Book Review Part 4

Book Review Part 4: 

Teachers and Reform: Chicago Public Education

By John Lyons

Jacqueline Vaughn became the first African-American CTU President in 1984

This is the fourth and final part of our 4-part series on the history of the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Public Schools. This part will look at how the union and the teachers fought over integration v. black power with the City Machine. This is based on the book Teachers and Reform: Chicago Public Education 1929 - 1970 by John Lyons.

It is very important to know our history - especially our schools and union history so we as teachers can better understand our present situation. What did people fight over? What was permitted or not permitted? This can shape how we respond to events today.

The teachers union in Chicago attained collective bargaining rights  from Big Time Boss Mayor Richard J. Daley as a concession to prevent the bigger fight for integration of the schools. The black schools on the South and West Sides were overcrowded and underfunded, while many white schools on the North Side were under capacity and had better resources.

Like former Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey constantly reminding the delegates that they had fought many strikes to get a better contract, former CTU President John Fewkes, who the $48 million Fewkes Tower that the union sold six years ago was named after, constantly reminded the teachers that he had obtained the teachers their pay after the payless paydays of the 1930s and had united the feuding teachers into one union in 1937. His followers were the old-timers who remembered what it was like during the Depression.

But the times were a changing!

Superintendent Benjamin Willis refused to bargain with the teachers union and wanted to control every detail of the school operation without any regard to teacher input. By the early 1960s Chicago teachers pay fell behind other teachers. Salary increases were so low throughout the 1960s that it did not keep pace with the cost of living. Teachers did not even have medical insurance or paid vacation at the time when this country experienced unprecedented prosperity. Teachers believed the principals held too much power and they demanded too much paper work. They also complained about student behavior. In 1964 there were 39 lawsuit cases of assault against teachers and a survey revealed 192 out of 374 CTU delegates reported  severe behavior problems in their classrooms and another 152 reported daily but minor behavior problems. In 1961 Josephine Keane became the first teacher murdered by a CPS student.

Many white teachers believed that the civil rights movement's demand for school integration threatened their working conditions and put at risk classroom autonomy with no respect for teachers. CTU President Fewkes had "little personal sympathy with the demands of the civil rights movement in Chicago." One researcher found "anyone who tried to speak about school integration on the floor of the Union of House of Representatives in the early 1960s was actually hooted down." Fewkes refused to speak out against segregation and the CTU opposed racial integration of the teachers by upholding the right of seniority in teacher transfers. While ignoring racial problems, the CTU rigorously defended teachers and principals against violent attacks by pupils and parents. To highlight classroom violence, the CTU undertook studies, published articles in the union newspaper and sent letters to the Board of Education. While black parents called for removal of uncaring principals and racist teachers, Fewkes supported the teachers. Younger teachers supported the Civil Rights movement and many black teachers promoted racial pride.

The first union opposition to Fewkes emerged in 1958 when Meyer Weinberg ran for president in the first contested union election in a decade on the Independent Caucus who demanded integrated schools and collective bargaining. Mayor Daley gave the CTU collective bargaining to get CTU backing of the Democrat Party, avoid conflict with the teachers union and defeat the civil rights movement that threatened his power base.

Nearly half of Chicago's black public school teachers crossed the picket lines during a two-day walkout in May, 1969, and activists called to set up their own all-black labor union during the Black Power phase when teachers and community activists wanted to improve the inner city schools. CPS had announced a busing program to integrate the schools in 1967 but only for black students to be bused, better pay to encourage white teachers to work in black schools and magnet schools to stem white flight. But thousands of white residents protested the Board of Education's plan. A petition opposing the busing plan gathered 60,000 signatures. "The persistence of residential segregation, white opposition, and lack of will on the part of the school administration had fatally wounded school integration in Chicago."

Mayor Daley did hire more black school administrators and introduce African American studies classes in the curriculum. In 1966 Vice President John Desmond, an ally of Fewkes, narrowly defeated Charles Skibbens from the radical Teachers Action Committee 4,306 - 4,190 for CTU President. Black teachers and young, inexperienced white teachers taught in the segregated schools, and the CTU focused on better pay rather than improving black schools. In 1967-68 CTU obtained Christmas vacation pay and paid spring vacation, a $500 salary increase, fully paid medical insurance, three personal business days, a grievance procedure, severance pay, a preparation period for elementary teachers (high school already had one) and duty-free lunch. All thanks to collective bargaining!

However, black teachers got a bad deal. The union did not help to get certification for Full-time Basis Substitutes (FTBs), which was given to teachers who did not pass the Chicago Board of Education teacher certification examination. They had no security of tenure, transfer privileges, and lower pay than fully certified teachers. In 1963 5,000 teachers or a quarter of the workforce were FTBs, and 90 percent were black! Plus, black teachers said the teacher oral exam deliberately discriminated against them, believing examiners did not like "unprofessional" black southern accents. The mother of Emmett Til who was murdered in Mississippi failed the exam accusing her of being on an 'ego trip.' Plus, it was a way to keep black teachers in black schools when they could not transfer. Harold Charles had worked as a biochemist at the University of Chicago and was chair of his science department, but had been an FTB because he failed the oral exam continuously. When his white principal complained, he passed! Plus FTBs did not have full membership in the teachers union. A group called Concerned FTBs formed to get full rights in the union. Unlike the CTU, the UFT in NY supported school integration and black civil rights. Black parents and activists turned their attention away from seeking school and faculty integration and toward an increased focus on quality of public education. The violent pushback from the white people against integration horrified black people and confirmed to many they were safer staying in black neighborhoods and black schools. The Black Teacher Caucus formed in 1966 as a black nationalist group that tried to influence the CTU  open only to black teachers. They wanted smaller classes in black schools, and more black trustees on the Board of Ed, and black principals and immediate certification of all FTBs! They said only black teachers should teach in black schools. The Teachers for Radical Change in Education was formed in 1968 by new left white radicals. They were a militant group that wanted to unite all the teacher groups and focus on educational issues, not wage demands. 

It was shown that the written and oral tests to be fully certified teacher was biased in favor of white teachers, but some white teachers resented this thinking it lowered standards if they did not have to pass the test. The Concerned FTBs staged three 'sick-ins' in 1967 when 1300 teachers stayed at home and in 1968 they went on strike for two weeks demanding Chicago teaching certificates after two years of satisfactory service. The CTU opposed the strike. They then filed a class action lawsuit claiming equal protection under the 14th Amendment which was denied. 

The CTU went on its first official strike on May 22 and 23, 1969. 3/4s of the teachers supported the union. Many striking teachers held classes for students in make-shift tents and at YMCA and Chicago Boys Club. About 23 percent of teachers crossed the picket lines; 45 percent of black teachers crossed the lines. The strike ended when all the CTU demands were met: $100 monthly raise for teachers, recruited 750 more teachers in overcrowded schools and reduce class size, and the Board of Ed agreed that after three years of satisfactory work FTBs would gain Chicago certification without an exam. The members voted 9,776 to 523 to accept the agreement.

The CTU then put more black teachers on election slates and in positions of power, including making Jacqueline B. Vaughn the vice president in 1972 before replacing Robert Healey as CTU President in 1984, to become the first African American woman and elementary school teacher to become CTU president, where she served until 1994 when she died of cancer. The Chicago Teachers Union delegates hall at its headquarters is named after Jacqueline B. Vaughn.