Governor Pritzker signs legislation expanding teachers’ bargaining rights. – Fred Klonsky

Governor Pritzker signs legislation expanding teachers’ bargaining rights. – Fred Klonsky

GOVERNOR PRITZKER SIGNS LEGISLATION EXPANDING TEACHERS’ BARGAINING RIGHTS.

This past week Governor Pritzker signed legislation expanding the bargaining rights of the Chicago Teachers Union.

It was a big win, the first significant victory in the fight for expanded collective bargaining rights since the Illinois legislature’s phony 1995 reforms under Governor Jim Edgar.

That year the legislature and Edgar, with the support of the state’s teacher unions, created the disastrous pension ramp which led to the current pension debt crisis.

It also limited the subjects of mandatory bargaining between the Chicago School Board and the union and solidified Mayor Daley’s mayoral control of the school board.

Mandatory subjects of bargaining must be negotiated and can be the subject of CONTINUE READING: Governor Pritzker signs legislation expanding teachers’ bargaining rights. – Fred Klonsky

Thoughts on the Legacy of Karen Jennings Lewis - LA Progressive

Thoughts on the Legacy of Karen Jennings Lewis - LA Progressive

Thoughts on the Legacy of Karen Jennings Lewis

When I think of Karen Jennings Lewis, I not only think of someone who led the most important teacher’s strike in modern US history, but someone who did more to undermine the Obama Administration’s attacks on teachers unions and public schools than any other person in the country.

By going head to head with Rahm Emmanuel, Obama’s first chief of staff before he became Mayor of Chicago, and Obama Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who stood behind Emmanuel one hundred percent, Karen Lewis, a beloved chemistry teacher as well as union leader, challenged the “civil rights rationale” for school privatization head on.

Karen Lewis, a beloved chemistry teacher as well as union leader, challenged the “civil rights rationale” for school privatization head on.

For those who don’t remember, the Obama administration, almost immediately after the President’s inauguration, launched a broad-based attack on public education with three key components:

• promotion of the Common Core Standards and universal testing

• the implementation of “test based accountability: for teachers, schools and entire school districts; and

• preferential funding for charter schools over public schools.

These measures were promoted with the argument that public schools had failed students of color CONTINUE READING: Thoughts on the Legacy of Karen Jennings Lewis - LA Progressive

Chicago teachers union approves the reopening plan – Fred Klonsky

Chicago teachers union approves the reopening plan. – Fred Klonsky

CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION APPROVES THE REOPENING PLAN

The need to reopen schools safely is nearly universally agreed upon.

“Safely” being the operative word.

But these are uncharted waters and I don’t envy teacher unions in districts across the country as they try to represent the safety concerns of educators, students and their families.

And whatever the particulars are here in Chicago – which includes a very strained relationship between the CTU and Mayor Lightfoot going back to the last election – the issue has created difficult conversations between every teacher union and board or mayor.

Over the weekend the Mayor announced a tentative agreement with the CTU on reopening. The CTU rejected the term “tentative agreement”, although from my experience that is what it was. The executive team presented the terms to the CONTINUE READING: Chicago teachers union approves the reopening plan. – Fred Klonsky

Mike Klonsky's Blog: The good ones are leaving us too soon.

Mike Klonsky's Blog: The good ones are leaving us too soon.

The good ones are leaving us too soon.

As everyone has heard by now, former CTU Pres. Karen Lewis passed yesterday, leaving a tear in my eye but also great memories for me to hold on to. Some of my fondest include our (Susan and my) occasional breakfast meetings at Meli's on Wells Street just to touch base and have a few laughs. 

Another was from an event we held for Jonathan Kozol back in 2012. Kozol had the crowd on its feet, applauding as he talked about the inspiring effect the Chicago teachers' strike was having on teachers and supporters across the country. Kozol said he first heard news of the strike at a book tour event in Los Angeles. When a teacher in the audience announced that teachers in Chicago had walked out, “the roar of the crowd delayed the program for several minutes.”

But the loudest prolonged ovation that evening was reserved for Karen Lewis. It broke out spontaneously as she entered the sold-out Thorne Auditorium and Northwestern Univ. Law School. Karen spoke briefly, introduced Kozol, and then embraced the author in a show of unity. 

Jonathan and Karen at Maggiano's in 2012

After the event, a group of us went out with Jonathan and Karen to CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: The good ones are leaving us too soon.

Emma Tai: Karen Lewis Taught Us to Believe That We Could Win | Diane Ravitch's blog

Emma Tai: Karen Lewis Taught Us to Believe That We Could Win | Diane Ravitch's blog

Emma Tai: Karen Lewis Taught Us to Believe That We Could Win

Emma Tai is executive director of United Working Families of Chicago. She describes in Jacobin the powerful lesson that she learned from Karen Lewis.

She writes:

At a time of austerity and teacher demonization, Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis — whose death at age sixty-seven was announced today — dared to believe that educators and the working class as a whole could fight back and win...

The 2012 strike put tens of thousands of people in the streets of Chicago. At a time of austerity and widespread demonization of teachers, both in Chicago and around the country, the CTU walked off the job insisting that we deserved, and could actually win, schools and a city that served Chicago’s working class. The strike put black, Latinx, and working-class people, and a workforce that is overwhelmingly women, in the streets by the tens of thousands against a neoliberal mayor, Rahm Emanuel, to say that the schools and city belonged to us. Astonishingly, they won.

That strike changed the political landscape of Chicago and the whole country, touching off a wave of teachers’ strikes that continue to this day and that have CONTINUE READING: Emma Tai: Karen Lewis Taught Us to Believe That We Could Win | Diane Ravitch's blog

Remembering a dinner with Karen and Coach John. – Fred Klonsky

Remembering a dinner with Karen and Coach John. – Fred Klonsky

REMEMBERING A DINNER WITH KAREN AND COACH JOHN.

Singing back-up with Karen Lewis at my 2012 retirement party. “Take a load off, Fanny.”

There will be and should be plenty of those who will talk about the union leader, Karen Lewis, who died yesterday at the young age of 67.

I remember one memorable evening in New Orleans.

Anne and I were there on a brief holiday.

My cell phone notifications went off and it was a message from Karen Lewis

“I see on Facebook you’re in town. I’m down here for an AFT meeting and I need to get out of here. I need a break. What if you find a place for dinner and meet up with me and John?”

“Sure thing,” I texted back.

I booked a table for four at the Upperline, out of the French Quarter and a block CONTINUE READING: Remembering a dinner with Karen and Coach John. – Fred Klonsky

Karen Lewis 1953 – 2021 | JD2718

Karen Lewis 1953 – 2021 | JD2718

Karen Lewis 1953 – 2021

This is not an obituary. I could not do her justice. But one summer I flew to Chicago then on to Minneapolis, and while in Chicago I spoke (indirectly) to Karen, and in Minneapolis I met her, and it makes a little story. Here’s how I told it, the evening after the one and only time I met Karen Lewis.

AFT Convention 2016 – Meeting the President

JULY 21, 2016 PM31 12:40 PM

tags: #AFT100, AFT, AFT Convention, Chicago, Karen Lewis, Minneapolis

Not that one. Obama’s not here in Minneapolis. And not the next one – she left. And not the AFT President. I’ve met Randi many times before, argued with her, agreed with her, e-mailed, etc. And not Mulgrew, we’ve met.

This is the story of how I met the President of AFT Local 1, the Chicago Federation of Teachers, Karen Lewis.

OK, so I could have walked up to her and said hello, but my story is a little more convoluted.

Four days ago, before the AFT Convention, I was in Chicago, debating Fred Klonsky. Actually, I was staying with Fred and Anne. But little debates broke out. Yankees vs Cubs. Hillary vs Jill.

But our strangest debate was about the relative importance of Belief vs Acts in Judaism. Both Fred and I have tenuous links, not enough to claim expertise. Anne suggested we ask Karen. So we did. Fred texted her a series of questions. Each of which she answered with a question. Quite appropriate, we thought.

So I’m off to Minneapolis and Fred says I have to meet Karen. The first day I look a little for her, but don’t really know where to look. I don’t find her. Fred CONTINUE READING: Karen Lewis 1953 – 2021 | JD2718

Karen Lewis, Chicago Union Leader Who Set Off A Wave Of Teacher Activism, Dies | WBEZ Chicago

Karen Lewis, Chicago Union Leader Who Set Off A Wave Of Teacher Activism, Dies | WBEZ Chicago

Karen Lewis, Chicago Union Leader Who Set Off A Wave Of Teacher Activism, Dies

Karen Lewis, the woman credited with resurrecting the Chicago Teachers Union and helping to revive teacher unions across the country, has died.

“Karen did not just lead our movement. Karen was our movement,” the union said in a statement. “She bowed to no one, and gave strength to tens of thousands of Chicago Teachers Union educators who followed her lead, and who live by her principles to this day.”

Lewis rose to prominence in 2012, when she led the first teachers strike in Chicago in 25 years — a walkout many say inspired a wave of teacher activism and the beginning of the Red for Ed, the national movement in which teachers went on strike to demand better pay and working conditions.

The 2012 Chicago Teachers Strike showed teachers they could take on the powerful and win.

Lewis served as president of the CTU from 2010 to 2018, when she resigned due to health issues. She was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2014. She was 67 years old. Her death was confirmed by the union.

Lewis was born on July 26, 1953. A proud daughter of Chicago Public School teachers, she went to Kenwood Academy in Hyde Park on the South Side. She left her junior year to go to Mount Holyoke College and then transferred to Dartmouth College. She said she was the only African American woman in Dartmouth’s graduating class of 1974.

Before becoming president of the teachers union, she was a chemistry teacher in Chicago Public Schools for more than 20 years.

Lewis is remembered as being passionate and outspoken, but also highly intelligent, wildly funny and warm, and someone who always recalled details about people’s lives and asked about them.

“She had a boisterous love of life and she made people feel seen,” said Jackson Potter, a friend and one of the founders of Lewis’ union caucus, called CORE. “Though she was childless, she felt like all the babies in the world were her children.” CONTINUE READING: Karen Lewis, Chicago Union Leader Who Set Off A Wave Of Teacher Activism, Dies | WBEZ Chicago

Karen Lewis, Historic Leader of Chicago Teachers Union, Has Died | Diane Ravitch's blog

Karen Lewis, Historic Leader of Chicago Teachers Union, Has Died | Diane Ravitch's blog

Karen Lewis, Historic Leader of Chicago Teachers Union, Has Died

It is with immense sadness that I share with you the news that the brilliant, charismatic Karen Lewis has died. As leader of the Chicago Teachers Union, she led the union to strike for “the schools our children deserve.” She understood that the union had to organize families and communities, not just their own members. She fearlessly confronted the powerful. She was considering a run against Rahm Emanuel for mayor when she learned she had an aggressive brain tumor.

Karen and her devoted husband John were dear personal friends. I saw them when I was in Chicago a year ago. She was in a nursing home. It was terribly sad.

All of us who care about children and their schools will miss her dynamic leadership.

Every time teachers strike for better education for children, they should remember this tireless, inspiring woman, our friend, Karen Lewis.

Karen Lewis, Historic Leader of Chicago Teachers Union, Has Died | Diane Ravitch's blog

Chicago Teachers At Odds With District Over School Reopening | 89.3 KPCC

Chicago Teachers At Odds With District Over School Reopening | 89.3 KPCC

Chicago Teachers At Odds With District Over School Reopening

The city of Chicago and its teachers are fast approaching a showdown.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools have been planning to reopen for some in-person classes next week. But the Chicago Teachers Union is concerned about the logistics of returning to school while the pandemic is still raging.

In a letter to staff and families Friday evening, Lightfoot and school district CEO Janice Jackson said that if certain pre-K teachers and other staff don't report to classrooms on Monday, they "will be deemed absent without leave," and would have their access to online teaching tools revoked.

If the district makes good on that promise, it could lead to the second teachers' strike in the city in less than two years. The union has said it would strike if the district locks out teachers from working from home.

"We love your children," the union wrote in a letter to parents earlier this week. "We desperately want to be back in classrooms with them, but we are not willing to CONTINUE READING: Chicago Teachers At Odds With District Over School Reopening | 89.3 KPCC

Chicago Teachers' Struggle At A Crossroads - PopularResistance Org

Chicago Teachers' Struggle At A Crossroads - PopularResistance.Org

CHICAGO TEACHERS’ STRUGGLE AT A CROSSROADS

The drive to reopen Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the third largest school district in the country, has become a pitched battle between educators and the state apparatus, the latter backed up by the corporate media and the unions. The fight by Chicago educators to prevent the reopening of schools is the focal point of the class struggle in the United States, with every other major district in the country looking to Chicago to set a precedent.

In this context, it is of the utmost importance for teachers and other educators to organize independently of the unions and join the Chicago Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee, as well as attend this Saturday’s national meeting of the Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee, which will bring together the network of committees that have formed across the country, as well as committee members in the UK and Germany.

Resisting the campaign by the Biden administration and the media to reopen schools, Chicago educators are leading the struggle against the resumption of in-person instruction as the pandemic enters a new and deadlier phase. Underscoring the stakes involved are recent reports of the presence of more CONTINUE READING: Chicago Teachers' Struggle At A Crossroads - PopularResistance.Org

Union leader: Chicago teachers are battling both coronavirus pandemic and fear | Fox News

Union leader: Chicago teachers are battling both coronavirus pandemic and fear | Fox News

Union leader: Chicago teachers are battling both coronavirus pandemic and fear

Randi Weingarten says American Federation of Teachers trying to 'get the safety measures in place' for in-person classes to resume

American Federation of Teachers leader Randi Weingarten said Tuesday that Chicago educators are battling both the coronavirus pandemic and "fear" as an impasse continues over resuming in-person learning in America's third-largest city.

"We're fighting a pandemic and now we're fighting fear," Weingarten told "The Faulkner Focus." "And what we're trying to do as a union is get the safety measures in place, I'm on the phone constantly with Chicago, in trying to actually have that kind of plan so that we can address both the pandemic and the fear."

Weingarten briefed Biden White House officials last week on the standoff betweeen Chicago public officials and the Chicago Teachers Union, an affiliate of Weingarten's AFT. Members of the Chicago Teachers Union overwhelmingly voted over the weekend to refuse a district order to return for in-person instruction on Monday. The city said it viewed the move as a de facto strike.

Biden sided with the union on Monday, saying that teachers want to work as long as it's in a safe environment.

BIDEN DECLINES TO TELL CHICAGO TEACHERS REFUSING TO TEACH IN-PERSON TO GO BACK TO WORK

"We should make school classrooms safe and secure for the students, for the teachers and for the help that is in those schools maintaining those facilities," said Biden, who has vowed to reopen most schools within his first 100 days.

"I think that President Biden's goal is really important, and I think that unless we have a variant like what happened in Great Britain or Germany that created those kind of CONTINUE READING: Union leader: Chicago teachers are battling both coronavirus pandemic and fear | Fox News

Chicago teachers continue to protest in-person classes; parents question status of locked-out teachers - The Washington Post

Chicago teachers continue to protest in-person classes; parents question status of locked-out teachers - The Washington Post

Chicago teachers continue to protest in-person classes; parents question status of locked-out teachers

CHICAGO — Brian Yuhas was one of the teachers who was ordered back into his Chicago classroom on Monday as the nation's third-largest school district began opening campuses for the first time since March. But he didn't go. He wasn't comfortable going back, and besides, his students had chosen all-remote learning.

But on Tuesday morning, when he went to sign in to the district platform, he was locked out.

The same thing happened to other teachers who refused to go back as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) carried out the first part of her school reopening plan, despite fierce resistance from the Chicago Teachers Union. The school district is requiring all teachers in the tier that started offering in-person instruction on Monday to teach from their schools if they did not have preapproved accommodations, even if their students had opted for remote learning.

It started disciplinary procedures early in the week on more than 140 employees for not reporting to schools in person and has withheld pay and locked them out of the school system’s accounts, deeming them absent without leave. By Friday, the number of designated AWOL employees dropped to 87. But 901 of the 3,787 employees did not report on Friday, including 479 teachers, according to Chicago Public Schools data.

After being locked out, Yuhas said he called parents and relayed lesson plans to some of them, and he spoke to a case manager at a long-term skilled nursing-care facility, where five of his eight students live, that helps individuals with developmental disabilities.

“I was the only person outside of the building that would actually see them without looking in the window,” he said about the students in the care facility. “I was the only person that had contact with CONTINUE READING: Chicago teachers continue to protest in-person classes; parents question status of locked-out teachers - The Washington Post

Chicago teachers balk at reopening plan, face pay loss if they don’t return - The Washington Post

Chicago teachers balk at reopening plan, face pay loss if they don’t return - The Washington Post

Chicago teachers balk at reopening plan, face pay loss if they don’t return

CHICAGO — Chicago Public Schools will reopen for some students Monday for the first time since last spring amid an escalating clash between city officials, who are threatening to withhold pay from teachers who do not show up, and the powerful Chicago Teachers Union, which contends that schools are not properly outfitted to combat the coronavirus.

Teachers who don’t show up for work Monday “will be deemed absent without leave and will not be eligible for pay,” said Janice Jackson, CEO of the nation’s third-largest school district.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she is determined to reopen schools Monday, starting a phased return to in-person learning, and that city officials are “doing everything we can to place safety in this pandemic at front and center.”

But teachers, many of whom returned to classrooms last Monday to start to prepare, said they found conditions unacceptable and called the demand for them to start teaching “heartless.”

The situation sets up a potential showdown between a powerful teachers union that has a history of striking and a school district that is determined to open despite a rise in coronavirus cases.

Thad Goodchild, lawyer for the teachers union, said it would be illegal if the district withholds pay for work being done remotely, as it has threatened to do, or if the district locks teachers out of Google Classroom so they are unable to teach their students virtually if they don’t return in person.

The union and the district were continuing to meet over the weekend, Goodchild said. If they can’t come to agreement, he said, “all options are on the table.” He said a strike was possible “if CPS and the mayor retaliate against the teachers who have been directed to report in person on Monday” but choose to stay CONTINUE READING: Chicago teachers balk at reopening plan, face pay loss if they don’t return - The Washington Post