HOD

All Quiet on the HOD Front
By Jim Vail


They say no news is good news.

At last week's Chicago Teachers Union House of Delegates meeting there was no big show - no Bruce Rauner scare tactics, no doomsday scenarios, political skits or ground-shaking resolutions.

One delegate asked what can be done about the Reach system where teachers could get a good teaching evaluation, but if the test scores don't go up, the teacher's rating still goes down (a fact facing the majority of teachers in the system).

CTU's Quest Center head Carol Caref answered that it all goes back to the law.

It's called SB7!  

The CTU's Karen Lewis signed off on this extremely punitive law on teacher evaluations with hardly a fight. 

How bad is it?

Two satisfactory or basic ratings equal an unsatisfactory rating = your career is finished as a teacher.  

Lewis said at the time she signed on to the bill to preserve the strike. 

But the Chicago teachers strike two years ago was only technically about pay and benefits.  All those beautiful teacher signs for smaller class sizes, air conditioning and a halt to the onslaught of the standardized testing craze, was never permissive bargaining. 

The highlight of the delegates meeting were two short speeches by candidates endorsed by the CTU to run in March's state representative democrat primary.

First to speak was Jay Travis, running in the 26th district.  She told the delegates she supports strong neighborhood schools (so did mayor Daley), a moratorium on school closings (but our endorsed speaker Mike Madigan made sure that didn't happen in the legislature), and a "pause button" on charter schools.

That last word woke me up - pause.  So perhaps Jay does support charter schools, we just need a temporary halt to make sure this happens the right way.

What is the right way for increasing charter schools whose primary function today is to bust the union, create sweat shop conditions in schools to burn teachers out and be used to demonize regular public schools.

Hmmm.....

Then there was high-energy Will Guzzardi whose enthusiasm knows no bounds. He is certainly a budding young politician to watch in the future.  He has created a number of support groups, with names like women for Will, teachers for Will and is constantly inviting people to join his campaign.

Will pointed out that the machine candidate Toni Berrios, daughter of the Cook County assessor (property taxes), is putting out literature with scare tactics; one flyer saying if Guzzardi is elected, they will need close many schools and children will not be able to read.

Hey, the machine is alive and kicking.

Here's my one question about Will. He supports the union on many of our issues - an elected school board, neighborhood schools, stop privatization of schools, etc.

But he's a power player.  You don't come within a few percentage points of defeating the machine and not know how to play the political game, which means listening to those who pay the piper.  

The union has only so much money to give. There are far more powerful interests with a lot more cash to give and get a return on their money.

I highly recommend that if you want to know how Will and the others will fare in the state legislature should they get elected, you simply look at who's funding them. Will knows how to raise money. The question is, at what cost?

If you are a legislator with strong ties to the union in this day and age - look no further than state rep Monique Davis.  The Tribune has been gunning to get her out for years, publishing scandals on office rent, etc.

Kevin Hough from the grievance department had an excellent report on how the CTU helped save the job of the Kenwood High School delegate who was basically fired for actively supporting his teachers.

You can't fault the union to try to keep its troops morale up despite the dire circumstances.  

But the truth is always necessary to fight the fight.