Thousands of striking teachers rally in Chicago
Striking Chicago school teachers march after a rally Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012 in Chicago. Thousands of striking Chicago public school teachers and their allies packed a city park Saturday in a boisterous show of force as union leaders and the district tried to work out the details of an agreement that could end a week-long walkout. / AP Photo/Sitthixay Ditthavong
Updated September, 16, 2012, 7:03 PM ET
(AP) CHICAGO - Thousands of striking Chicago public school teachers and their allies packed a city park Saturday in a boisterous show of force as union leaders and the district tried to work out the details of an agreement that could end a week-long walkout.
Pushing strollers, toting signs and towing wagons of children, thousands of red-shirted teachers cheered and chanted as speaker after speaker urged them to stand firm until they have a deal in writing. They told the teachers that their strike was a symbol of hope for public teachers and other unions that have been losing ground around the nation.
"I'm pretty confident that something will come together that both sides will agree on," said Ramses James, a sixth-grade math teacher. "I believe this is a very strong turning point when you have so many people coming out to fight alongside (the teachers union). That means a lot."
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Months of contract negotiations came down to two main issues: job security and union opposition to a new teacher evaluation process the union felt was too heavily weighted on student test scores.
Union leaders who announced a framework for a deal on Friday said they would not end the strike -- the first in Chicago in 25 years -- until they see a proposal in writing. Saturday's talks were aimed at settling on the exact language, and Chicago Teachers Union delegates said late Saturday that they will meet Sunday to review a proposed contract and vote on whether to suspend the strike.
Addressing demonstrators Saturday, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis cautioned that "we are on strike" and that classes won't resume until the delegates see an agreement they can support.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson also addressed the crowd, saying the strike was a "struggle for working people everywhere" and that there was still a long road to ensuring all residents of the city have equal access to quality schools, especially in neighborhoods beset by gang violence and poverty.
"Our mission is very clear: we fight for equal, high-quality public education for all," Jackson said. "When school opens again there will be 160 schools without a public library. ... When school opens again, there will be schools yet without books. So we fight today for schools on the South and West Side to look like schools on the North Side."
Saturday's talks took place at the offices of union attorney Robert Bloch. On his way into the talks, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey was optimistic that timetable was still possible.
"We're hopeful that we can do it but frankly like I said, the devil is in the details of this contract and we want it in writing," he told reporters. "We're going to go in today and hammer (out) the details."
Union members from Wisconsin, Minnesota and elsewhere joined Saturday's rally in show of solidarity. For Wisconsin teachers, the rally also served as a moment to celebrate a judge's Friday ruling striking down nearly all of a contentious state law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker that had effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers.
Walker's administration immediately vowed to appeal, while unions, which have vigorously fought the law, declared victory.
"People are energized by this," said Marty Horning a high school social studies teacher from Milwaukee who came to the rally with a busload of others. "I think that the line has to be drawn in terms of teacher bashing, union bashing and privatization of education. These forces and factors are not just in Chicago, not just in Wisconsin, but across the nation and (Chicago) happens to be the spear point."
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has blasted the union for engaging in a "strike of choice," sounded optimistic Friday, saying "the tentative framework is an honest and principled compromise that is about who we all work for: the students."
The walkout in the nation's third-largest school district canceled five days of class for more than 350,000 public school students who had just returned from summer vacation.
Until this week, Chicago teachers had not walked out since 1987, when they were on strike for 19 days.
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A good movie that I might recommend for you is "Soldier" with Kurt Russell. Eerily similiar to what you have described.
Actually, there might be many openings for you especially since the ultimate intention is to turn teaching into the Peace Corp. This will drive the good teachers out as well. So go ahead and pay them peanuts. Then you'll have every reason to complain, for sure you'll get what you paid for --- Nothing!
This would definitely make a good reality show! JERSEY TEACH!
I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned.
And when Hitler attacked the Catholics,
I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned.
And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists,
I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned.
Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church --
and there was nobody left to be concerned."
It's no surprise the big funders of "education reform" are folks like Bill Gates and Eli Broad and half a dozen hedge fund and private equity billionaires: there's MONEY in privatizing "public" education. In fairness, at least Bill Gates admits he doesn't have all the answers; the rest of the corporate "reformers" think they do!
The "reform" vision is to turn the most important pillar of small-d democracy -- public education -- into a sausage factory turning out obedient cadres of whatever sort of workers our corporate overlords decide they want. Kids who "test well" will be allowed into the small number of quality schools; everyone else will learn just enough to be able to do whatever job they're assigned. (It's kind of scary how similar this vision is to what the Russians did during the bad old Cold War years, or what the Chinese seem to do now!)
There's no room in the "reform" vision for critical thinking or creativity or social or emotional intelligence or any of the other essential types of learning that can't be assessed by a standardized test. From a corporate CEO's point of view, those qualities are more trouble than they're worth in a call-center worker or a computer tech. That CEO wants minions, not thoughtful employees. After all, a thoughtful employee might choose to join a union!
Meanwhile, Chicago's teachers are asking for textbooks and other learning material that arrive before school starts (rather than in mid-October); for class sizes that allow learning to occur; for more nurses, counselors, social workers, and psychologists; for "a better day" rather than just "a longer day"; for a better balance between teaching time and testing time; and, above all, for an educational operation based on RESPECT and COLLABORATION, rather than constantly-changing, top-down administrative fiats!
As you can see, the adults do not have our best interest at heart. Although we are young, it is time that we do something so that our voices, however young, can be heard aboard the crowd!
Let all of us who feel that our teachers are failing us, and who feel that our teachers are more concerned about their paychecks than our progress, STRIKE! Let all of us who are being forced to attend unaccredited schools day in and day out refuse to go until the rights that we have under the Constitution that permit us to enroll in the closest accredited school to us, be honored! Let all of us who feel that we are not learning anything or becoming smarter because of teacher neglect, STRIKE! Atlast, let our parents who are willing and who agree with us, JOIN US!
If schools administrators and government officials won't hold teachers accountable, we will! We have but one time in our lives to gain a good education. We do not have time to wait while they argue over how much they should get paid, especially if they argue that they should get paid even if they don't teach us anything! We are not pawns, we are America's future!