The Board presents a decent case

No question about it. The Board is trying to selling its case to some people in Waukegan. Community support for teachers seems exceptionally high regardless. Parents and students are lending strong support to their teachers.

Eduhonesty: I’m surprised this story has not gotten more play. We are talking about 1,200 employees. That’s a number that ought to garner news coverage all over the place. I wish more people were talking with the teachers. The nonmonetary issues need to be brought to the forefront so that people can understand how current educational approaches and policies compromise the education of America’s children. The monetary issues also beg discussion. Parents are tired of qualified teachers leaping to other districts that pay more.

In the meantime, 17,000 students are still out of class.

Response to a comment on the Waukegan strike

The teachers are asking for a 9% raise. That fact floats to the surface easily. Less easy to quantify is the effect of the Board’s plan to make teachers and others pay for an increased proportion of their health care costs. Some teachers may receive a de facto pay cut.

Teachers will never see a raise of 9%. That number is a starting point in what is becoming a bruising battle. I am just throwing out this issue because the Board in Waukegan is trumpeting that 9% figure. If I make $40,000 per year, I certainly don’t take home $3,333 dollars a month. Federal income taxes, state income taxes, and FICA taxes eat a hunk of my check, somewhere between 15% and 20%. I still will pay sales taxes and other taxes. In Illinois, I may end up with substantial toll costs to get to and from Waukegan. I will be paying union dues as well as some portion toward my retirement in lieu of social security, which I will not receive if I have participated in the Teacher’s Retirement Fund for any length of time. When all is said and done, I may find I am taking home less than $1,000 per paycheck after I pay for health insurance. A substantial increase in my insurance payments leaves me with a net loss of income next year.

I don’t have exact numbers. I do have a quote from a former teacher in the district: “The administration’s request that teachers pay a “modest” share of the cost of single health coverage seems reasonable enough, until you look at the percentages employees are expected to pay for coverage of their spouse, child, or full family under the district’s offer dated Sept. 26th. Looking at all categories for PPO, HMO, Blue ADV, and HDP, the employee contribution ranges anywhere from a low of 61% for Spouse coverage in the HMO, to a high of 94% for Full Family coverage in HDP! Teachers simply cannot allow that door to be opened for single coverage. If it is, the initial “modest” sum will eventually grow to the percentages already mentioned – gobbling up most, if not more than, any pay increase the teachers would receive.”

Eduhonesty: In my previous post, I said this strike is not about money. I think I must amend that comment. It IS about money in the sense that the current settlement has the potential to represent a net pay loss to lower-paid teachers. The Board is acting deceptively when they talk about gross paycheck changes. What I make as a gross salary is virtually irrelevant. What matters is my take-home pay; that number determines whether I can fix my car or buy braces for my child. That number establishes where and how I can live.

Day 9: Waukegan teacher’s strike

Nobody goes into this field for the money. The Waukegan Board seems to be trying to portray district teachers as greedy and rapacious. The Board wants to project an image of heartless men and women who don’t care about the children who are missing school. They don’t know how good they have it, the Board’s communications suggest.

I understand this negative portrayal of teachers to be part of the art of negotiation. On the other side, the teachers keep pointing to the huge salaries of administrators and district lawyers. This should also be seen as a negotiation tactic. Lawyers can be expected to reap in the big bucks and administrators often do, too.

Eduhonesty: All politics aside, these teachers lost their healthcare when the strike began. They are COBRAing or doing without. They ceased to be paid with the strike. They are extending their school year, day by day, into the summer, miserable days since many of their schools don’t have air-conditioning. I will confess I taught in that district years ago. The heat in the high school during fall and spring led to more than one emergency call for ambulances. Someone would always make an excuse: “Oh, she didn’t have breakfast.” Breakfast, hell. It was 100 degrees some days in those classrooms. When I went looking for my next job, air-conditioning was towards the top of my list of requirements.

It’s worth taking the time to look at some teacher complaints. I’ll start with one that leapt out at me: Paper-rationing. That complaint sounds innocuous enough. I’m realizing this complaint will require a whole post, but I’ll quickly lay out why that complaint has meaning for me. I bought paper last week to supply my house. I need this to print classroom materials. “Go to Costco for a big box of paper” is toward the top of my to-do list. My main problem is dysfunctional technology. If I need a handout, I will not take the chance that there are no functional copiers/printers. Some years, lack of paper has dogged me throughout the year. I buy paper for my district. I have bought ink cartridges for my district. One advantage to the new Promethean Boards: I no longer have to supply my district with overhead projector bulbs. The government gives teachers a $250 tax deduction for supplies. In poor districts, expenses for supplies may rocket over that number near the start of the year before we regularly start buying paper.

I guarantee the Board is not buying its own paper. None of them ever started at $30,000 some dollars per year either, as new teachers in that district do. I’ve always had enough money to buy paper without sweating the expense. I even bought ink cartridges for younger, poorer colleagues. My husband has subsidized the educational system with more than his tax dollars.

I’d like to say this clearly for readers: Nobody goes into education for the money. This strike is only peripherally about money. It’s mostly about working conditions. Those conditions matter. The Board wants the focus in this strike to be on $$$ because that deflects focus from working conditions. But working conditions shape our students’ educations. If teachers don’t have paper or planning time, education is compromised. This strike is about education.

I am certain that if teachers had the planning time, administrative support and supplies they needed, this strike would never have occurred.

Why I don’t trust social science research

Source: Charter Schools in Chicago: No Model for Education Reform, October, 2014:

“Finally, the results for the high school achievement measures – ACT scores, graduation rates and college enrollment – suggested that charter high schools may produce positive outcomes in these measures. However, positive results were limited to students with extended attendance in charters that included both middle and high school grades, a category which included only four charters at the time of the study.”

This lengthy paper by The Institute of Metropolitan Opportunity clearly intends to show that charter schools are not superior to public schools. The “study” is filled with anti-charter observations. Here is the first paragraph of the introduction:

Charter schools have become the cornerstone of school reform in Chicago and nationally. Arne Duncan, who led Chicago schools and was a strong proponent of charters, became secretary of Education. As Secretary Duncan has championed policies to dramatically expand the use of charters throughout the United States. Chicago, however, remains one of the nation’s lowest performing school districts. Sadly the charters schools, which on average score lower that the Chicago public schools, have not improved the Chicago school system, but perhaps made it even weaker. Further charters, which are even more likely to be single race schools than the already hypersegregated Chicago school system, have not increased interracial contact, an often stated goal of charter systems. Finally, the fact that Chicago charters use expulsion far more often that public schools deserves further study. In the end it is unlikely that the Chicago charter school experience provides a model for improving urban education in other big city school districts.

Eduhonesty: Ummm… In my view, improved ACT scores and graduation rates represent a win for students. The fact that more time may be needed in charter schools to produce these results does not debunk the effectiveness of charter schools. While not all charter schools produce positive results, some do. The problem I encountered while reading this piece pervades social science literature: The authors appear to have a bias leading them to diminish the positives for charters while trumpeting the negatives, negatives that may be more a feature of a school’s relative youth than its potential. What we ought to be doing is seeking out successful charters to see what they are doing right.

Dear Jesus…

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Standardized tests don’t usually inspire laugh-aloud moments, but this test proved the exception. I’ll be curious to see the test results. The whole grade took the test so that we could compare various classes and groups, another tough hour for my crowd. I spend a lot of time giving tests that I know most or even all of my students will fail, tests written by others in order to collect data that should (and does) already exist. Will the appeal-for-divine-support strategy work? Probably not, but who knows.

Eduhonesty: He was taking the test seriously, anyway.

I Love My Job

Whine, whine, whine.

A blog about education can easily skew toward the negative. I write about the crises and challenges. I write about long hours, crazy requirements, and administrative wackiness. Lately, I write about staggering amounts of government interference in administrative offices, classrooms and even lunchrooms.

I’d like to pause a bit and describe the end of my last day. Two girls who were former students ran up and just spontaneously gave me big hugs and told me how much they missed me. Three colleagues and I talked to a student and his mom about how he needed to step up his game, focus and do his work. I’m honestly not having much trouble with that student, though. In fact, he’s often a delight. I embrace my critical thinkers and this boy can think. He knows I believe in him and I think he responds accordingly. I’ve had to write him up. I’ve even contributed to the list of referrals that got him Saturday school. But he knows I am in his corner and if he marches to a different drummer, well, I’ve heard that drummer all my life.

At the end of the day, I handed out a fair number of Jolly Ranchers, some to the boy in trouble, his brother and cousin (both former students whose presence makes my day brighter) and some to the five girls I forced to stay after school to make up work. New government regulations say I am not supposed to give out candy during the school day, so I give out Jolly Rancher coupons for after school. You don’t necessarily need a coupon, but a coupon is redeemable for a Jolly Rancher after hours.

(I sometimes write coupons on the fly when I run out and this was a forgery that netted one boy a mini spelling lesson.)

After the kids had gone home, I talked to colleagues for awhile. I like my colleagues. I could name a few, past and present, whom I love. Teaching attracts interesting people. Teaching is one of the few paying refuges for would-be historians, archeologists, musicians and poets. The field draws in people who understand why the First World War mattered, people who draw maps for recreation, and people who create zombie apocalypse blogs for fun. The staff lunch room is filled with people who have hobbies even if they are often too busy to work on those hobbies during the school year. I don’t get quilting — I don’t have the patience — but I find quilters agreeable lunch companions.

Eduhonesty: This job can be enormously frustrating due to all the demands from higher-up, some of which are irrational and unproductive. But I can sit if I need to, I can walk around my room all day if I choose to (and I don’t much like sitting) and I have a sense that what I am doing matters. Some kids may end up with two babies by the age of 18 and no plans for further education, but others will achieve their goal to go into nursing or computer programming. I am one of the voices trying to make dreams into reality. I am working in a school where the dreams are sparse and expectations few, so the challenge proves daunting on some days.

But I like my job. On good days, I love my job.