Education Week: Chicago Asks Teachers to Take Unpaid Holidays, Wage Freeze

Education Week: Chicago Asks Teachers to Take Unpaid Holidays, Wage Freeze

Chicago Asks Teachers to Take Unpaid Holidays, Wage Freeze

By Azam Ahmed, Chicago Tribune (MCT)

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Chicago Public Schools officials have suggested a list of concessions from its teachers to close a $370 million budget hole, including unpaid holidays, frozen wages and unpaid school recesses.

The proposals are part of ongoing negotiations between the district and its teachers union to avoid having larger class sizes, which schools CEO Ron Huberman has said could increase to 33 students, from 31, at the high schools.

Already, 600 teachers have received pink slips due to budget constraints.

The union has so far refused to give up 4 percent raises for its teachers at a cost savings of $80 million, one of the district's eight proposals. Another concession would be eliminating nine paid holidays, which would trim the deficit by $88 million this year.

If all eight suggestions were implemented, the total cost savings would be nearly $446 million.

Karen Lewis, the new union president, said her members are reluctant to forgo raises

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Least-Disruptive Turnaround Model Proving Popular

By Lesli A. Maxwell

School districts are now receiving millions of dollars in federal money to turn around their chronically underperforming schools and, in a number of states, local educators overwhelmingly are opting for “transformation,” the least disruptive of four school intervention methods endorsed by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

All but eight states have been approved by the U.S. Department of Education to receive their share of the $3.5 billion in Title I School Improvement Grants , the supercharged program aimed at reversing years of academic decline at some of the nation’s most troubled schools.

As state education departments award the grants to eligible schools, the school