Chicago Teachers Strike

[Rangel]

Coming from an inner city school where the 95 percent of the population is on free and reduced lunch I can relate to what Art is saying. My interpretation may be a little different since the majority of our school is Hispanic and probably half of our students in the school are undocumented. One of the first things that catch my eyes is the different culture. I came from a moderately wealthy middle school to a very down under high school so it was very easy for me to notice the different. The first thing I noticed is the difference in parenting. It seemed to me that the majority of my friend's parents were harder on them in the moderately wealthy middle school then my lower class high school. This is because of a lot of issues such as parents working longer hours and being more tired at the small amount of time they are home. This reason though is a lot harder to fix than any of the other reasons there may be.

As far as how to fix the other problems, its also a political thing. I'm sorry but having even 30+ students in a class is hard. A budget needs to be increased to have more classes and there needs to be a cap on how many students can be in one class. In my opinion as well teachers should be paid a lot more and be looked at as great in society because they are teaching the future engineers, doctors, scientists, and heck even politicians. A teacher needs to be looked at as one of the highest figures in society and they should be. Of course that's not to take away from volunteer mentors as they are teachers as well and should fall into the same height of admiration.

On a side note the moderation of teacher evaluations needs to be moderated as well. We had a new evaluation system last year in our school that evaluated teachers on the number of kids failing and if they taught on what is essentially a script or teaching to the test. So teachers got docked as a result of getting a higher number of kids that don't care more than the other teachers, they were criticized for teaching kids valuable skills such as critical thinking or just simply thinking. This much evaluation led to the eventually quitting of some of the best teachers we had on campus and a lot more retirements than usual. The best people to come up with evaluation methods are the teachers themselves in my opinion. That's how this year our school has a new attendance and grading policy which has been working fantastic in my opinion at least. Those were the main things I see as a student anyways.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

The Chicago school system is getting a bad rep based on the variety of neighborhoods, schools and the students and families. You are not hearing about the magnet schools needing to evaluate bad teachers. You are hearing (in an off handed way) that there is a distinct difference in test scores, quality of education and percentage of students moving to higher education. It is difficult to teach students that have so much outside influences against learning. One of the things that talking about economic differences doesn't address is the malnutrition some of these students have lived with for their whole lives. It is impossible to use the same teaching skills with these students that work well with well nourished brains and bodies. There are a number of FRC teams in Chicago schools and I talk regularly with the teachers on those teams. They have a really difficult time working against these outside pressures. But what is really never discussed is that some of those teachers choose to teach in those schools in attempt to make it better for everyone. To evaluate one of those teachers on test scores and reading level alone does nothing for the students they help through life each day.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Ether

Can someone name 2 metropolitan areas in the US where the secondary education system is "working"? If not, how about internationally? And what is the cost per student per annum, and what are they doing differently from Chicago?

http://www.forbes.com/2003/02/14/cx_bs_0214home.html

This article lists 4 cities above Chicago, but reading through the article these are the Top 10 of a whole lot of cities (hundreds).

This is a great report on a state basis for cost per pupil. Total revenues and what not.
http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/10f33pub.pdf
It also does a break down of costs associated with Instruction vs. Support Services vs. Other Costs.
Overall it appears to be about 60% going to Instruction, 34% Support Services and 5-6% Other.