(Click here to download the full report.)

Back in the middle of this past February, the Chicago Teachers Union released a comprehensive report that offers research-based policy recommendations to improve student academic performance and to strengthen neighborhood schools. Chicago Public School (CPS) parents, Local School Council leaders, clergy and educators joined the CTU in supporting this proposal. The following is the executive summary from that report:

The Schools Chicago's Students Deserve is a new Chicago Teachers Union study which argues in favor of proven educational reforms to dramatically improve the education of more than 400,000 students in a district of 675 schools.

These reforms are desperately needed and can lead chicago towards the world-class educational system its students deserve. Our study presents 46 pages of research-based details on the following 10 essential recommendations:

1. Recognize That Class Size Matters. Drastically reduce class size. We currently have one of the largest class sizes in the state. This greatly inhibits the ability of our students to learn and thrive.

2. Educate The Whole Child. Invest to ensure that all schools have recess and physical education equipment, healthy food offerings, and classes in art, theater, dance, and music in every school. Offer world languages and a variety of subject choices. Provide every school with a library and assign the commensurate number of librarians to staff them.

3. Create More Robust Wrap-around Services. The Chicago Public Schools system (CPS) is far behind recommended staffing levels suggested by national professional associations. The number of school counselors, nurses, social workers, and psychologists must increase dramatically to serve Chicago’s population of low-income students. Additionally, students who cannot afford transportation costs need free fares.

4. Address Inequities In Our System. Students and their families recognize the apartheid-like system managed by CPS. It denies resources to the neediest schools, uses discipline policies with a disproportionate harm on students of color, and enacts policies that increase the concentrations of students in high poverty and racially segregated schools.

5. Help Students Get Off To A Good Start. We need to provide age-appropriate (not test-driven) education in the early grades. All students should have access to pre-kindergarten and to full day kindergarten.

6. Respect And Develop The Professionals. Teachers need salaries comparable to others with their education and experience. They need time to adequately plan their lessons and collaborate with colleagues, as well as the autonomy and shared decision-making to encourage professional judgment. CPS needs to hire more teaching assistants so that no students fall through the cracks.

7. Teach All Students. We need stronger commitments to address the disparities that exist due to our lack of robust programs for emergent bilingual students and services for students faced with a variety of special needs.

8. Provide Quality School Facilities. No more leaky roofs, asbestos-lined bathrooms, or windows that refuse to shut. Students need to be taught in facilities that are well-maintained and show respect for those who work and go to school there.

9. Partner With Parents. Parents are an integral part of a child’s education. They need to be encouraged and helped in that role.

10. Fully Fund Education. A country and city that can afford to take care of its affluent citizens can afford to take care of those on the other end of the income scale. There is no excuse for denying students the essential services they deserve.

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Tonight, Feb 22, 2012, at about 6:15 PM, the appointed Board of Education of the city of Chicago closed, phased out, and turned around all 17 schools on their chopping block without a dissenting vote and hardly a blink of an eye. Despite protests ranging from the sleepover on the sidewalk and mic-check takeover of the Board meeting in December, the 4-day sit-in at the mayor's office, the occupation of Piccolo school, the 500-plus person candlelight vigil to the mayor's house Monday night and the dozens of hearings, speakouts, and organizing meetings around the city where parents, students, teachers and community member poured out their hearts, developed plans, and were deeply involved in our children's education--this Board callously ignored the wisdom and love of Chicago's people. Even though we knew it was coming, we were deeply hurt and angered. They gave six schools to the very politically connected AUSL, rapidly on its way to building its empire in Chicago (now 25 schools) and soon to go national.

As Jitu Brown of KOCO told the press immediately after the so-called vote, "only in Black and Brown communities would this happen, not in Winnetka or Oak Park." This is a deeply racist city, where the 1% ignores the knowledge and experience of its residents about the education of their children, overwhelmingly of color in Chicago public schools (92%).

We need an elected and representative school board, elections with spending limits, and bottom-up, community-driven plans for real school transformation and community control of schools. And we need real popular political education, as to the nature of what we're up against. This is a business plan, hatched by the 1%, for the 1%--not an education plan. We have much work to do, in educating and organizing ourselves. This fight is far from over, and we will continue to fight it in the streets, courts, legislature, board rooms, classrooms, schools, media, and everywhere else.

To quote our brother in the struggle, Adourthus McDowell (look at the mic-check video!), "THESE ARE OUR CHILDREN! NOT CORPORATE PRODUCT!"



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• Privatizing & corporatizing public schooling.
• Pushing merit pay and other measures that make up part of a larger, national attack on teachers & their unions.
• Withdrawing resources from neighborhood schools and building a 2-tiered education system. 

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On May 25, TSJ joined several thousand fired-up teachers, parents, students, and school staff, in a huge show of outreach at CPS's proposed budget cuts.

Marching from CPS headquarters to City Hall, we took to the streets with demands: * Save our Schools! * Chop from the Top! * Stop investing in Private Schools! * The Money is There- Give the TIF $ back to the People!

Clark Street was clogged with buses unloading marchers (by our count about 40 buses). As part of the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM), TSJ and other GEM partners (KOCO, Blocks Together, Pilsen Alliance, among others present) joined the current leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union and CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators) which initiated the rally in the union and is in a run-off for the leadership. This powerful outpouring signaled the power of unity between teachers and community that we will need we will need to defeat the drastic budget cuts hitting school districts around the country as politicians, corporations and banks try to dump their financial crisis on our backs.

The rally gave us a taste of the power of the teachers union, a sleeping giant, which if fully awakened as a social justice union in principled alliance with children and communities, has the strength to bring the city and the school district to listen to the people' demands. This is why it is strategically important to support CORE for the CTU runoff election on June 11!
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