About Unions Since the Strike By Charles Tocci and Melissa Barton From Catalyst Chicago With students back in Chicagos schools, many people are looking for lessons from the teachers strike. Some have already recommended that the city double-down on its attempts to weaken the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) with more school closings and charters. But as educators deeply invested in the success of Chicagos schools, we come away with very different lessons. We argue that teacher unions have in the past proven to be an essential voice in improving public education; that the recent strike has preserved that voice
for Chicagos teachers; and that
unions must continue to serve as the teachers voice into the 21st century. Throughout a century of disagreements with mayors over patronage, segregation, and unequal resources, organized teachers in Chicago have used their collective power to foster improvement in the public schools. The recent strike reflects this legacy, with the CTU taking a stand against charter schools and high-stakes testing. The spread of charters has had exactly the same mixed results in Chicago as elsewhere: Research consistently shows that overall, charters perform the same as, or worse than, comparable neighborhood schools
Charles Tocci is a clinical assistant professor in the School of Education at Loyola University Chicago and Melissa Barton is a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago and a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. This article was first posted on the Catalyst Chicago website, www.catalyst-chicago.org, on October 29, 2012. Condensed, with permission, from Catalyst Chicago. January 2013
THE EDUCATION DIGEST
while also increasing segregation along racial and class lines.
Now, CPS plans to close up to 120 public schools and welcome 60 charters anyway. Another central issue in this dispute was the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers. The rush to use standardized test scores, despite significant, documented flaws, has been compared to early 20th Century IQ testing and the minimum-competency exams of the 1970s, both of which are now recognized by historians as having been racially discriminatory and bad for children and learning. Many backers of these socalled reforms are both politically connected advisors to and generous backers of both local and national campaigns. Organized teachers provide a vision of public schooling grounded in the daily realities of children, communities, and schools that offsets this unequal distribution of power. Unions support continued education and the sharing of best practices grounded in empirical research. In fact, the only research-based proposal to come out of this recent contract fight came from the CTU, which argued against the narrowing of the curriculum, more charters, and value-added evaluations.
Its time to start trusting educators again. Teachers unions of
the 21st Century can evolve to become as dynamic and diverse as learning. Unions should collaborate with districts to put new tools of education, such as mobile computing, in the hands of all students. Teachers collaborative power will also be enhanced by bringing charter and virtual school educators into unions. And, as we have seen too many smart people leave this profession out of frustration, unions can carve out new career ladders based on peer-certified mastery: mentor for aspiring and new teachers, master teacher to coach colleagues, online educator, and so on. All of this takes time, and we have heard over and over again that our most disadvantaged students dont have it. But we also need to stop treating education as if it is in crisis. The patient is not bleeding out; she has a chronic illness. There is a big difference between doing somethingwhether to please those demanding that something be done, or out of desperation for a solutionand finding the right thing to do. Its time to do the right thing for the children of Chicago and the United States. n
