By Eric Carter
Education Reporter

CHICAGO - Children attending Chicago Public Schools returned to school on Wednesday after teachers ended a seven-day strike that made the city a flashpoint in the debate over union rights.

Austin Howard, a 17-year-old student on the North Side, shared his feelings. "While I am happy to be back in school, I am even happier that my teachers maybe will be treated better."

Union delegates voted Tuesday night to suspend the walkout after discussing a proposed contract settlement with those in charge of the nation's third-largest school district. They said the contract wasn't perfect, but that it included enough concessions on proposed new teacher evaluations, recall rights for laid-off teachers and classroom conditions to return to work pending a vote by its more than 26,000 teachers and support staffers in coming weeks.

It was also a relief to parents. The strike stranded roughly 350,000 students and left many parents scrambling to arrange alternative care for their children even though the district kept more than 140 schools open for several hours a day for meals and activities.

Some parents expressed hope Wednesday that the tentative contract agreement would benefit students in a district grappling with high dropout rates and poor performance.

"They'll hopefully win from the strike," said Isabela Sanchez, referring to her children as she walked them to a South Side elementary school.

Her son, 8-year-old Jose, said he was excited for another reason: "Learning about planets."

Mayor Rahm Emanuel – who filed a lawsuit this week to try to force teachers back to work – called the settlement "an honest compromise."

Union leaders pointed to concessions by the city on how closely teacher evaluations will be tied to student test scores and to better opportunities for teachers to retain their jobs if schools are closed by budget cuts.

"We said that we couldn't solve all the problems of the world with one contract, and it was time to end the strike," said Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis.

But the evaluations and job security measures stirred the most intense debate. The union said the evaluation system relied too heavily on test scores and did not take into account outside factors that affect student performance such as poverty, violence and homelessness.

The union also pushed to give laid-off teachers first dibs on open jobs anywhere in the district. The district said that could prevent principals from hiring the teachers they thought most appropriate for the position. The tentative settlement proposed giving laid-off teachers first shot at schools that absorbed their former students and filling half of district openings from a pool of laid-off teachers.

Marion Sticks, a school psychologist, said she is interested in learning how the students she counsels fared over the summer.

"I have so many questions for them," she said. "I'm glad to be back for all kinds of reasons."

By Eric Carter
Education Reporter

CHICAGO -  25,000 teachers in the nation's third-largest district have responded to Mayor Emanuel's demand that teacher evaluations be tied to student performance by walking off the job for the first time in 25 years.

Chicago's teachers have drawn the hardest line in recent memory against using student test scores to rate teacher performance. "It has been a very tough issue across the country," said Rob Weil, a director at the American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation's two largest teachers' unions. "Teachers in many places believe that they see administrations and state legislatures creating language and policies that's nothing more than a mousetrap."

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is excited to implement the new evaluations, and that is one of the main points of contention in a challenging negotiation between the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union, which president Karen Lewis has called "a fight for the very soul of public education."

The strike, which has left approximately 370,000 students out of class as the city and the union also fight over pay and job security, entered its fourth day Thursday. After late night talks Wednesday, both sides expressed optimism that students would be back in class as soon as Friday.

The push to judge teachers in part by their student's work stems from the reform efforts of the Obama administration, which has used its $4 billion Race to the Top competition and waivers to the federal No Child Left Behind law to encourage states to change how teachers are assessed.

Teachers unions argue that doing so ignores too many things that can affect a student's performance, such as poverty, a child's family environment, the ability to speak English, or even a school's lack of air conditioning. As Carmen Delgado, a science teacher in Chicago, stated, "You are going to judge us on the results of the tests where there could be some external circumstances that are beyond my control? Are we as teachers responsible for our child's home culture as well?"

Illinois lawmakers voted in 2010 to require that all public schools use student achievement as a component of teacher evaluations by the 2016-17 school year. In Chicago, Emanuel is attempting to stick to his promise made during his inauguration speech by demanding the Chicago Teachers Union agree to make the change years ahead of that schedule.

"As some have noted, including (his wife) Amy, I am not a patient man," Emanuel said after he was sworn in as mayor a year ago. "When it comes to improving our schools, I will not be a patient mayor."

The issue of teacher evaluations has only been on the table in Chicago for a few months, and Emanuel acknowledged this week that his swift push for change could be a factor in why his relationship with the union has been so contentious. In other big cities, a more patient approach has led to success in finding agreement with reluctant teachers.

The deal reached Wednesday in Boston will allow administrators to rely more heavily on student achievement in crafting teacher evaluations and remove from the classroom those receiving poor evaluations within 30 days. That contract came after 400 hours of contract negotiations that spanned more than 50 separate sessions over two years.

"Change is hard and is often hard-fought. But we should make special note that through all the tough negotiations, neither side let their frustrations spill onto the students of the Boston Public Schools," said Mayor Thomas Menino. "I tell you, this is a contract that's great for our students, works for our teachers and it's fair to our taxpayers."

As of Thursday morning, negotiations between the Chicago Teachers Union and Mayor Emanuel were said to be developing.

By Eric Carter
Education Reporter

ST. PAUL, MN - Heights Community School parents have filed a lawsuit that is now moving to federal courts against the St. Paul Public School District in Minnesota, amid an investigation into allegations that teacher Timothy Olmsted discriminated against black students.

Olmsted resigned after the district placed him on paid leave in the spring after parents complained that he called African American students "fat, black and stupid" and told them, "you will never amount to anything" and "you only have one parent."

The teacher also allegedly forced black students to sit in the back of the classroom, or sit with their desks facing the wall.

"He told the whole entire class that it is easier for him to teach rich white folks than poor black people," stated Margot Chase, a parent of one of the students in Olmsted's class. Chase mentioned to Le Prestige that this incident "doesn't surprise (her)."

Olmsted resigned in March, but is still being paid through the first week of October, and parents are dissatisfied. He is also not facing disciplinary action due to the resignation.

In the suit, parents claim that the district failed to protect their children from Olmsted, the Star Tribune reported. LaTeyva Morgan, mother of 12-year-old Jamia Ware, said she made nearly 100 calls to school officials in the fall regarding Olmsted's classroom behavior, but the no one acted until January.

District representatives, however, told Le Prestige that an investigation was launched promptly and all complaints against the teacher were addressed immediately. Olmsted's attorney notes that the teacher "denies any improper conduct and believes that the claims against him are baseless."

But the educator has a record of controversy. The St. Paul School District reported in 2002 that Olmsted gave a sixth grade girl a birthday card with sexual innuendos, and requested that she read it to the class. He was also accused of giving a graphic description of castrating horses and throwing testicles into a field to feed cats.

For the various incidents over the years, disciplinary actions against him have ranged from written reprimands to days of suspension without pay. Students also find his more recent, racial comments strange.

"He would say random things like when I get out of the shower my dog dries me off," student Natasha Bohn told the press in a separate report.

Her father, Michel Bohn, has moved the teen to another school district, and asserts that there should be no question about whether Olmsted should be allowed to keep teaching.

"I wouldn't stand for it," Bohn said. "Right is right. Wrong is wrong."

Minnesota does not have statewide regulations regarding disciplinary action for teachers, so process is followed based on district decisions and as outlined in teachers' union contracts.

The allegations in St. Paul are similar to complaints against Kathleen Pyles, a math teacher at North End Middle School in Waterbury, Conn., who was placed on paid leave in June while officials investigate claims that she addressed a black student with a racist remark.

Parents have accused Pyles of inappropriately calling a student "black boy" when she couldn't remember his name. When she first called the boy by the wrong name, he pointed out her mistake. So she responded, "How about black boy? Go sit down, black boy."

Parents are calling for her dismissal.