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

CHICAGO - Parents and caregivers who scrambled Monday to figure out what to do with more than 350,000 idle children must do it all again Tuesday – and perhaps longer – after the teachers union and district failed to reach a settlement to end the first strike in the city's schools in a quarter century. On Monday, only about 16,000 students showed up at schools and other venues where authorities organized activities and provided meals for those in need. That means the vast majority of parents had to make alternative arrangements or leave their children unsupervised through the day.

Chicago School Board President David Vitale said he thought an agreement could be reached on Tuesday. But Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis sounded less optimistic, saying the district has not changed its offers on the two most contentious issues, performance evaluations and recall rights for laid-off teachers.

The walkout – less than a week after most schools opened for fall – has created a tense political distraction for Mayor Rahm Emanuel. In a year when labor unions have been losing ground nationwide, the implications were sure to extend far beyond Chicago, particularly for districts engaged in similar debates.

"This is a long-term battle that everyone's going to watch," said Eric Hanuskek, a senior fellow in education at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. "Other teachers unions in the United States are wondering if they should follow suit."

The union had vowed to strike Monday if there was no agreement on a new contract, even though the district offered a 16 percent raise over four years and the two sides had essentially agreed on a longer school day.

Parents and caregivers said they were upset that the two sides can't seem to agree. About 11,000 students showed up Monday at the 144 schools kept open by the district to offer breakfast, lunch and activities; another 5,000 attended activities at other sites, including churches, park district buildings and libraries.

Michelle Li walked her 5-year-old daughter, Amber, to Mays Elementary but turned back once she realized she didn't know which adults would be watching her child. She said that the kindergartner just started school last week.

"I don't understand this, my little girl just started kindergarten," she said.

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said he took officers off desk duty and deployed them to deal with any protests as well as the scores of students who might be roaming the streets, but police said there were no incidents on Monday.

Martha Malloy, whose husband dropped off their two elementary-age children and a granddaughter at Mays Elementary – where some picketers yelled "don't go in!" – said she doesn't blame the teachers and thinks Emanuel should give them what they want "because he's not in the classroom with those kids."

"They need to be at school and learning," Malloy said. "I don't want my children or others to get off track."

Teacher Kimberly Crawford said she is most concerned about issues such as class size and the lack of air conditioning.

"It's not just about the raise," she said. "I've worked without a raise for two years."

So teachers walked the picket lines at the schools in the morning, then thousands of educators and their supporters took over several downtown streets during the Monday evening rush. Police secured several blocks around district headquarters as the crowds marched and chanted.

The strike quickly became part of the presidential campaign. Republican candidate Mitt Romney said teachers were turning their backs on students and that Obama was siding with the striking teachers in his hometown. Obama's top spokesman said the president has not taken sides and is urging both the union and district to settle the dispute quickly.

Emanuel, who recently agreed to take a larger role in fundraising for Obama's re-election, dismissed Romney's comments as "lip service."

But one labor expert said a major strike unfolding in the shadow of the November election could only hurt a president who desperately needs the votes of workers, including teachers, in battleground states.

"I can't imagine this is good for the president and something he can afford to have go on for more than a week," said Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

For two decades, contract agreements have slowly eroded teachers' voices, Bruno said. "But this signals to other collective bargaining units that the erosion of teachers' rights isn't inevitable. They (the union members) are telling them, `You don't have to roll over.'"

Emanuel, who has engaged in a public and often controversial battle with the union, is not personally negotiating, but he's monitoring the talks through aides.

Not long after his election, the mayor's office rescinded 4 percent raises for teachers. Then he asked the union to reopen its contract and accept 2 percent pay raises in exchange for lengthening the school day for students by 90 minutes, a request the union turned down.

Emanuel, who promised a longer school day during his campaign, attempted to go around the union by asking teachers at individual schools to waive the contract and add 90 minutes to the day. He halted the effort after being challenged by the union before the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.

The district and union agreed in July on a deal to implement the longer school day, crafting a plan to hire back 477 teachers who had been laid off rather than pay regular teachers more to work longer hours. That raised hopes the contract dispute would be settled soon, but bargaining stalled on the other issues.

by Martina Gonzalez
Education Editor

The notion of a vocation, or particular calling, for educators is a complex and challenging one that takes into consideration values, sense of self within a community and society, along with a desire to grow professionally while changing the lives of others.

David Hansen's article, “Revitalizing the Idea of Vocation in Teaching", with regards to vocation is one that many teachers find worthwhile because the way public obligation and personal fulfillment is discussed is how many initially felt during their first few years as educators.

Many teachers feel an essence to do more, but often do not express this in words. Vocation develops as a need to want to find creative solutions to education and social issues, often feeling a strong sense of determination. Though educators interviewed in the past wouldn't personally call their career as an educator a “vocation” because of the religious perceptions associated, some do consider their work a passionate obligation.

From one teacher's experience working with both tenure and new teachers, a strong sense of duty develops from teachers who have a connection with the local community.

Caitlin Vanderstein, an educator teaching in the Chicago Public Schools system, told Le Prestige of her perspective regarding teachers and the working with the local community. "A sense of community proves to be important, particularly a bond between students and educators,", stated Vanderstein. "Unlike other professions, teachers really do benefit from learning about their students' backgrounds and ways of learning, so that the best practitioners I've encountered in the past are really those that remain closest to the learners."

Another teacher, Ana Guadalupe Perez, who works in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, discussed her experience in the classroom. Perez, a history teacher, discussed an incident where learning about a student's background helped her become a better educator.

"I remember a specific incident where one of my students a year ago had the most difficult time attempting to grasp the difference between a noun and a pronoun," Perez mentioned. "She would stare at the front of the class with a blank look on her face, then write a few notes on her in-class assignment, and eventually turn in a sheet with drawings of what appeared to be a happy family. She not only did this during my time with her, she would also fail to focus on her other assignments with other teachers."

Perez stated that her student was a victim of sexual abuse and she'd recently started receiving counseling from the school psychologist. The memories were coming back to this young girl, bringing fresh reminders of a negative past. After she became aware of the situation, Perez immediately focused her efforts on building trust and a comfort zone with the student in order for her to begin engaging once again in the classroom.

"I was determined to make my classroom a safe zone for my students to learn. Because other teachers didn't bother learning about this student's history, some suggested that this particular student needed to be in special education. If we don't actively engage with our students and simply limit our interactions to class material, we create a distance between ourselves and our students that can have devastating effects for the learning process."

The distance and sense of interaction among students and teachers directly applies to the teaching experience and philosophy of many educators across the nation. Vanderstein, like Perez, mentioned that becoming a teacher was something she did in order to make a positive contribution to society.

"When I initially became an educator, my goals were to make a positive difference in the lives of students and encourage education as a key to success," Vanderstein commented. "I imagined myself working with all kinds of students and allowing them to obtain their personal best in the classroom while facilitating them to best shape their futures. I've been fortunate to have had many opportunities to do this, for which I am very thankful."

However, Vanderstein, a 7th grade biology teacher, admits that society doesn't always appreciate the work of educators. "Our culture doesn't always value our diligence and responsibility as educators, particularly with regards to status and prestige and 'moving up' within the educational career path. Everyone thinks we just babysit, when in reality there is so much work to be done."