CTU Calls on CPS to Do the Right Thing: Hire Back Cut Teachers and Support Personnel
“Right now, CPS is creating an unconscionable man-made educational disaster by raising class sizes to 33 students and dismissing up to 2,000 teachers and paraprofessionals. These acts will harm thousands of children. CPS needs to do the right thing. CPS must demand that the Mayor return TIF funds to schools, that the state legislature pays its bills, and that the $100 million from the federal government is spent solely on hiring back educators. It’s time to stop this brinkmanship that risks our children’s futures,” said CTU President Karen Lewis. “When political agendas substitute for education policy, children suffer.”
The federal education jobs bill, combined with recovered tax increment financing monies due Chicago Public Schools, will provide CPS with approximately $400 million in additional funding. According to the Chicago Teachers Union, that sum more than satisfies CPS’s undocumented $370 million shortfall this year.
In addition to the above revenue sources, the Chicago Teachers Union has found nearly $150 million in cost-savings from the newly released CPS budget. “Why spend $125 million to build another selective enrollment school? Jones College Prep should stay where it is. Also, CPS plans to spend $20 million more than is mandated on excessive testing. One test a year – that’s all teachers and students can meaningfully use,” said Lewis. Lewis also called for an end to no-bid contracts and sweetheart bond issuances earmarked for Chicago “charter chains”.
Please click on the below links for further information:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/35737363/8-11-Attach-1-Jones-Prep
http://www.scribd.com/doc/35739761/8-11-10-Attach-2-Testing-Savings-3
http://www.scribd.com/doc/35739735/8-11-10-Attach3-Charter-Bonds-1
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The Chicago Teachers Union represents 30,000 teachers and educational support personnel working in the Chicago Public Schools and, by extension, the students and families they serve. CTU, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, is the third largest union in the country and the largest local union in Illinois.
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