CORE

Money for Schools Not Drones!

Libraries Not Weapons

Clinics, Not Tanks

JOBS NOT WAR!

When: Sunday, May 20th at 11:40 a.m.

Where: Northwest Corner of Butler Park (Monroe & Lake Shore Drive)

Join the Occupy Chicago Labor Working Group for a unified union contingent on May 20 to send a strong message of opposition to the more than 50 heads of state at the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Summit May 20-21 in our city. NATO along with the U.S. are the main instigators of the ongoing military presence and over $522 billion spent on the endless war in Afghanistan! We need to stand up together and say “No More!” We are also in the worst worldwide economic crisis in decades with over 12.5 million people unemployed in the U.S. We need to put out a clear message to the Summit – we need money for jobs, not more of your war!

We are asking unions to bring their banners, members to wear their shirts, jackets or other union-identifying gear. Let’s come all together to send a strong message to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, otherwise known as Mayor 1%, and all the attendees of the NATO Summit that their presence in Chicago is not acceptable to the labor movement. Emanuel is bringing the NATO Summit here to Chicago to the tune of $55 million dollars, while he is also vicious attacking public-sector teachers, nurses, and public transit workers and librarians, as well as closing schools, mental and public health clinics and slashing bus and train routes. What is happening here in Chicago is happening everywhere, we need to stand together in solidarity as unions against these attacks!

Here is the Facebook link, please indicate you will “attend” and invite your fellow unionists, supporters in solidarity: http://www.facebook.com/events/413369928697878/

Parking or public trans logistics:

http://cang8.wordpress.com/

Here are the logistics on how to arrive at the rally: CTA trains and buses are running, so you can take public transit.  Charter buses will drop people off at Jackson by lake shore drive, so you can also have a taxi drop you off.  The only closures are lake shore drive from 31st street north to roosevelt road and the stevenson from where it intersects with the dan ryan into the lake shore. If you want to drive from home, you can go west to the dan ryan up to the loop and drive into grant park (you can park in the grant park garage or someone can drop you off).

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CTU members overwhelmingly voiced their frustrations with the Board/CPS proposed contract and CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard this week. On Thursday May 10 CTU ran a Contract Poll in all CPS schools asking its 25,000 members to vote yes or no on four questions regarding the contract and CEO Brizard. CTU results show that 90% of the membership believes that the Board/CPS contract proposal is disrespectful to teachers, clinicians and paraprofessionals and should be rejected. Members also voiced their displeasure with CEO Brizard.

Click here for CTU info on the poll results.

Click here to read the Substance coverage of the poll and results.

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Stand for Children is an organization dedicated to union busting and the privatization of our schools. 

Don’t allow them to continue their unethical work of destroying neighborhood schools and buying off local politicians to do their dirty work. They also receive most of their money from billionaires and millionaires who don’t want to pay their property taxes which the schools, parks and libraries depend on.

Parents and teachers desperately want better schools with lower class sizes, world language, art and music and equitable funding.

Instead of supporting those things, Stand has pushed undemocratic and harmful school closings and turnarounds, diminished funding for schools through lower property taxes and the expansion of politically connected non-union charter schools.

Join an informational picket of parents, community members and teachers.

When: 10:00 am; Saturday, April 14^th

Where: In front of Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Ave.

Please bring home-made signs and posters!

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Striking is not a dirty word. Striking is not the fallback of the workshy. Striking is not lazy, selfish, stupid, pointless, antagonistic nor any of the other criticisms levelled by anti-union and anti-teacher blowhards. Going on strike is one of the very last ways we have in the current world of work to make people who might otherwise forget remember the fact that we are doing our best. A strike is not unreasonable – it is a stand for belief in yourself, your students, your school community and your coworkers. It is a demand that those at the top remember they would not be there without you. It is a thoroughly timely reminder that you will not be ridden over roughshod and keep smiling through it. It is a powerful weapon that we do not wield often, and it should not be scorned and denigrated. We do a good job. We deserve respect.

Download the flyer below and start having these conversations with colleagues and the community. This is now a fight to maintain and protect teaching as a profession and a career. We must be ready to stand up together if it comes to it.

CORE Strike Preparations Flyer

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Arts for All:   All Students, All Arts, All Schools 1. Visit our FACE Book Page and click LIKE : arts for all Chicago schools. It will keep you connected to like minded arts educators (art, music, drama, dance, playwriting, photography and more!) 2. Be an Advocate for ARTS education and Promote the Policy that: All Pre-K -12 grade students must have a comprehensive, balanced, sequential, in-school program of instruction in the arts, taught by state certified art teachers, designed to provide students of all ages with skills and knowledge in the arts in accordance with high national, state, and local standards. 3. Let your voice be heard across the city:All educators, All Arts educators, All supporters of the ARTS must join the conversation with the Chicago Office of Cultural Affairs who is canvassing the city for the first time since 1986 to listen to citizens and formulate the 2030 Cultural Plan for Chicago. www.chicagoculturalplan2012.com log on and write your statement and ask questions pertaining Funding for full time arts and music teachers in every school in every neighborhood, now. 4. Expose the privatization of the CPS arts office. Require CPS to share its comprehensive plan for the arts. Visit Ingenuity, Inc. on the web and follow their practices as they serve Chicago schools and the Chicago patrons of the arts. Urge Ingenuity, Inc to support full time certified and endorsed arts and performing art teachers in every neighborhood school this year. 5. Call for the restoration of the Fine and Performing ARTS magnet cluster schools by restoring funding for these vital and important CPS schools. 6. Build alliances with community arts partnerships vs. competing with these local cultural arts groups. 7. Celebrating and calling for the support of the ALL-city ARTS and Performing ARTS venues for our students. The ALL-City programs have been privatized and outsources to private vendors. Demand that the hundreds of thousands of dollars of scholarship funds be available for our deserving Chicago students. 8. Build bridges with the Greater Chicago ARTS community who sees their 40 million dollar investment in CPS schools and the community to build bridges for access to the arts for all Chicago children starting with full time, fully funded CPS board certified and endorsed arts and performing arts teachers in all schools. 9. To call attention to the CPS board policy that allows for ARTS apartheid and schools and children who are starved for the ARTS.  Acknowledge that ARTS illiteracy of high school students coming from 8th grade and schools that do not offer ART or MUSIC or Theater or Dance to their students. 10. Call for the ending of the 750 student’s threshold once and for all that has denied and prevented over 100,000 CPS children of a rich world class education with both ART and MUSIC in every neighborhood school. 11. Call for support of all parents and our students who RAISE THEIR HANDS in support of a better school day for all students (not a longer drill and kill supported by groups that Stand on Children). 12. Call for the education and support of the new language in the 2012 CTU agreement to provide a full time, CPS fully funded art and performing arts teacher in every school. Log on the web site and follow the negotiations and announcments. 13. This is a win/win for all schools, and all children and all the ARTS. Engage with your local school councils (LSC) and CPS schools, that providing a full time, fully funded ARTS teacher and Music teacher, enables the school to free up $20,000-$80,000 that currently each school has to raise and scramble to find to pay the other half time ARTS position.  Explain that fully funding these positions will allow Principals, LSC and schools to make School Improvement plans and local budgets that fund for the ARTS. 14. Each school will now have local funds to spend on community sponsored guest artists, arts partnerships, educational field trips to arts and cultural institutions and museums. Or a school may use this discretionary fund for additional “wrap around services for students in need.” 15. Mobilize ARTS teachers and all teachers to attend the Chicago Cultural Plan 2012 listening sessions being held now through April. To mobilize all ARTS teachers to take a leadership role in crafting the 2012 Chicago Cultural Plan. 16. Log on to: www.chicagoculturalplan2012.com and speak up, cut and paste this document into your idea statements before the end of April. 17. Build vertical teaming with elementary, middle and secondary ARTS Education teachers. 18. Spread the word across the United States that CPS is on the verge of an ARTS Renaissance.  Now is the time to bring in the best certified, endorsed Art, Music, Theater and Dance teachers to all neighborhood schools! 19. Call the alarm of the alternate arts and performing arts certification being promoted by well connected universities like Columbia College and various accredited institutions who are promoting a plan to provide hundreds of jobs in schools for non-certified, non-endorsed Arts related instructors. 20. If not you? Who? And, if not now? When?

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