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Chicago: Teachers Won’t Come Back
Preschool teacher Kirstin Roberts teaches students outside Brentano Elementary Math & Science Academy since it isn’t “safe” inside.
CPS planned on a hybrid re-opening scheme this fall but the CTU protested that it wasn’t safe so CPS went remote. Throughout that time, CPS provided updates about the HEPA filters they installed in the schools, cleaning procedures, the polling from the community who wanted to return to in-person teaching, etc. All this led to January’s phased re-opening (note: the CTU did not endorse this plan)- on January 4, 5,800 teachers were meant to return to prep for the January 11 start date for pre-kindergarten age children and only 49.7% came back. Some taught remotely, some taught even outside the building in 27°F weather (see the photo above). And the CTU said that teachers who did not want to return had the Union’s full support. CPS and the city said they would face “progressive discipline”- i.e., risk being fired.
Things have only escalated since then. While teachers have trickled back to avoid losing their jobs, the CTU has ramped up its rhetoric about the schools being unsafe for learning. What are their reasons? The Chicago Department of Public Health gave the all-clear to reopen. They cited a study of the city’s Catholic schools’ low rate of transmission. But here is the rub:
“But for teachers afraid of becoming severely ill or even dying from the virus, the study has a glaring problem: Mainly that local, non-public schools studied by the health department have little to nothing in common with Chicago’s public schools, they said…The study monitored around 20,000 students enrolled in in-person learning at local Catholic schools. The students included in the health department’s study are 44 percent white, 20 percent Black and 29 percent Hispanic. CPS schools are 11 percent white, 36 percent Black and 47 percent Hispanic.”
On January 24, 10,000 teachers for kindergarten- 8th grade were supposed to report to their classrooms. However, the CTU held a vote on Sunday in which 71% of members voted to continue teaching remotely. This comes in direct defiance of the district’s orders to return to work. The CTU, adding fuel to the fire, has stated that if the teachers are locked out of their classrooms (teachers would be at home but they would be locked out of their school Google email accounts and all access to CPS channels would be frozen), they will strike. CPS has said that this strike would be illegal because it breaks the terms of their bargaining agreement. February 1 should be the first day of school for 71,000 children who have pledged to return to in-person schooling and the situation is anything but stable for them.
In a series of bumbling Covid platitudes, Biden gave his take to the delight of the CTU: “It’s not so much about the idea of teachers aren’t going to work. The teachers I know, they want to work…They just want to work in a safe environment and…as safe as we can rationally make it. And we can do that…”
The outlook here is grim and without question, the children and their families are paying a heavy price for this. Many children will never be able to recuperate the time they have lost in the classrooms. It’s a disaster on every possible level. But I’ll leave it here for now.
Published in Education
Excellent news.
The existential danger for all government entities is the sudden realization by their entrapped clients that the critical and irreplaceable function of any government entity could be easily replaced with a better and less expensive private sector alternative if the opportunity required it. In the America before the progressive age it was called liberty.
This is true of everything except for Criminal Law because it might be too draconian to allow the private citizen to mete out justice.
Nice contract! Getting paid not to work.
I saw this. Really worth 2 minutes for the utter inanity.
It gets better…National Review reports the Biden team wants to spend (ie bribe) the school districts that aren’t back in-person with a $130 billion (double the usual yearly expenditure) payout to get back on track.
This AFTER districts have already done so much to clean up the schools while their teachers receive full salary and benefits and, as some members on this thread have remarked, in the absence of evidence of transmission with children.
I’m glad my property taxes are going to a worthy cause.
Emphasis added.
Let me explain, no that will take to long. Let me summarize,. If you refuse to work according to the rules of the administration you are employed by, you are already on strike.
People this stupid shouldn’t be allowed to teach.
People, barely literate and numerate themselves, are teaching out children what? To be members of a woke society? Thanks, but no, thanks.
Watch the test scores go up as the CTU becomes less involved.
For that matter, why haven’t I seen a single penny of reduction to the school portion of my property taxes? There had to be hundreds of thousands of dollars saved this past year with shuttering school buildings for most of 2020. C’mon, man!
So they already saved a whole bunch of money by shutting down schools, and the government wants to give them MORE to re-open?
They probably haven’t saved any money. You know the administrators are still getting paid, and it sounds like the teachers are, too.
This is enraging.
I was in a “no strike” position at DOE.
Quote from Franklin Roosevelt regarding public sector unions:
. . . a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.
And when they “negotiate” their cushy contracts, the government is negotiating with itself (and against the public, taxpayers), which is the biggest argument against any public-sector unions. They are too entrenched now to ever go back.
I am a complete philistine when it comes to modern dance but this struck me as mediocre quality and amateurish.
No, I think you understand modern dance pretty well. ; )
I noticed that none of the “interpretative dancers” were male.
Are you absolutely sure about that?!
Well, none were obviously male.
One of the first things I thought too. If this is what these ‘dance’ teachers are teaching, can I go back to learning the minuet and the Virginia reel for my 4th grade class? Please.
I couldn’t stop watching. It was like a train wreck. And the underlying dialogue, “No return without safe return.” “Safe,” that’s a loaded term they make no effort to quantify. Are the children going to die? They’re more likely to die if the schools stay closed. Think about that.
I wouldn’t want these people to have any influence over my children, nor should they have it over anyone’s.
Edited to fix grammar.
Even more so when the parents chime in and say that the teachers are right to stay home and deliver a subpar product to their children for 300+ days in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. Horrifying.
We could start taking bets: will CPS cave to full remote again or will CTU strike??
The parents share the blame- they enable the teachers. Here’s an example from today’s Sun Times:
“We want them to listen to the parents,” said Bridgett White, one of about a dozen CPS parents who spoke during a virtual news conference. “The majority of CPS parents are not comfortable with sending their children back in person. They don’t trust the plan for keeping their children safe. Even the Board (of Education) meeting that is going to be held later today is going to be virtual. So why can’t our children continue to do such?”
Any evidence that this is true? “The majority of CPS parents . . .”? Do we have poll results? A questionnaire they sent out? Are there actual names we can reference? Or did Bridgett White just pull this claim of “the majority” right out of her hindquarters?
I mean, I don’t care. We homeschool. So my kids have experienced no change in their education this year at all. (Except an extra week off when my wife and I were in COVID jail and the kids ran the house.)
There certainly was polling from CPS and the CTU did their own. I can’t find the CPS polls but I think they relied on nationwide polling about remote learning not being very useful (which I can attest to being a teacher myself).
And a Board of Education meeting is in no way comparable to a classroom learning session. Different purpose. Different structure. Different interpersonal dynamics. Different types of people.
This is really one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.
It was reassuring to read the comments/replies to the CTU tweet. Most folks seem to understand that this is hot garbage.
There are some sensible people out there. I hope their tweets don’t get flagged as misinformation!
For Twitter, et al, “misinformation” is in the eye of the Censor.