Why am I being asked to verify my rosters this week?

May 16, 2012

Part of CPS’ new teacher evaluation system will use the Value Added Metric (you can learn more about this on May 30, 6-8 p.m., click this link for details). Value added is supposed to compute how much “value” teachers “add” to test scores of their students, from the beginning to the end of the school year, compared to the “value added” by other teachers with similar students. This method has been found to be unreliable, and CTU is opposed to its use. However, CPS and other districts using value added want to be able to say that their calculations reflect the actual students that teachers have in their classes and the amount of time students spend with each teacher. The company Battelle for Kids has found a market in providing districts around the country with “roster verification” services.

Although the new teacher evaluation system does not start in Chicago until next school year, CPS wants to work on roster verification now, to get the kinks out before next year when it will count. That is why teachers are being asked to verify their rosters this week. CTU opposes the imposition of yet another time consuming task on already overworked teachers. However, if the principal requires you to do this, you are not able to refuse. The general issue of extra work for teachers is something the CTU takes very seriously and is addressing in contract negotiations. 

If you have further questions about teacher evaluation in general, click on this link to read answers to frequently asked questions. For any additional questions, please contact Carol Caref, carolcaref@ctulocal1.com.

Tribune: Voters generally side with teachers union over Emanuel

by Joel Hood and Rick Pearson  |  May 16, 2012

Click here to read the original post. 

Rahm Emanuel's push to extend the school day is overwhelmingly backed by Chicago voters, but far more of them side with the teachers union than the mayor on overall efforts to improve education, a new Tribune/WGN-TV poll shows.

The survey results could serve as a warning sign to the mayor not to engage in a full-throated contract battle with the Chicago Teachers Union, which has already begun polling its members and galvanizing its allies in preparation for a possible strike next fall.

Moreover, the poll could embolden a union that has been on the defensive during the contentious debate over a longer school day — the signature reform effort of the mayor's first year and one he hopes can drive even greater changes in the city's troubled public school system.

The poll found 62 percent approve of Emanuel's effort to keep students in school longer each day, compared to 32 percent who oppose it. Support was even greater among parents of Chicago Public Schools students, at 66 percent.

"The schedule (for CPS) is so short, it's ridiculous," said poll respondent Donald Faliszek, who has a daughter at a public school and a son at a parochial school. "Without a question, the longer day is going to make a difference."

Although Chicago residents favor the longer day, support was down from a similar Tribune poll in January 2011, months before Emanuel took office. Then, 78 percent of city residents favored more time in the classroom, compared to 17 percent who opposed it.

The latest poll of 700 registered Chicago voters was conducted May 2-10 and has an error margin of 3.7 percentage points, greater for subgroups.

If teachers are going to teach longer hours, they should be paid more for it, the poll found. Sizable majorities of Chicago residents as a whole (86 percent) and public school parents (92 percent) agreed with that concept.

Respondent Jennifer Butterly was one of them.

"I think a longer school day will be helpful to keep the children off the street, but (teachers) need to be paid for it," said Butterly, who has three children in CPS. "There's no way you can expect them to work a longer day and not compensate them for that."

Perhaps somewhat surprising was the support the teachers union garnered over Emanuel. On the question of who voters sided with in the more comprehensive debate over improving the city's public school system, the union scored a better than 2-1 ratio over the mayor, who has had a testy relationship with the union's leadership.

Among all respondents, 40 percent sided with the union, compared to 17 percent who backed Emanuel. Thirty-six percent said they supported neither. Among public school parents, 48 percent sided with the teachers union and 18 percent sided with the mayor. Thirty percent said they sided with neither.

The support for the union may reflect concerns that Emanuel has moved too aggressively against teachers in his first year in office, overtly attempting to portray the teachers union as the obstacle to comprehensive school reform. It could mean that parents worry about how a strike might disrupt their daily routines, or it could underscore the city's long tradition of support for organized labor. 

Or, as some poll respondents suggested, it could simply be about Emanuel.

"It's his attitude, the way he is with people," said respondent Laura Diaz, a mother to four children in CPS. "It's too early to judge really who he is. He's trying to do everything all at once, and you don't really know what's ahead."

African-American and Latino voters showed the most support for the union, at 51 percent and 40 percent, respectively. White voters backed the union at 27 percent, with 42 percent of them choosing neither the CTU nor Emanuel.

Emanuel took command of a public school system weakened by years of instability, structural inefficiencies and massive debt. A revolving door of leadership atop the district — three chief executives in the previous three years — and conflicting reform efforts made little difference for hundreds of underperforming schools languishing on academic probation.

With tension already simmering between the mayor and union leaders, Emanuel followed through on his campaign pledge to lengthen Chicago's school day, arguing that students are more likely to succeed academically when they spend more time with teachers. A longer school day also would provide a haven for children in some of the city's most violent communities, Emanuel said.

Lengthening what had been among the shortest school days and shortest school years in the nation would become the centerpiece of Emanuel's plan to improve CPS. But it came at significant political risk.

In September, union officials were outraged when district leadership began offering schools financialincentives to add 90 minutes to the school day by getting teachers to sign waivers to opt out of their union contracts.

"The People Speak, Englewood," an Evening of Dramatic Readings and Songs, May 31st

May 15, 2012

CTU Interviews Actor, Activist Matt Damon

by Kenzo Shibata  |  May 15, 2012

Chair of the CTU Truth Squad Drew Heiserman and Chicago Union Teacher Editor Kenzo Shibata had the opportunity to sit down with Matt Damon before a performance of “The People Speak Live!” at the Metro. Damon explained the project, his skepticism about charter schools, and how his high school drama teacher played an integral role in his writing the screenplay for “Good Will Hunting.” 

Shibata, Heiserman, filmaker Chris Moore, Matt Damon

[This is an excerpt. For the full version, check out the May issue of Chicago Union Teacher -- in schools now.]

CUT: The speech last July [at the Save Our Schools March In Washington, D.C. -- see video below] has made every teacher a Matt Damon fan; if they were not already. What would you like to tell teachers right now?

MD: This is a disheartening time. It doesn’t feel like it’s enough to say, “Hang in there.” I’m hoping that event in July was the beginning of an attempt to… organize and try to counter the narrative that’s out there. I do have hope that can happen. There’s a lot of money and power standing on the other side of the argument. The charter myth has been pretty much debunked now, they’ve had their decade and it didn’t work. If there’s going to be a serious discussion about education policy, it should include teachers. Somehow that’s a heretical thing to say right now. These policymakers just continue to ignore the people who know how to teach.

CUT: Your mother opted you out of standardized tests as a kid, how did that make you feel?

MD: Back then, a teacher’s job and salary [were not] tied to how well I did on a test… Nowadays when you talk to teachers in public schools, one of their biggest complaints is that they don’t have any time to teach… all they really can do is teach to these tests… That’s not really a template for trying to learn anything, except maybe how to take a standardized test.

CUT: Was there a particular teacher who inspired you?

MD: My high school teachers were phenomenal. All of them, even the ones I had in math, for instance—which is not something I particularly loved or spend time doing now—they made it interesting and fun for me. My high school drama teacher, Jerry Specca—Ben Affleck was in the class, too—he was an English and drama teacher. So I took writing classes with him, I took speech classes with him, I took every drama class he offered. I did all the plays with him. He taught us an incredible level of selfdiscipline. Kids who came out of his class, even if they didn’t go into acting, were really better for having taken his class. He was like a life coach in a lot of ways. He also taught us how to write. Every year he would do a play that was kind of this thing that was emergent, where we’d improvise stuff and he’d kind of direct and write the whole thing as we were kind of doing these scenes. He’d say, “Well, try this scene,” … and a play would emerge out of that process. That was basically how [Ben Affleck and I] wrote Good Will Hunting. We used those same techniques… He was a teacher who affected my life in… incalculable ways.

Matt Damon is promoting the Voices of People's History project which includes an educators toolkit.

The Chicago Voices Educators Toolkit includes a DVD, several books, and a pre-loaded 2GB carabiner USB flash drive packed with educational material, all collected in an organic cotton tote bag from The People Speak tagged with the film's message: Democracy Is Not A Spectator Sport.

The Chicago Voices Educators Toolkit is suitable for middle and high school and introductory college classes. Relevant subject areas include Social Studies, U.S. History, English, Language Arts, Drama, Writing, Sociology, Women’s History, Labor History, African-American Studies, Race and Ethnicity Studies.

Over the course of the 2011-2012 school year, the Chicago Voices project will provide the free toolkit to one thousand Chicago educators.

For more information and to request a toolkit, click here. 

On May 31st, TEAM Englewood High School will host "Englewood Speaks," inspired by this project. Click here for details. 

For the full interview, check out the May issue of Chicago Union Teacher, now in schools.

Catalyst: Charter funding bill not yet a done deal

May 14, 2012

Article By: Jim Broadway / May 10, 2012

Read the original article here.

Click here to take action on this issue!

SPRINGFIELD -- The Chicago Teachers Union and other charter critics spoke out strongly in opposition to a proposal that would increase the funding that school districts must provide for charter schools, squaring off against supporters who want equal funding with traditional public schools.

The Illinois House Executive Committee voted 10-1 to approve the proposed bill, which is still far from a done deal. It still must pass the full House, make its way through the Senate committee process and win majority support in the Senate before it can be delivered to Gov. Pat Quinn for his consideration.

House Speaker Michael Madigan filed HB 4277 in January as a “shell bill,” void of content. But Madigan handed sponsorship to Rep. Daniel Burke (D-Chicago) last week and waived procedural deadlines that have killed most other bills that originated in the House and have not yet reached the Senate.

The vote came despite a furious campaign by the union and other organizations that fear the bill will divert millions of dollars away from neighborhood public schools. But already in Chicago, the district is moving toward equal funding for charter schools through its district-charter compact, which calls for equalized funding, more charter accountability and other measures. Cities that participate in the compact, an initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are eligible for a pot of $20 million in implementation funding that the Gates Foundation will dole out over the next several years.

Opponents of the bill also pointed out that, while charter schools would receive an equal share of a district’s tax dollars, the neighborhood schools would not share in the corporate and philanthropic contributions that charter school organizations often reap.

HB 4277, as amended, would require districts to provide at least 95%--up from 75%--of the district’s per capita student tuition to charter schools, multiplied by the number of students enrolled in the charter. Student tuition is the dollar amount a district would charge a non-resident student and is based on the district’s operating costs per student. CPS operating costs are $13,078 per pupil, according to the district’s 2011 state report card.

Burke argued that the bill is “an issue of fairness,” adding that his main concern is the disparity in the salaries of teachers, which are often lower in charters than in traditional schools in which teachers are CTU members. “They start out fairly equal, but by five years [on the job] you see a great difference in their salaries,” he said.

Advocates for charter schools sought to reinforce Burke’s fairness argument. Opponents pointed out that neighborhood schools already suffer from lack of funding, a situation that would worsen if the bill becomes law.

Elizabeth Purvis, CEO of Chicago International Charter Schools, claimed that charters “are part of the public school system.” CIC schools serve 9,000 students in Chicago and Rockford, she said, with 86% of them from low-income families and 95% of them minorities.

Charters must hire state-certified teachers and meet all state and federal requirements, maintain financial stability and meet any local regulations, she said. “Over 50,000 students in public charter schools [in Illinois] deserve equal treatment under the law,” Purvis said.

Meanwhile, the union charged that the bill would “force school districts to divert more funds from neighborhood public schools to charter schools. While public schools are funded almost entirely by taxes, charters receive private money from corporate privatization proponents.”

“Now is not the time” to increase charter funding “to the detriment of our neighborhood schools,” CTU Political Director Stacy Davis Gates told the committee, referring to the $700 million budget deficit that CPS says it faces in the FY 2013 budget.

Gates also cited national research showing charters have “not been particularly effective” at educating students and that they often “exclude English language learners and special education students.” A widely-publicized 2009 Stanford University study found that only 17% of the nation’s 5,000 charter schools reported academic gains “significantly better than traditional public schools,” while 37% performed worse and 46% made “no significant difference.”

Illinois Education Association lobbyist Jim Reed objected that HB 4277 would affect agreements reached in negotiations between charter schools and their school district boards. A spokesman for the Raise Your Hand organization complained that neighborhood schools in Chicago are already underfunded, citing large class sizes and the lack of music and art instruction.

HB 4277 will not achieve the parity in teachers’ salaries that Burke desires, the Raise Your Hand witness said. “We’re not against equalized funding … [but] there’s no guarantee [in the bill] that the money will go to salaries.”

Jim Broadway is founder and publisher of State School News Service.

Dyett High School Celebrates the Arts, despite not having them.

May 14, 2012

On Monday, May 14^th starting at 3:00pm, artists, teachers, community members and students will gather together and create art at Dyett High School, on the south-side of Chicago. There will be multiple art stations for students to participate in after dismissal. Local artists will share their knowledge with students about how to create comic books, build drums, paint banners, design posters, silk-screen t-shirts, and more. The art fair was precipitated by the growing concerns of Chicagoans at the lack of essential supports and programming for neighborhood Chicago Public Schools.

In fact, since 2011, Dyett High School students have been denied an art program by the Chicago Public Schools. Adding insult to injury, this past February the Chicago Board of Education unanimously decided to close the school despite a history of neglect and sabotage by the school district.

During the school closings battle earlier this year, the district’s Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cawley, acknowledged the tendency of CPS to close schools after years of divestment;

"If we think there is a chance that a building is going to close in the next five to 10 years, if we think its unlikely it’s going to continue to be a school, we are not going to invest."

“Now the district is reducing their facilities budget by 85% for next year, they are going to do to other schools what they’ve already done to Dyett,” said June Webb, a science teacher at Dyett. "Parents and teachers alike are outraged that CPS has the audacity to close our schools after they have failed to provide art, music, world languages and the appropriate numbers of support staff to make our schools successful. It’s important to defend our schools. My union, the Chicago Teachers Union, has spoken out repeatedly about the need for more enrichment, adequate staffing and appropriate facilities for our schools; it’s about time that CPS started listening.” 

Vice President Jesse Sharkey on Fox News Chicago

May 14, 2012

Chicago (FOX Chicago News)

Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey joined FOX Chicago Sunday this week.  

Before teaching social studies for 10 years at Senn High School, he studied history and education at Brown University, earning bachelors and a masters degree.  

He's been active in the North Lakefront 48th Ward and is one architect of the Teachers Union's new aggressiveness in seeking political allies outside the usual circles, critically important as union leaders work night and day toward a strike vote that could come in a matter of weeks.

CTU school-by-school poll shows 90% of members believe Board’s contract proposals will harm students and schools

May 11, 2012

Do you have a lapsed certificate? Act now to have it reinstated.

May 11, 2012

INSTRUCTIONS FOR REINSTATING LAPSED CERTIFICATES 

UNTIL SEPTEMBER 1, 2012 

Now that Senate Bill 3393 is signed into law (Public Act 97-0682), individuals who currently have lapsed certificates have the following options for reinstating their certificates until September 1, 2012. Forms have been provided for this purpose and modifications have been made to ECS to allow registration of those certificates that lapsed solely due to failure to pay registration fees. 

The first two forms may be downloaded from the “Certification Forms” list on the ISBE website at with this link. The third option is an online procedure available to educators only in their Educator Certification System (ECS) accounts. 

APPLICATION FOR REINSTATEMENT OF LAPSED CERTIFICATE 

– COLLEGE COURSEWORK 

1. Holders of certificates that have lapsed due to the educator’s failure to complete professional development (or due to not having approval of appropriate Statements of Assurance) and who have chosen to complete 9 semester hours of coursework should engage in each of the following steps: 

A) Complete the updated ISBE Form 73-93A 

B) Print the form 

C) Submit the form to the Educator Certification Division at ISBE 

D) Include a cashier’s check for all back fees 

E) Have official transcript(s) sent to ISBE 

APPLICATION FOR REINSTATEMENT OF LAPSED CERTIFICATE – $500 PENALTY 

2. Holders of certificates that have lapsed due to the educator’s failure to complete professional development (or due to not having approval of appropriate Statements of Assurance) and who choose to pay the $500 penalty fee in place of completing 9 semester hours of coursework should engage in each of the following steps: 

A) Complete new ISBE Form 73-93B 

B) Print the form 

C) Submit the form to the Educator Certification Division at ISBE 

D) Include a cashier’s check for $500 made payable to the State Superintendent of Education 

E) After 7 business days, the certificate holder must login to ECS and 

F) Click on “Register Certificates” to pay all registration fees 

APPLICATION FOR REINSTATEMENT OF LAPSED CERTIFICATE – REGISTRATION FEES 

3. Holders of certificates that have lapsed due solely to the educator’s failure to pay back fees should: 

A) Log in to their ECS accounts 

B) Click on “Register Certificates” 

C) Follow the prompts to complete the reinstatement process 

D) Pay all back fees and current registration by entering credit card information 

E) If the registration is paid to 6/30/12, individuals must start the process again to register for the next cycle. 

**Although the process of reinstating lapsed certificates is all one, the payment for back fees will appear as one transaction on the credit card incurring a $1.75 convenience fee, and registration for the remainder of the renewal cycle will appear as a second transaction with another $1.75 convenience fee. This is necessary because back fees are paid to ISBE and registration fees for FY13 forward are paid to the appropriate ROEs.** 

 **The above information is solely provided by the Illinois State Board of Education. 

Sun-Times: What I told Rahm about how Springfield works

by Rich Miller  |  May 11, 2012

The original post can be read here. 

I had a chance to sit down for half an hour with Mayor Rahm Emanuel when he was in Springfield on Tuesday.

Most of the conversation was off the record. Going off the record was my choice because Emanuel was sticking so tightly to his script that I wasn’t getting anything new or interesting out of him.

“I’m spending my Springfield political capital on pensions.”

“I’m serious about cleaning up this pension problem.”

“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

He didn’t actually say that last sentence, but that’s what it sounded like after a few minutes, so off the record we went.

The unscripted Emanuel was a lot more interesting, but off the record is off the record, so I can’t tell you what he said.

Suffice it to say that he’s pretty much on top of Statehouse events.

The mayor has some definite holes in his understanding of Springfield’s sausage-making process, but that’s to be expected from anybody who has never spent time down there. There’s a reason why people hire lobbyists. Navigating Springfield’s ever-complicated currents is treacherous work for all but the most experienced deckhands.

And while I can’t tell you what the mayor said, I can tell you what I told him.

Emanuel was in Springfield to ask the Legislature to include Chicago’s pension systems in its planned pension reform bill. The mayor had previously indicated to other reporters that he thought pension reform could be put off until the lame-duck session next January. Delaying a vote would give him and other mayors around the state more time to put pressure on the General Assembly.

The reality, though, is that at least one New York bond rating agency has warned Illinois that any delay in fixing pensions and Medicaid (which is bleeding red ink right now and facing a $2.7 bil­lion deficit next fiscal year alone) would result in a dangerous double-downgrade of Illinois’ credit rating. The state has been threatened twice with double-downgrades in the past couple of years. The first time, in 2010, resulted in a drastically scaled back pension plan for new state employees. The second time, in late 2011, resulted in the 66 percent income tax increase. New York bond houses rule the state’s world, unfortunately, and they have to be heeded.

Since that conversation, I’ve been told that top legislative Democrats are hesitant to include a city pension fix in the mix because of worries that it could draw even more opposition to the bill. They think they have the votes for pension reform, but when the city unions crank up the heat, that might all fall apart.

I also talked to him about guns. Downstate is in the process of seceding from the Democratic Party. So every time the brash Chicago Democrat mayor starts screaming about guns, that secession movement grows even bigger.

This is a remap year. Downstate Democratic legislators have tons of new turf to represent. That means they have a lot of new voters who don’t know who they are and likely don’t care.

If Emanuel is perceived as hurting Downstate Democratic interests, he’ll be shunned at the Statehouse.

And, finally, I told him he should probably go a bit easier on Gov. Pat Quinn in private. Emanuel got all up in Quinn’s face last year during a meeting over a Chicago casino and angrily issued some not-so-veiled threats.

Quinn’s favorite line when he feels disrespected is, “I’m the governor!” — usually bellowed when he’s pounding on a table.

He’s like Eddie Murphy’s character on the old “Saturday Night Live.” “I’m Gumby, damn it!”

Is a wide grin off the record?