was not normal for a principal.
TEXTBOOKS: Chicago
students would have their textbooks on the first day of school instead of
having to wait up to six weeks.
The strike may have hurt
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s image as a hard-nosed innovator, the Chicago Tribune reported, largely because of the
mayor’s aggressive statements about teachers – which he implied after the
school board nixed half their pay raise.
The strike received
nationwide attention in part because Chicago is the third-largest school
district in the nation and its teachers hadn’t gone on strike for 25 years,
since 1987.
But the strike has made headlines also because Emanuel was
Obama’s first chief of staff. Obama, whose daughters attended the private
University of Chicago Laboratory School (known as the “Lab school”), campaigned
on public school reform and has advocated merit pay.
