Change the Conversation

Do We Really Need to Change the Conversation?

By Jim Vail 

Yet another caucus has jumped into the explosive upcoming Chicago Teachers Union election this May.

Change the Conversation has been collecting signatures to get placed on the ballot. The deadline is Friday, March 24. 

The four declared caucuses running in the upcoming election are Core which currently leads the CTU, Members First, a vocal opposition group, Real, a group made up of former active Core members, and Change.

But who exactly is Change the Conversation?

Second City Teachers caught up with Mea Robinson-Davis, who is running on their ticket for recording secretary.

She said their caucus was formed about two months ago and currently has 4 members - Dr. Winnie Williams Hall, president; Nicole Flores, vice president, Jenna Brandon, treasurer and Davis.

They are currently gathering signatures and hope they will have enough to be on the ballot come election time with the other caucuses.

Davis said it has not been easy getting petitions signed.

"We've gotten some pushback," Davis told Second City Teachers. "A Members First school said they didn't want to sign the petitions because they didn't want to split the vote. There is also a lot of apathy."

Change the Conversation say they want more transparency and communication and less politics - very similar to what Members First wants.

So how are they different?

"Equity and equality," Davis said.

Davis said that their caucus wants to focus on the students as well as the teachers. 

"We are very passionate about the teachers and their lives," she said. "I feel quite ignored by our union leadership."

It appears the whole city, if not the country, is looking at this teachers union election. The CTU leadership is on edge about outside influences. They just filed a lawsuit against a former Mayor Lori Lightfoot aide who they claimed was illegally trying to influence the union election. They also called a special House of Delegates meeting where the delegates passed a resolution to denounce any outside influences on the election.

Change the Conversation uses corporate reform rhetoric such as equity and equality that groups like Educators for Excellence have used to influence union politics. This group appeared in the wake of the first Chicago teachers strike in 2012 when the union was involved in a life and death struggle with ed reformers who tried to take away the right of teachers to strike for better wages and conditions. Educators for Excellence held many meetings with teachers across the city - including at my school Hammond Elementary - where they paid for lavish lunches while saying they were concerned about the teachers and their conditions.

But there are no free lunches! This group is funded by the Gates Foundation which along with the other billionaire ed reformers want to privatize public education by closing public schools and opening up non-union charter schools. 

Davis is a special education teacher like her running mate Dr. Winnie Williams Hall. They both teach at Nicholson Elementary School in Englewood on the South Side. Niki Flores, a kindergarten bilingual teacher, and Jenna Brandon, a case manager, both teach at Peterson Elementary School on the North Side.

While they criticize union politics, their ticket looks like the perfect political statement. They have three races represented - African-American, Latinx and White, and both regions of the city represented - the South and North Sides.

But their social media presence is practically non-existent. Their Twitter account has less than a dozen followers and their Facebook page is almost non-existent.

Are they merely a plant to further increase opposition to a union that has battled the Mayor and big business plans to privatize education?

Or are they truly concerned that the teaching profession is not adequately represented by a current leadership team that critics argue is too focused on politics at the expense of rapidly deteriorating teaching conditions in the schools?

"Like many of you I've been feeling the frustration as of late," Williams Hall says in her social media campaign video. "Although grateful for the gains made by our current union leadership I do feel it is time for a change. For a while now teachers have felt their frustrations with politics over classrooms. Let's put the focus back where it belongs - support for students, teachers and staff. Educators let's change the conversation."