$60 million in high-stakes tests; $250 million in TIFs; $315 million in charters, turnarounds, and contract schools; $400 million in CPS cash reserve. What about money for students?

CPS called  an emergency Board meeting on Tuesday, June 15 to pass a resolution that will drastically change our working conditions and the learning opportunities for our students.  The resolution was passed unanimously at the meeting, in spite of every single speaker during the “public participation” portion urging the board members to vote “no.” This resolution gives CEO Huberman permission to fire teachers and therefore raise class size up to 35 if he deems it “necessary” for budgetary reasons. It also gives him the permission to take out an $800 million loan, which he claims cannot be used to stave off the firings and ballooning class sizes.

This budget has still not been made public, in spite of Freedom of Information Act requests from CORE and various Chicago journalists. These firings will be based on Huberman’s secret projections and without real budget numbers.

No announcement was made about how many teachers they will fire, if any. They claimed this was “just in case” they felt the need to fire teachers later.

Appendix H of our contract states:

Section I – Scope of Policy
Whenever an attendance center or a program is closed, there is a drop in enrollment,
the educational focus of the attendance center is changed such that available teaching
positions cannot accommodate some or all current regularly certified and appointed
teaching staff, or when an attendance center is subject to actions taken pursuant to
sections 34-8.3 or 34-8.4 of the Illinois School Code, tenured teachers will be
reassigned or laid off in accordance with this policy.

The contract states teachers have to be laid off according to seniority and tenured teachers get ten paid months to find a job. In those ten months, teachers are retained in the “reassignment pool” where they work as substitutes four days a week with full pay and benefits without a break in service.

Because the specific phrase “budgetary reasons” is not included in the “scope of policy”, Huberman claims he can fire tenured teachers without giving them the 10 month bridge to continue employment in CPS.

CORE contends  that none of this is necessary. Although there is no line-item budget available for the 2010-2011 school year, CORE’s budget committee studied the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) and found millions of dollars in wasteful non-classroom spending.

The city’s TIF (tax increment financing program) costs the schools $250 million in revenue, according to TIF expert Ben Joravsky, and verified by Cook County Clerk David Orr . This is money that normally would go directly to schools, but goes into the mayor’s slush fund instead.

Many  speakers at Tuesday’s meeting spoke in favor of returning TIF dollars to the schools, but Huberman refused to speak to the issue.

It will save the CPS approximately $150 million a year if they raise class sizes to 35. Instead of lobbying the city to return TIF dollars, Huberman and the Daley-appointed Board passed policy to take out an $800 million dollar loan, raise class sizes, and possibly end the teacher reassignment pool. If it’s a question of priorities, we question the board’s.

Lois Jones, CTU High School Functional Vice-President-Elect, pointed out that 25 or fewer students in a classroom should be the first priority, before the board funds area offices, scripted curricula that don’t work, and other costs we don’t know about because we haven’t seen the budget. Putting more students in a class is the LAST thing you should do if you have budget problems, not the first.

Teachers and students are the only ones asked to make sacrifices. This summer, it’s crucial that we keep on top of the Board and continue organizing around budget transparency and quality education. With 30,000 united,  the Board will have to change they way it does business.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 22, 2009  9 p.m.

Contract-to-Charter Conversion Reveals

CPS Circumvention of State Law

Number of Charter Seats Requested on 11/23/09 Almost Doubles Last Year’s Total

CHICAGO – On November 23, 2009, CPS is asking the Chicago Board of Education to nearly double the number of charter seats over last year’s total, 8,130 seats up from 4,200, according to data compiled by CORE researchers from CPS public documents (see below).  Over half of those “new charter seats” come from CPS’s proposal to convert eight contract schools to charter school status.

Jackson Potter, CORE’s Co-chair, noted that CPS appears to disregard the letter and intent of state law when privatizing schools.  Potter explained that over the past few years, when CPS had maxed out on the number of allowed charter schools, it began opening “contract” schools.  “CPS appears to be admitting that it did sidestep the charter cap law for years by asking the Board to convert eight contract schools to charter school status today.”

CORE member and CPS special education teacher Kristine Mayle explained that unlike contract schools, only 50% of the teachers need to be certified at these “new” charters for the next few years (see 105 ILCS 5 Art. 27A 10(c)). Moreover, charter schools are barred from joining the Chicago Teachers Union.  “Through shady moves like this, CPS is creating a rash of `new’ charter schools overnight.  Why?  Only half of new charter staffs need to be certified to teach.  CPS appears to be purposely creating a non-certified, low-wage, inexperienced, high-turnover workforce without workplace protections,” said Mayle.

Potter explained that when educators do not have contractual rights, “management can run wild.  My union contract backs me up so I can demand that my students receive an adequate education and proper services if they are English language learners, special education students, or are in need of counseling or medical support.  Without union protections, students are increasingly at risk.”  Potter challenged the media to interview charter teachers off the record on this issue.

“Once again, CPS makes proposals without public debate, meaningful accountability or publicly-available financial audits of these quasi-private charter school operators,” said Karen Lewis, co-chair of CORE, who renewed a call for independent financial and operational audits of all Chicago charter schools.

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CORE, the Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators, is a caucus of the Chicago Teachers. The group is comprised of teachers, retired teachers, educational staff and other champions of public education.

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