Chicago Teachers Strike a Critical Moment in the Future of Public Education | FDL News Desk

Chicago Teachers Strike a Critical Moment in the Future of Public Education | FDL News Desk:

Chicago Teachers Strike a Critical Moment in the Future of Public Education

by David Dayen

(photo: Kevin Gosztola)

The Chicago teachers strike could end by Monday, CTU President Karen Lewis now projects. It’s hard to get a handle on where the concessions have been made. We know that raises would be restructured as per union policy and health insurance rates would remain the same, pending union participation in wellness programs. In addition, the city would be unable to rescind raises in a time of economic emergency, as Rahm Emanuel did last year.
The big stumbling block in negotiations was teacher evaluations, and what we know right now is that tenured teachers in the first year could not be fired because of evaluations, and that evaluations in later years could be appealed. It’s unclear how much testing evaluations will factor into overall teacher assessments.
Chicago wants to use a value-added assessment for teacher evaluations, which has been seriously questionedas a legitimate tool. The ultimate goal is to fire so-called “bad” teachers, though it’s completely unclear that this