Showing posts with label Chicago Public Schools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicago Public Schools. Show all posts
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Join CTU at Feb 4th Rally Against Mass Layoffs

February 2, 2016 0 comments

It's time to show our strength. 

Graphic by Ellen Gradman @sparkyourart
VIA CTU Facebook Event Page:

 CPS has done it. As expected, they have announced layoffs of 1,000 or more educators in a letter sent today to the CTU. They also said that they would take 7% of our pay through the pension pickup within 30 days and redirect anti-poverty funds to general expenses.

The union spent fifteen months trying to get a serious offer out of the Board. After only three weeks of negotiations, CPS made an offer that (1) relied on a reduction of more than 2,000 educators from the system, (2) made no provision against ballooning class sizes as a result, and (3) included nothing but the vaguest indicators of where new revenue will be pursued. 

The mayor has had every opportunity to pursue revenue from his wealthy friends and backers. Instead he has targeted educators and students to pay for the Board’s mismanagement. CPS has shot down the flag of truce and peace talks are over. It is time for Chicago’s educators and public school supporters to take off the gloves and head out to the streets. 

We will start the march at Bank of America at 135 South Lasalle and finishing at City Hall. Please note: THIS WILL BE A NONVIOLENT AND SAFE RALLY! Attending the rally will not put you at risk of arrest or sanction.

 RSVP to CTU at https://www.facebook.com/events/1674831469456432/ 

 TSJer Phil Cantor explains a teachers view of the CPS/CTU contract fight: http://phillipcantor.com/2016/02/03/why-ctu-still-doesnt-have-a-contract/ Read the Full Story

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April 1, 2014 0 comments

Closings by Another Name

On Friday, March 21, The Chicago Board of Education announced that it would fire every single adult in three of Chicago’s schools and hand over management of the schools to the Academy for Urban School Leadership—a politically connected private management organization with close ties to Board President David Vitale. Calling this practice “Turnaround,” the Board claims it will help students. But studies show otherwise. This is an attack on Black schools that continues the assault carried out by CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett last year, when she closed fifty schools (claiming they were the last closings for at least five years).
Calling the turnarounds, “a slap in the face to those of us who are attempting to negotiate for more resources, collaboration and support throughout our district,” CTU President Karen Lewis called for us to step up and defend our schools. “This is nothing more than school closings by another name,” said President Lewis. “After closing 50 schools, now we find three campuses more on the chopping block while the mayor continues his televised propaganda campaign of promoting these disastrous policies.”
Stand with these schools by signing up to bear witness at one of the hearings mandated by law for each affected school. Our schools need every voice to ring out for them.
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Lessons from the 1963 Boycott: The Struggle for Quality Education

October 10, 2013 0 comments


Join us on October 22nd, the 50th anniversary of the 1963 Boycott of Chicago Public Schools, when an estimated 250,000 Chicagoans – mostly CPS students – protested segregation and inequality. The evening features a screening of in-progress documentary '63 Boycott from Kartemquin Films (The Interrupters), a panel discussion with education activists from then and now, and a spoken word performance by Malcolm London of Young Chicago Authors. The panel includes Karen Lewis of the Chicago Teachers Union; 1963 Boycott leader Rosie Simpson; Fannie Rushing, a young organizer of the 1963 Boycott; Elizabeth Todd-Breland, a historian at University of Illinois in Chicago; and Jasson Perez from Black Youth Project.

The DuSable Museum of African American History
740 E 56th Pl 
Chicago, IL 60637
Tuesday, October 22, 2013 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (CDT)

Co- Sponsored by Kartemquin Films, Chicago Teachers Union, Education for Liberation Network, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture at the University of Chicago, Crossroads Fund, Grassroots Collaborative, Black Youth Project, Young Chicago Authors, Chicago Grassroots Curriculum Taskforce, Human Rights Program at University of Chicago, Chicago Freedom School, Chicago Area Women's History Council, Teachers for Social Justice, Save Our Schools








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First People's Board Meeting Held In Chicago!

September 30, 2013 0 comments

First People's Board Meeting Held Wednesday, Sept 25, 2013 at Mount Carmel Missionary Church on Chicago's South Side

Notes from a participant:
Wednesday night was a terrific People's Board Meeting. It was excellent. I counted, and we had about 100 people, but it wasn't about the numbers. People lined up and spoke, and though some folks probably could have been shorter, everyone who went up there spoke, and they said all kinds of insightful, powerful, moving, and hopeful things. The Board listened and responded, and Adourthus McDowell from KOCO chaired it (as the Board chair) and ran it like the hundreds of LSC meetings he's run over 20 years—fairly, decently, with dignity and seriousness, noting important things for us to do and be.

It was a great example of us trying to live what we want to be. We don't often get to practice that kind of people's democracy, and although we do not have democracy (people's or otherwise!), it is important to envision it and practice it when we can. We have to become the people we want to be, in the process of changing the world. As one speaker said, we are authentic and transparent, and are engaging in a bottom-up process to change our children's education. You could feel it Wednesday night. Everyone there seem to take it very seriously. People spoke from the heart and others listened, and it felt powerful.

And Jessica Suárez spoke on behalf of TSJ, and spoke from the heart (as always) as a mother and to-be-teacher about how you have to know the students' community and have passion for their struggles.
(Photos by Rousemary Vega)
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Parents/Students Take Over Sojo Mtg-2 Teachers Fired

August 29, 2012 0 comments

A SoJo HS Parent speaks during the public comment portion of the community forum.

In a show of community unity, on Thurs. night Aug 23, 200 parents, teachers, students, and community members at Chicago's Social Justice High School (Sojo) denounced CPS-appointed interim principal and CPS Network staff for cutting AP classes and critical student programs, displacing core veteran teachers, disrespecting parents and community, destabilizing the school, and violating the values of the Hunger Strike that founded the school. Charging that CPS is trying to cut out the heart of Sojo's social justice mission, students led the parents and community members in chanting "where's the justice in social justice?"

TWO TEACHERS FIRED
At the end of the day on Friday, Aug. 24, the interim principal fired Angela Sangha and Katie Hogan, two veteran English teachers who have been with Sojo since the day it opened in Fall 2005.

SUPPORT THE STRUGGLE TO DEFEND SOJO, ITS TEACHERS AND STUDENTS
Parents, community members, students and teachers, backed by the CTU, are fighting back. Students are organizing to leaflet the community, starting Saturday (Aug 25). They need copying donated to distribute 1500 two-sided flyers. IF YOU CAN MAKE COPIES EMAIL TSJ ASAP. Stay tuned for next steps.

 CALL CPS CEO BRIZARD
Call CEO Brizard at 312-553-1500 and demand the following:
1. Respect the LSC process and reinstate the recently fired principal Kathy Farr
2. Rehire all fired teachers and other personnel and return teachers and staff to their regular assignments
3. No reprisals/retaliation against students and teachers and staff

Born out of struggle and the struggle continues!

Check out article in Substance magazine on the meeting last night here. For more information, please download this flyer.

Here are videos from the community forum:


And here is a video of Katie Hogan, one of the teachers fired the day after the community forum, speaking at Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign's town hall meeting on education on Wed, Aug 30th:



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Defend Chicago’s Social Justice High School (Sojo)

August 23, 2012 3 comments


Sojo was “born out of struggle” in 2001 when 14 Little Village residents endured a 19- day hunger strike to fight for a new school in their neighborhood. In Fall 2005, Sojo and three other small schools opened in a new building on 31st and Kostner, serving Little Village and North Lawndale. Sojo is a neighborhood school built on the principles of the Hunger Strike: “truth and transparency, struggle and sacrifice, ownership and agency, and collective and community power”. It is a national model of social justice education. But now, Sojo is under attack by the CPS Administration. CPS is trying to dismantle Sojo by downgrading the curriculum, displacing teachers, and lying to the community. Sojo’s very existence as a neighborhood public school serving low-income African American and Latin@ students with the vision of community self-determination is a threat to CPS’s top-down corporate model of schooling.

CPS never gave a contract to the new Sojo principal, Kathy Farr, who was selected by the Advisory LSC and started in March 2012. On Tuesday, August 7th, just six days before school began, CPS fired and replaced her with an interim principal, without consulting anyone in the Sojo community. When school opened Monday, the interim principal cut three AP classes and replaced them with remedial classes, fired two attendance clerks, and reassigned teachers to classes and subjects with no preparation. On Day #3 of school, students organized a peaceful, disciplined sit-in to demand the reinstatement of AP classes and staff to their original positions. Now student leaders are threatened with explusion.

Sojo is striving for the critical and culturally relevant education our youth need. From Tucson to Sojo, this is the same attack! CPS is dismantling this national model. Given what we have learned from the past 8 years of school privatization in Chicago, CPS may be planning to “redefine” sojo and turn the school’s state-of-the-art building and its students over to politically connected charter operators.

This is all of our fight! Come out to a community forum on Thurs., Aug. 23, 6 PM (31st St. & Kostner) in solidarity with Sojo.
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Chicago Teachers Stand UP!

After 17 years of the tyranny of high stakes tests, business-managers running the schools, school closings, disinvestment in neighborhood public schools and turning them over to private operators, teachers have had enough. The 30,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union are standing up to the bankers and corporate interests who are dismantling public education and destroying teaching and learning. The city that has been the birthplace of corporate “reform” is now the epicenter of the fight against it. Rahm and the CPS negotiators are not budging on key issues: smaller class size, adequate school support staff (nurses, social workers, paraprofessionals), rehiring experienced laid off teachers, and fair compensation. And, in many schools, CPS is not implementing the agreement for a better school day, not just a longer day, as promised. Rahm and the Board of Ed are pushing the teachers toward a strike. Teachers do not want a strike, but they are preparing to do what it takes to win a fair and equitable contract that will help children get the education they deserve and stop CPS from trampling on the rights of teachers. This is a strategic battle for public education. The eyes of the country are on Chicago.

The national education privatizers (Stand For Children, Education Reform Now, etc.) are pouring resources into Chicago to defeat the CTU. We have to mobilize all our grassroots resources against them.

Solidarity with the CTU

What we can do:
  • PARTICIPATE IN A COMMUNITY FORUM. 
  • JOIN THE CHICAGO TEACHERS SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN. The Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign is a diverse coalition of local community organizations, labor activists, parents and students who support the CTU in their fight for quality education. They meet every week and have numerous opportunities for joining with others in supporting the teachers.
  • GET INFORMED. Read: The Schools Chicago Students Deserve 
  • ORGANIZE A MEETING in your home/community/place of worship to discuss the issues and what is at stake. TSJ can help with this. Email at teachersforjustice@hotmail.com
  • DONATE TO THE SOLIDARITY FUND Contribute to the CTU Solidarity Fund 
  • IF THERE IS A STRIKE: TSJ will mobilize to support the picket lines, get out information to the public, and support community organizations offering programs for children. Email us to get involved: teachersforjustice@hotmail.com
  • WATCH THE CTU and TSJ WEBSITES, EMAILS, FACEBOOK FOR UPDATES.

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