Chicago teachers have been fighting, and they keep fighting, in the face of incredible odds.
Chicago is
not done with the layoffs in its schools:
Chicago Public Schools announced staff layoffs on Thursday for 550 teachers and 600 other members of the Chicago Teachers Union.
Then there are the teachers and staff at schools that are being closed. And that's all after massive layoffs in 2013. But tell me again how what we should be focusing on in schools is attacking teacher tenure, not fighting for better funding.
And more:
- Ten reasons we're against unions.
- A little good news:
Another major retailer in the United States is giving a boost to its base salary, although the size of the increase will vary from state to state. On Thursday morning, the Swedish furniture retailer IKEA announced that it would be adopting a new wage structure which is expected to increase pay for about 50% of its American employees. The change in company policy will take effect on January 1, 2015.
The new policy will base entry-level compensation on the MIT Living Wage Calculator, which estimates the wages required “to meet minimum standards of living” in each county of each state. IKEA’s new compensation system will offer different base wages at different store locations, depending on the cost of living in the surrounding area. The average minimum hourly wage across all store locations will become $10.59, a 17% increase from what it is now.
Of course, workers shouldn't have to hope for a semi-decent employer to make a semi-decent wage.
- A teacher who got a teacher of the year award four times in six years tells why he's leaving teaching:
Every year, our district invents new goals (such as “21st Century Skills”), measuring sticks (most recently a “Growth Calculator”), time-consuming documentation (see “SMART goals”), modified schedules (think block scheduling and an extended school day), and evaluations (look in our seventy-two page “Teacher Performance Plan”).
As a district, we pretend these are strategic adjustments. They are not. The growth calculator was essentially brought forward out of thin air, SMART goals are a weak attempt to prove we’re actually doing something in the classroom, etc. Bad teachers can game any system; good teachers can lose their focus trying to take new requirements seriously.
These hoops have distracted me from our priority (students). I’ve concluded it’s no longer possible to do all things well. We need to tear down these hoops and succeed clearly on simple metrics that matter.
Over the past six years, I can’t remember a time where something was taken off my plate. Expectations continue to increase and we play along until we invent new hoops.
- Rosie the Riveters storm National Zoo.
- Labor hits $10 billion goal for Clinton Global Initiative jobs and infrastructure investment:
n 2011, the American labor movement made a pledge to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) to raise $10 billion over the following five years to invest in the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and to boost the sagging job market. [This week], two years ahead of schedule, that pledge was fulfilled.
$10 billion is a lot, but America's needs are so much greater—and congressional Republicans are standing in the way of the government investment we really need.