Post by momto4 on Apr 14, 2011 8:25:10 GMT -5
beaconnews.suntimes.com/news/4821848-418/sweeping-school-reform-bill-targets-school-day-strikes-bad-teachers.html
Sweeping school reform bill targets school day, strikes, bad teachers
SPRINGFIELD — Senate Democrats on Wednesday announced a sweeping education-reform deal that could lengthen the school day and year in Chicago, streamline the dismissal of poorly performing teachers statewide and add new hurdles before teachers can strike and get tenure.
“Everything is agreed to,” said Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood), who oversaw five months of negotiations between teachers unions, business and reform groups and school boards.
The initiative that could surface for a Senate vote as early as Thursday rivals in importance the 1995 package Mayor Daley brokered with Republicans that gave the mayor unfettered control over the Chicago Board of Education.
“Honest to god, it’s hard to overstate the significance of this. These are huge changes in how overall decisions get made,” said Robin Steans, executive director of Advance Illinois, one of the reform groups that pushed the changes.
“The big winner here is the kids,” she said. “If you’d even suggested a year ago we’d be dealing with these issues at all, I’d have told you that you were smoking something and that I’d have to report you to the authorities.”
In a victory for teachers unions, which have faced decertification efforts in Wisconsin and Ohio, the package preserves the right to strike in Chicago and the suburbs. But it imposes a requirement that school boards and unions take longer to negotiate and publicly disclose their bargaining positions before a strike can be launched.
In Chicago, where there hasn’t been a teachers strike since 1987, no strikes could occur until as long as four months after a special arbitration panel takes up the dispute — and then, only if the Chicago Teachers Union has given a 10-day notice of a strike and has 75 percent of its bargaining unit members agree to it.
Currently, a strike only requires a simple majority vote.
“I think Illinois will have a landmark piece of legislation that could serve as a role model for other states that you can do this without taking a meat ax to the rights of public employees,” said Kenneth Swanson, president of the Illinois Education Association.
However, CTU President Karen Lewis said she was “furious’’ about an 11th-hour attempt to scuttle the bill because it preserved the CTU’s right to strike. As a result, Lewis said, she felt the bill had more to do with some groups trying to “destroy the CTU’’ than trying to push “real education reform.’’
“They wanted to take away our right to strike,’’ Lewis said. “We absolutely refused that.’’ The unions also were able to secure a “fairer” dismissal process, which leaves the decision on whether an unsatisfactorily-rated teacher has actually improved to someone other than the principal who issued the initial evaluation, Lewis said.
Lightford’s legislation also would empower the Chicago Board of Education to lengthen the school day or school year unilaterally, which it cannot do now. The CTU would retain the right to collectively bargain over pay and benefits for its members being in the classroom longer.
Regarding tenure — something critics say can mean lifetime job security for teachers under current law — beginning teachers would have to earn “proficient” or “excellent” teacher evaluations during two of the final three years of their four-year probationary period before they’re qualified to receive tenure. Now, teachers gain tenure after four years unless a district opts not to renew their contracts.
Outside Chicago, for those who have attained tenure, the legislation would diminish the impact of that seniority in layoff situations. School systems, for the first time, would be allowed to base layoffs on job performance — with seniority counting in only a “tie breaker role” — rather than automatically cutting the least-experienced staff first. Chicago was omitted from layoff provisions because the issue there is under litigation.
Additionally, the plan would reduce the period of time it would take school boards in Chicago and the suburbs to dismiss tenured teachers — a move reform groups have long demanded. However, Lewis said, in a plus for teachers, tenure would be “portable,” meaning a teacher would not lose tenure status achieved in one district if he or she won a job in another district.
The legislation also gives the state school superintendent new power to revoke the teaching certificate of a poorly-performing teacher. For the first time, “incompetency” would be defined in state law, meaning that teachers with two unsatisfactory ratings in seven years could lose their teaching certificates.
One of the prime movers behind the education-reform package was the Oregon-based Stand for Children organization, which raised $3.4 million late last year through a political action committee it created. It funneled $610,000 of that pot into 10 different legislative campaigns, state records showed.
Sweeping school reform bill targets school day, strikes, bad teachers
SPRINGFIELD — Senate Democrats on Wednesday announced a sweeping education-reform deal that could lengthen the school day and year in Chicago, streamline the dismissal of poorly performing teachers statewide and add new hurdles before teachers can strike and get tenure.
“Everything is agreed to,” said Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood), who oversaw five months of negotiations between teachers unions, business and reform groups and school boards.
The initiative that could surface for a Senate vote as early as Thursday rivals in importance the 1995 package Mayor Daley brokered with Republicans that gave the mayor unfettered control over the Chicago Board of Education.
“Honest to god, it’s hard to overstate the significance of this. These are huge changes in how overall decisions get made,” said Robin Steans, executive director of Advance Illinois, one of the reform groups that pushed the changes.
“The big winner here is the kids,” she said. “If you’d even suggested a year ago we’d be dealing with these issues at all, I’d have told you that you were smoking something and that I’d have to report you to the authorities.”
In a victory for teachers unions, which have faced decertification efforts in Wisconsin and Ohio, the package preserves the right to strike in Chicago and the suburbs. But it imposes a requirement that school boards and unions take longer to negotiate and publicly disclose their bargaining positions before a strike can be launched.
In Chicago, where there hasn’t been a teachers strike since 1987, no strikes could occur until as long as four months after a special arbitration panel takes up the dispute — and then, only if the Chicago Teachers Union has given a 10-day notice of a strike and has 75 percent of its bargaining unit members agree to it.
Currently, a strike only requires a simple majority vote.
“I think Illinois will have a landmark piece of legislation that could serve as a role model for other states that you can do this without taking a meat ax to the rights of public employees,” said Kenneth Swanson, president of the Illinois Education Association.
However, CTU President Karen Lewis said she was “furious’’ about an 11th-hour attempt to scuttle the bill because it preserved the CTU’s right to strike. As a result, Lewis said, she felt the bill had more to do with some groups trying to “destroy the CTU’’ than trying to push “real education reform.’’
“They wanted to take away our right to strike,’’ Lewis said. “We absolutely refused that.’’ The unions also were able to secure a “fairer” dismissal process, which leaves the decision on whether an unsatisfactorily-rated teacher has actually improved to someone other than the principal who issued the initial evaluation, Lewis said.
Lightford’s legislation also would empower the Chicago Board of Education to lengthen the school day or school year unilaterally, which it cannot do now. The CTU would retain the right to collectively bargain over pay and benefits for its members being in the classroom longer.
Regarding tenure — something critics say can mean lifetime job security for teachers under current law — beginning teachers would have to earn “proficient” or “excellent” teacher evaluations during two of the final three years of their four-year probationary period before they’re qualified to receive tenure. Now, teachers gain tenure after four years unless a district opts not to renew their contracts.
Outside Chicago, for those who have attained tenure, the legislation would diminish the impact of that seniority in layoff situations. School systems, for the first time, would be allowed to base layoffs on job performance — with seniority counting in only a “tie breaker role” — rather than automatically cutting the least-experienced staff first. Chicago was omitted from layoff provisions because the issue there is under litigation.
Additionally, the plan would reduce the period of time it would take school boards in Chicago and the suburbs to dismiss tenured teachers — a move reform groups have long demanded. However, Lewis said, in a plus for teachers, tenure would be “portable,” meaning a teacher would not lose tenure status achieved in one district if he or she won a job in another district.
The legislation also gives the state school superintendent new power to revoke the teaching certificate of a poorly-performing teacher. For the first time, “incompetency” would be defined in state law, meaning that teachers with two unsatisfactory ratings in seven years could lose their teaching certificates.
One of the prime movers behind the education-reform package was the Oregon-based Stand for Children organization, which raised $3.4 million late last year through a political action committee it created. It funneled $610,000 of that pot into 10 different legislative campaigns, state records showed.
