Post by title1parent on Jun 24, 2010 7:06:49 GMT -5
www.suntimes.com/news/education/2427570,CST-NWS-tenure24.article
Union blasts Chicago Public Schools' tenure attack
Layoffs of worst-rated teachers OKd despite seniority
June 24, 2010
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter
Chicago School Board members Wednesday went on the attack against teacher tenure, agreeing to lay off the worst-rated teachers first -- regardless of seniority -- amid moves to raise class size and shrink a record budget deficit.
Chicago Teachers Union President-elect Karen Lewis immediately blasted the action as "very belligerent'' and "very confrontational.'' Union attorneys will examine its legality, she said.
TENURE VS. PROBATION
Tenure: A job status that gives teachers certain rights and benefits, particularly when their jobs are threatened. Statewide, public school teachers receive tenure after completing four consecutive, full-time years of satisfactory or better service. In Chicago, teachers rated at least "satisfactory'' receive the benefits of tenure after their third year, including the right to a due-process hearing.
Probation: A job status usually reflecting less experience. It's essentially the lack of tenure and the rights it confers.
Experts called the system's new layoff rules unusual but part of a "growing drumbeat'' to allow districts to use something other than seniority and tenure in determining who should be laid off, especially in tough economic times.
"It's quite unusual. It's controversial,'' said education consultant Julia Koppich, co-author of United Mind Workers, a book on teacher union reform. "But it's part of a growing trend -- not for school districts to do this, but to want to do this.''
Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman said the new policy, approved by a unanimous vote Wednesday, affects about 200 teachers, both tenured and untenured, rated "unsatisfactory'' by their principals. It allows CPS to lay off even the most senior, tenured teachers with more than four years of experience who are rated as "unsatisfactory'' before dropping newer, higher-rated teachers.
The policy would be invoked if CPS raises class size to 35 to fill its budget hole. Officials also hope to use it during annual layoffs of teachers because of decreases in student enrollment, said Rachel Resnick, head of CPS labor relations.
Under the current CPS evaluation system, principals annually rate teachers as superior, excellent, satisfactory or unsatisfactory, based on classroom observations of their teaching and a checklist covering everything from lesson plans to punctuality, Resnick said.
Unsatisfactory teachers are given a chance to "remediate'' their shortcomings or face dismissal, a process critics say is too cumbersome and time-consuming.
Lewis, who takes office July 1 as CTU president, said teacher evaluations are too "subjective'' to be used as a basis for layoffs and the evaluation system is "flawed.''
"People are being evaluated based on personality issues, based on things that have nothing to do with what's going on in a classroom,'' Lewis said.
Huberman countered that principals are carefully trained to evaluate teachers, and CPS will only reach into the very bottom of the evaluation ratings to lay off teachers.
"There is no evaluation system that is not based on professional judgment,'' Huberman said. "In these 200 cases, [principals] have made a professional judgment. We think it would be wrong to lay off teachers who are performing for students when we know there are teachers who are not. . . .
"We're trying to do what's right for kids."
The move also could save money by making it easier for CPS to dump higher-paid veteran teachers instead of less expensive probationary teachers and to avoid the cost of dismissal proceedings.
CPS may be taking "the easy out'' by finding a way to "keep these good, probably young and inexperienced teachers, and to get rid of these senior teachers who we really didn't think were very good anyway and not to bother to bring them up on dismissal charges,'' Koppich said.
Meanwhile, during a sometimes raucous monthly school board meeting, teachers selected for their expertise to be academic "coaches'' complained they were told on June 17 that they would be laid off, effective June 30. This includes 54 teachers hired by the Chicago New Teachers Center to serve as "mentors'' to rookie teachers.
Lewis questioned why "highly qualified'' coaches were being laid off just as CPS was preparing to place Teach for America trainees "with no background'' in education in classrooms. "I guess there's no honeymoon for me. It's on,'' Lewis told school board members.
Huberman cautioned that the budget is still in flux. But he said, until more funding emerges from Springfield, academic coaches who were funded through central office and may serve multiple sites were being laid off to save the jobs of other teachers who work every day in the same classrooms.
Huberman said he hoped to place "the best and the brightest'' in other CPS positions. "Stand by,'' he said. ". . . We will be working to ensure that we're able to preserve our star teachers in the system.''
Union blasts Chicago Public Schools' tenure attack
Layoffs of worst-rated teachers OKd despite seniority
June 24, 2010
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter
Chicago School Board members Wednesday went on the attack against teacher tenure, agreeing to lay off the worst-rated teachers first -- regardless of seniority -- amid moves to raise class size and shrink a record budget deficit.
Chicago Teachers Union President-elect Karen Lewis immediately blasted the action as "very belligerent'' and "very confrontational.'' Union attorneys will examine its legality, she said.
TENURE VS. PROBATION
Tenure: A job status that gives teachers certain rights and benefits, particularly when their jobs are threatened. Statewide, public school teachers receive tenure after completing four consecutive, full-time years of satisfactory or better service. In Chicago, teachers rated at least "satisfactory'' receive the benefits of tenure after their third year, including the right to a due-process hearing.
Probation: A job status usually reflecting less experience. It's essentially the lack of tenure and the rights it confers.
Experts called the system's new layoff rules unusual but part of a "growing drumbeat'' to allow districts to use something other than seniority and tenure in determining who should be laid off, especially in tough economic times.
"It's quite unusual. It's controversial,'' said education consultant Julia Koppich, co-author of United Mind Workers, a book on teacher union reform. "But it's part of a growing trend -- not for school districts to do this, but to want to do this.''
Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman said the new policy, approved by a unanimous vote Wednesday, affects about 200 teachers, both tenured and untenured, rated "unsatisfactory'' by their principals. It allows CPS to lay off even the most senior, tenured teachers with more than four years of experience who are rated as "unsatisfactory'' before dropping newer, higher-rated teachers.
The policy would be invoked if CPS raises class size to 35 to fill its budget hole. Officials also hope to use it during annual layoffs of teachers because of decreases in student enrollment, said Rachel Resnick, head of CPS labor relations.
Under the current CPS evaluation system, principals annually rate teachers as superior, excellent, satisfactory or unsatisfactory, based on classroom observations of their teaching and a checklist covering everything from lesson plans to punctuality, Resnick said.
Unsatisfactory teachers are given a chance to "remediate'' their shortcomings or face dismissal, a process critics say is too cumbersome and time-consuming.
Lewis, who takes office July 1 as CTU president, said teacher evaluations are too "subjective'' to be used as a basis for layoffs and the evaluation system is "flawed.''
"People are being evaluated based on personality issues, based on things that have nothing to do with what's going on in a classroom,'' Lewis said.
Huberman countered that principals are carefully trained to evaluate teachers, and CPS will only reach into the very bottom of the evaluation ratings to lay off teachers.
"There is no evaluation system that is not based on professional judgment,'' Huberman said. "In these 200 cases, [principals] have made a professional judgment. We think it would be wrong to lay off teachers who are performing for students when we know there are teachers who are not. . . .
"We're trying to do what's right for kids."
The move also could save money by making it easier for CPS to dump higher-paid veteran teachers instead of less expensive probationary teachers and to avoid the cost of dismissal proceedings.
CPS may be taking "the easy out'' by finding a way to "keep these good, probably young and inexperienced teachers, and to get rid of these senior teachers who we really didn't think were very good anyway and not to bother to bring them up on dismissal charges,'' Koppich said.
Meanwhile, during a sometimes raucous monthly school board meeting, teachers selected for their expertise to be academic "coaches'' complained they were told on June 17 that they would be laid off, effective June 30. This includes 54 teachers hired by the Chicago New Teachers Center to serve as "mentors'' to rookie teachers.
Lewis questioned why "highly qualified'' coaches were being laid off just as CPS was preparing to place Teach for America trainees "with no background'' in education in classrooms. "I guess there's no honeymoon for me. It's on,'' Lewis told school board members.
Huberman cautioned that the budget is still in flux. But he said, until more funding emerges from Springfield, academic coaches who were funded through central office and may serve multiple sites were being laid off to save the jobs of other teachers who work every day in the same classrooms.
Huberman said he hoped to place "the best and the brightest'' in other CPS positions. "Stand by,'' he said. ". . . We will be working to ensure that we're able to preserve our star teachers in the system.''