# Teachers' Strike **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 11, 2012, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358 "2012-09-11T00:15:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Gundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Gundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gundy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/41 "2012-09-12T20:02:00Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > Hey Gundy…do you think you should make more than a teacher? Are you serious? No, I don’t. I don’t at all. The idea is laughable. What I do doesn’t require a master’s degree. I don’t have to deal with 30 kids every day, or, god forbid, their parents. And I don’t have to bring my work home at all, mentally or emotionally. I recognize and respect the difficulty that is inherent in the job – especially those teaching for CPS, and especially those teaching in underserved areas. Education is not a place where we should cheap out; you shouldn’t have to take a vow of poverty to do meaningful work (I work for a nonprofit myself.) I feel the same way about cops. But I think the current compensation is fair. (We’re now seeing what Lake Forest teachers make, $101,000 on average, and they don’t have to deal with nearly the ration of shit that CPS teachers do; it’d be nice if CPS teachers could get in on that kind of action.) It’s a good wage for a 9-month-per-year job. It’s public education for christ’s sake – we’re simply not talking unlimited funds. I just don’t buy that teachers should get to suck at their job and keep it. It’s too important a job. Fix the measurements, sure. Make them fairer and more accurate. Include peer review and try to correct for varying circumstances. But if you make it near impossible to fire an underperforming teacher, the schools are never going to get better. ---
**Author:** ![Jane\_D\_oh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/839c29/32.png) [@Jane\_D\_oh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jane_D_oh)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/42 "2012-09-12T20:31:04Z")
> [@Gundy](#): > > But I think the current compensation is fair. (We’re now seeing what Lake Forest teachers make, $101,000 on average, and they don’t have to deal with nearly the ration of shit that CPS teachers do; it’d be nice if CPS teachers could get in on that kind of action.) It’s a good wage for a 9-month-per-year job. It’s public education for christ’s sake – we’re simply not talking unlimited funds. Do CPS teachers still have to live in the city or did they remove that requirement? Because living in the city on 60k a year is not living fat and sassy. ---
**Author:** ![Gundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Gundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gundy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/43 "2012-09-12T20:39:27Z")
Good question – they do indeed have to live within city limits. I know some that don’t, but it is the rule (and a fair point, although my understanding is that median salary is $70,000, for what it’s worth.) No, it’s not fat and sassy but it’s way more than a living wage. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/44 "2012-09-12T20:46:47Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I’m more worried about seeing apostrophe’s in place’s where they don’t go, like in plural noun’s and thing’s like that. God _damn_ it. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/45 "2012-09-12T20:59:54Z")
My sister is a teacher. She’s not in a union anymore since moving to teach at a charter school in Texas. She had to join the union when she taught in Wisconsin, though. And, as far as I understand it, the vast majority of teachers do not really have a choice in the matter. > [@VinylTurnip](#): > > God _damn_ it. Language, 'sir! ---
**Author:** ![Gundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Gundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gundy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/46 "2012-09-12T22:39:23Z")
Just got this via a school group – this presents a much more detailed picture of the evaluation process. I’m seeing the CTU’s point on some of this…hm. > [@](#): > > “WHAT’S HAPPENING IN CHICAGO RIGHT NOW: A NOTE TO MY FORMER STUDENTS IN LOS ANGELES” by Michael Rusin, History Teacher > > I think that it’s important that I share a bit about what’s happening in Chicago right now. For the past two days, Chicago teachers have gone on strike for a var > iety of issues. Unfortunately, media reporting on the lead-up to the strike itself was terribly ignorant of the major issues–especially considering negotiations have been happening for 9 months-- and was in large part biased against the Chicago Teacher’s Union. Read about this issue in the news media with a careful eye: this is a strike about the future of public education in the U.S. > > Here are some of the reasons we are striking in no particular order: > > 1. COMPENSATION > > No one wants to hear about teacher compensation. However, Chicago teachers were mandated to work a longer school day and year-- for high schools: about 20 minutes longer than the typical LA school, and about 10 more days a year. This longer day and year came one year after the school board decided not to pay teachers a 4% raise that they were CONTRACTUALLY obligated to pay, and then literally the next month turned around and started offering raises to individual teachers and schools that “volunteered” to work a longer day. Importantly, while teachers are extraordinarily upset about the way the longer day and year played out, the Union and District have almost come to an agreement over teacher compensation. If you’ve read about it in the news, it has been reported as a 16% raise over the course of 4 years. However, the actual raise they are offering is 2.25% a year for four years. If you do the math that adds up to 9%. Where are they getting the other 7%? No one knows, but the mayor said it to reporters, so now that’s what’s getting reported. However, I want to emphasize that compensation will be worked out and is not currently the primary issue in dispute. > > 1. TEACHER EVALUATION > > Illinois passed a state law requiring [only the city of] Chicago to implement a new evaluation system. It required that the union and district work together to create it, but that if they could not come to an agreement-- the district could just implement its own final offer. This has led to an evaluation system that has some good aspects: it does a much better job of creating an objective criteria for “good” teaching. But it also has some terrible aspects. For example, the current rubrics would rate teachers on a 1 - 4 scale (with 4 being the highest). Teachers would then be rated 1 - 4 on four different components and those scores would be averaged together to create an overall evaluation score. Teachers that receive the lowest rating two years in a row not only can be fired, but they will lose their teaching license. While teachers agree that schools should have a right to fire “bad” teachers, the current rubrics state that if you score a 2 (considered basic) on all four components, then you are actually rated a 1. As a comparison, imagine that I graded an essay on 4 components and scored each component as a “C”, but then made the overall essay grade a “D”. Doesn’t make sense, right? > > Another problem with the system is that the criteria for category 4 (distinguished) teaching describe good teaching, but they are so stringent that they are almost impossible to achieve. For example, in the component on classroom management, if you have a student that disrupts class, and you deal with the disruption to get the student back on track, you are rated as a 3. You can only be rated as a 4 if you never have any students that are disruptive. This assumes that teachers have total control over all students at all times. To me, effectively dealing with disruptive students IS distinguished teaching, especially when working with students that are not intrinsically motivated. There are myriad other issues with the current proposals, but [the primary issue is that] teachers see a future where the state/district will demand that teacher pay be tied to evaluations. If we allow the district to create an evaluation system that is rigged to rate all teachers as mediocre, it will allow them to justify freezing or cutting our salaries, or even firing teachers whenever they like. > > In addition, the district wants to tie teacher evaluation to student standardized testing. To do this, in my school, of the 10 additional days in the school year, 7 of them will be used to give students standardized tests. For 11th graders, this test is the practice and real ACT, so it is significant. For students in other grades, they are all practice tests. So, teachers will be evaluated on student test scores that will mean nothing to the majority of students. Also, the district asked teachers to create what they call “Performance Tasks,” which are standardized tests to be given in an individual classroom. While teachers helped to develop these tasks, the district method of grading the tasks is designed to rate all teachers as mediocre. The grading system ranks students on a 0 - 3 scale (with 3 being the highest). Teachers will be evaluated based on whether or not students move up in the 0-3 scale. The US history task (which is similar to a DBQ) is graded out of 30 points such that a 28-30 counts as a 3, an 18-27 counts as a 2, a 8-17 counts as a 1, and below that is a 0. In this case, a student could score an 18 the first time he takes the test, and a 26 the next time he takes it (improving from a 60% to an 87%) but for the purposes of evaluating his teacher that student will not be considered “improved.” > > 1. TEACHER RECALL > > The school district plans to close 100 “underperforming” schools over the next several years and replace them with new schools and charters. This is nothing new in Chicago. For the past 8 years, CPS has closed over 100 schools, fired all the teachers, and re-opened them as new schools and charters. To the surprise of no one, the vast majority of the new schools and charters that were opened scored THE SAME as the previous schools. Then why close neighborhood schools and force kids to travel to different areas of the city to go to school…? To fire experienced teachers that earn a higher salary, and replace them with inexperienced teachers that make less money. Since this is the goal of these new schools, is it any surprise that they are not outperforming the old schools? The Union wants a system in place so that if the district decides to close schools, the teachers that get fired (through no fault of their own) have the first opportunity to get the new jobs that open. > > 1. CLASS SIZE > > CPS wants to avoid putting language in a contract that limits the amount of students in a class. Instead, they want to have the right to raise class sizes if they need to. The Union wants language in a contract that limits class sizes to 28 kids per class. > > 1. WORKING CONDITIONS > > Lots of schools in Chicago are ill equipped for the 21st century. They lack libraries, computer labs, and even air conditioning. For example, last week it was 94 degrees in my classroom. This was not an anomaly [and yes, teachers buy and bring in fans]! This happens regularly when it is close to summer time. The Union wants the district to fix these problems. > > There are other issues that we are fighting for, but I need to stop there. If you read most articles about the strike you will not read in any detail about the reasons why Chicago teachers are unhappy about compensation, evaluation, and recall - so please consider this and SHARE what I wrote. We are on strike because we refuse to accept a system where the mayor can systematically lower scores on teacher evaluations in order to justify the privatization of education." ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/47 "2012-09-12T22:56:18Z")
> [@Gundy](#): > > Just got this via a school group – this presents a much more detailed picture of the evaluation process. I’m seeing the CTU’s point on some of this…hm. Hmm. Facts are good things. Sure beat random right wing internet rumors, like we’ve seen on this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/48 "2012-09-12T22:58:49Z")
> [@](#): > > However, the actual raise they are offering is 2.25% a year for four years. If you do the math that adds up to 9%. 9.3%, actually, because you don’t “add up” percentages that compound in that fashion, you multiply them (1.0225 ^ 4 \* current salary). I hope this person isn’t a math teacher or he may have really shown why we need merit-based performance! ---
**Author:** ![ScatteredFrog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@ScatteredFrog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScatteredFrog)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/49 "2012-09-13T04:05:16Z")
I’m not a teacher, but I’m married to an overpaid thug of a CPS teacher who drives a BMW and can take up to six months of vacation and works only six hours a day for nine months. Oh, wait…that’s right…if she were making as much as the media made it out, I wouldn’t have to work (well, in my case, scramble to find a job because I got laid off), we share an old Saturn, she spent at least half the summer at school for curriculum planning et al, and all last week she got to school at 7:15am and didn’t even leave there until 5:30pm. And we live in a modest apartment and don’t take exotic vacations, too. My bad. Anyway, I don’t know EVERYTHING that’s in dispute, but here’s what I know about the strike and other things: 1. The pay issue has LONG BEEN RESOLVED. The teachers overwhelmingly agreed that the kids could benefit from extra classroom time and extra days (btw, the thing about CPS schools having a relatively short school day – true, except for high schools…CPS high schools had a longer day than most public high schools in the country…and for comparison, it’s about 90 minutes longer than the school day at The Latin School), but what they didn’t agree with was not being compensated for the extra time. But that’s been resolved. (One of the reasons for the NFL lockout last year, by the way, was that NFL wanted to add more games but not pay the players extra for them, despite the risks et al.) 2. Speaking of pay…the contract that they signed promised them 4% increase per year, but for the past two years, they got NOTHING. That’s been in the contract since 1967, btw. Regardless of whether you think that’s too much (I always got that much at every job I ever had except the last bunch of @$$holes I worked for), that’s still breach of contract. It’s up to those in charge to make sure they have a way to fulfill that contract. In the private sector, you know what happens when you breach a contract? YOU GET SUED. The CTU doesn’t have that option. However, both sides have agreed on a 3% raise for next year, followed by 2% each for the following three years. Reps from CPS claim that that’s somehow a total of 16% increase, but when I did the math (twice just to make sure), I came up with 9.304424; I’ll be happy to share the steps in how I calculated. 3. Class size is an issue. Some teachers have over 40 kids in their classrooms. And last Monday my wife was thrilled to find that one of her freshmen classes contained OVER FIFTY. This is WELL OVER THE LEGAL MAXIMUM CLASS SIZE established after the Our Lady of Angels fire. So, the folks at 125 S. Clark are violating the law here. Aaaand…that violates CPS’s own policy manual, which you can read here: [Error | Chicago Public Schools](http://policy.cps.k12.il.us/documents/301.2.pdf) 4. I didn’t realize this was an issue, but most schools aren’t given their books/curriculum until six weeks into the school year, meaning teachers basically have to improvise their instruction. 5. Standardized test scores – as someone who’s worked in test prep for ten years, I can tell you that standardized tests measure NOTHING but your family’s income level. Anyhoo, state law is that 20% of a teacher’s evaluation must be based on standardized test scores, which is enough of an abomination, but Tiny Dancer wants to up that to at least 40%. Meanwhile, his kids’ school DOESN’T EVEN TAKE STANDARDIZED TESTS. These tests, by the way, have no “passing” score announced until the tests are scored, and the kids are given no impetus to do well. (In New Jersey, btw, students must pass the GEPA to move beyond eighth grade, regardless of actual academic performance, and the HSPA to graduate from high school, again, regardless of actual academic performance.) WTF is up with all this testing, btw??? When I was in school (I’m 38), the only legally-required tests I had to take were US and Illinois constitution tests in both 8th grade and HS – and it was up to the teacher to decide how to format it. 6. Speaking of standardized tests, the electronic media has been EXTREMELY biased against teachers, taking Rahmbo’s side. On Sunday night on WGN news one of the reporters actually said, “If your child goes to a Chicago public school, your child will not be learning tomorrow.” Uhh…guess what, chicky-baby. At my wife’s school, they would have been forced to dedicate the day to…TESTING. New standardized tests in addition to the already-existing 19 testing days in the school year. So THEY WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN LEARNING ANYWAY. 7. So…while Rahm couldn’t put any money toward meeting the rest of the teachers’ needs (the same needs that the school district in Boston just agreed to for THEIR teachers, btw), he COULD spend $25 million on some outsiders to come in and baby-sit. CPS has the manual for these people available for download as a PDF. It includes verbiage warning them to be prepared for some schools that aren’t air-conditioned, schools that don’t have refrigerators or microwaves, how to handle kids under certain situations, etc. Basically, it’s very “Undercover Boss” in that they’re going to learn EXACTLY what the teachers have to go through. Oh…and the table of contents in the manual has an entry for how to deal with kids with disabilities…but the actual chapter doesn’t exist. Nice, eh? 8. One of the demands was for air conditioning for schools that don’t have it because, well, it gets pretty darned hot at the beginning of the school year and at the end of the school year. “Oh, I didn’t have air conditioning when I was in school and I was FINE!” I hear you old right-winger coots yell. Okay, fine, but, consider this: 1) Did you happen to catch on the news last year when Rahm paid a visit to a CPS school on the first day? It was blazing hot out, and they no fewer than six fans pointed at him. How many at the kids? Not enough to be able to count, I’ll tell you that. 2) At 26th and California, they’re required to turn up the AC for the inmates if the temperature gets to 78 degrees or above. So it’s okay for our jailbirds, but not students? 9. All the media have been claiming something like $71,000 or $74,000 as the annual teacher salary. What they’re NOT telling you is that it’s actually the average of all full-time CPS staff that carry currently valid teaching certificates. Yep – including principals who teach (principals make 6 digits a year!) and other administrators who aren’t specifically teachers but who have the certification and theoretically can jump in if there’s an emergency with a teacher and no sub is available. That on top of all the teachers who have multiple degrees and have been working for CPS for upwards of 40 years – as with anywhere, the longer you’re there, the more money you’re going to make. 10. Speaking of degrees…that’s one thing the media seem to forget: THESE ARE EDUCATED PROFESSIONALS (and a majority are also tax payers and CPS parents), and there’s a new CPS requirement that you are required to have a Master’s degree within five years of your start date. How many private sector jobs that require a Master’s degree start you off with a $45,000 salary? (Less without, of course.) Unlike many private-sector companies, most school districts do not offer a single cent in tuition reimbursement when you pursue further education, which is why there’s the whole “step” or “lane” thing or whatever…master’s gets you a higher salary, master’s + 30 credits gets you even higher, two master’s gets you a certain amount, etc. 11. Speaking of education (again)…my wife has a master’s degree in education, which she got so she could get a teaching job. (And she worked her ass off for it, and literally had to live away from me for a year to get it. That was a difficult year for both of us. And it took her 11 months to get her CPS job despite already having prior experience in other districts, including low-performing inner-city districts, and excellent ratings.) But nowhere in her education was she told how to handle things like what to do if a student takes you aside and confides in you that she thinks she’s pregnant; what to do if a student leaves a poem in your teacher in-box in the main office only to find, on closer inspection, that the poem is actually a suicide note; how to handle a situation in which two of your students walk into class stoned out of their minds; or if after school one of your student runs down the hallway and finds you and frantically explains that while she and her boyfriend were outside waiting for a ride home someone pulled up to the boyfriend and flashed a gun; or…thankfully, my wife wasn’t a teacher yet when this was an issue, but I have plenty of friends who were…what to do when you realize that many of your students’ parents may have just been killed when an airplane flew into their workplace just minutes ago. Tell me teachers don’t deserve their demands after going through these kinds of shitstorms. 12. Again, those of you who think that teachers have it made because they have “three” months off (it’s more like two and a few days more) and that their work day ends when the kids leave…uhhh, when do you think homework and tests are graded? You don’t think there are meetings after school? And now that Rahm wants to take away professional development days (meaning the kids don’t get a break until November), when do you think the professional development will be? (Gee, maybe after school?) 13. One of the things in dispute was over principals’ right to hire and fire whomever they want. The union doesn’t want this, mainly because they know some principals can be quite unreasonable. The principal at one school, for example, (I won’t say the name other than to say it’s on the near north side) twisted all kinds of rules to fire half of her teaching staff and replace them with her college friends. Another principal had all kinds of issues and was actually revealed to be a fraud: this person actually fired a tenured teacher who got consistently excellent evaluations and was in the military; he has since successfully sued. (Not that it did much good – this principal was basically run out of town on a rail and he nearly immediately got hired at another school.) She also redefined a few teacher positions to get rid of teachers she had well-known personal vendettas against (but who also got consistently excellent reviews, in writing, I might add). And she coerced some of her new teachers into filing for free/reduced lunch for their offspring. It’s this behavior that makes the CTU not want the hiring to be put into the principals’ hands, although my wife always speaks highly of her principal. 14. There are currently 48 items on the table in the negotiations. Last I heard, six have been signd off on. 15. One of the items up for negotiation is actually one that many teachers disagree with: Karen Lewis is fighting for laid-off teachers to get first dibs on open positions. The problem is that many of those teachers were laid off because, well, they suck. Not all of them, but some of them, mind you. So if a principal has an excellent candidate in mind, s/he can’t offer that job to said candidate until it’s offered and refused by a laid-off teacher. 16. Nothing to do with unions, but just busting a myth: CPS teachers are NOT un-firable! Even with tenure! Tenure means nothing. All it means is that tenured teachers 1) aren’t among the first teachers to get laid off due to budget cuts, and 2) if they are dismissed, they’re allowed some recourse, such as getting a reason as to their dismissal (and it’s almost always “Not a good fit”). My wife can count on two fingers the number of tenured coworkers who were unceremoniously let go suddenly in the middle of a school year. 17. Regarding support…I have personally witnessed these teachers getting OVERWHELMING support. I live by a CPS school, and I walked the dog near their picket line and just the massive support and well-wishing they got from passing cars, pedestrians, police officers, firefighters, etc., was unbelievable. My wife reported the same thing at her school. There’s a dive bar near where my wife and her coworkers were picketing today, and the owner there had it open early in the morning and let them use the bathroom and even offered them free water – and refused any money. There are businesses in the Loop offering discounts and freebies to striking teachers. (And as a freelance computer tech, I posted on Facebook, my web site, and Twitter that CPS teachers receive a 50% discount on any of my services during the strike.) We both went to the rally in the Loop on Monday and I personally witnessed nothing but well-wishing…from cops on foot, cops on horses, firefighter’s union sympathizers, even panhandlers on Wabash! People in office windows giving the thumbs-up. Among my wife, her coworkers, some teacher friends of mine and their coworkers, I heard one bad thing: someone driving past a few picketers at 125 S. Clark pulled over and yelled, “You people need to be shot!” Oh…and online comments…people sitting on their asses at home contributing all kinds of interesting, uhhh…“facts”…(apparently my wife is getting strike pay. Huh. That’s not what her union rep tells her!)…about stuff they know nothing about. But hey, you all can believe what your little minds want to believe. Believe what WBBM, WMAQ, WLS, and especially Robert Jordan at WGN want you to believe. Oh, and bt-dubs…interesting that when there were union problems with the NHL and NFL, the media didn’t pound down our throats how much the average player salary is. Nor did I see anybody preach about firing all of them and replacing them. Just sayin’. And if you think that teachers work only six (or even seven or eight) hours a day, then do you also believe that your garbage man only works once a week? ---
**Author:** ![ScatteredFrog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@ScatteredFrog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScatteredFrog)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/50 "2012-09-13T04:14:05Z")
and by “two fingers” i mean “two hands”…oops. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/51 "2012-09-13T15:52:37Z")
> [@Gundy](#): > > Are you serious? No, I don’t. I don’t at all. The idea is laughable. What I do doesn’t require a master’s degree. I don’t have to deal with 30 kids every day, or, god forbid, their parents. And I don’t have to bring my work home at all, mentally or emotionally. I recognize and respect the difficulty that is inherent in the job – especially those teaching for CPS, and especially those teaching in underserved areas. Education is not a place where we should cheap out; you shouldn’t have to take a vow of poverty to do meaningful work (I work for a nonprofit myself.) I feel the same way about cops. Assuming you are not pulling my leg…you would be the FIRST person I’ve ever seen answer that question to answer with a ‘no’. Even supposedly big time teacher ‘supporters’ laugh derisively when asked that question. I’ve met shift managers at fast food places that firmly believe they should make more than a teacher. I’ve heard 20-something tellers at banks with no college education complain that a 50 year old teacher makes ALMOST as much as they do and how that is not right. You are a rarity…assuming you are being truthful. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/52 "2012-09-13T16:10:36Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > Assuming you are not pulling my leg…you would be the FIRST person I’ve ever seen answer that question to answer with a ‘no’. Even supposedly big time teacher ‘supporters’ laugh derisively when asked that question. I’ve met shift managers at fast food places that firmly believe they should make more than a teacher. I’ve heard 20-something tellers at banks with no college education complain that a 50 year old teacher makes ALMOST as much as they do and how that is not right. > > You are a rarity…assuming you are being truthful. I remember 10 or 15 years ago when everyone agreed that teaching was an important, underappreciated profession and the biggest priority for getting and keeping good teachers was boosting their pay. Times change fast. ---
**Author:** ![Gundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Gundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gundy)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/53 "2012-09-13T16:49:01Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > Assuming you are not pulling my leg…you would be the FIRST person I’ve ever seen answer that question to answer with a ‘no’. Even supposedly big time teacher ‘supporters’ laugh derisively when asked that question. I’ve met shift managers at fast food places that firmly believe they should make more than a teacher. I’ve heard 20-something tellers at banks with no college education complain that a 50 year old teacher makes ALMOST as much as they do and how that is not right. > > You are a rarity…assuming you are being truthful. O…kay. It’s pretty obvious you don’t believe me, and I’m not sure what I’ve said to make you think that, but okay. I’m being perfectly honest: I’m a cog where I work, and I like it that way for now. I’m very competent, very good at my job, but it’s rarely stressful. Even when I worked for assholes it was way less stressful than I imagine teaching to be. Family, volunteer work, and hobbies keep me plenty busy. As my kids get older and I have more time, maybe I’ll pursue a more challenging career, maybe not, but until then, I’m pretty aware of my relative value in the job market, and no, I don’t think I should make more than teachers. My husband’s job, on the other hand, requires way more education than mine, a more rarefied set of skills, requires a lot more hours on the job, and has a lot more on the line should he screw up. I would argue that those factors make him more valuable in the job market than a teacher – primarily because there are relatively few people who can do what he does. The one thing I do envy teachers for: summers off. I would forfeit raises for…a long time to have summers off. ---
**Author:** ![ScatteredFrog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@ScatteredFrog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScatteredFrog)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/54 "2012-09-13T16:49:22Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > One of the sticking points seems to be over the authority of principals; the teachers don’t want them to have hiring and firing privileges. This seems odd to me. I’ve never had a job in which my\* immediate supervisor \*didn’t have that power. “Job Security” shouldn’t mean “I can never get fired.” As for the evaluation part of it, I admit I don’t know enough to form a valid opinion. That’s the problem: the immediate supervisors DO NOT make the decisions; the immediate supervisors are the department heads, at least in high schools. My wife’s first public school teaching job was in a different district, and it was the department head that interviewed her and offered her the job. Here it’s the principal. And there’s NOTHING that says teachers cannot get fired. Even tenured ones. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/55 "2012-09-13T19:31:51Z")
> [@ScatteredFrog](#): > > I’m not a teacher, but I’m married to an overpaid thug of a CPS teacher who drives a BMW and can take up to six months of vacation and works only six hours a day for nine months. Oh, wait…that’s right…if she were making as much as the media made it out, I wouldn’t have to work (well, in my case, scramble to find a job because I got laid off), we share an old Saturn, she spent at least half the summer at school for curriculum planning et al, and all last week she got to school at 7:15am and didn’t even leave there until 5:30pm. And we live in a modest apartment and don’t take exotic vacations, too. My bad. Everybody knows teachers make at least $180,000/year (OK, not really, but keep reading). Who told me this? The people who claim that “teachers have a 25% tax rate while Mitt Romney has a 14% one”, since that’s the only possible way a teacher would be paying 25% of his/her income in Federal income tax using a calculation method that sets Romney’s at 14%. > [@](#): > > However, both sides have agreed on a 3% raise for next year, followed by 2% each for the following three years. Reps from CPS claim that that’s somehow a total of 16% increase, but when I did the math (twice just to make sure), I came up with 9.304424; I’ll be happy to share the steps in how I calculated. Well, I get: Year 1: 1.03 Year 2: 1.03 x 1.02 Year 3: 1.03 x 1.02 x 1.02 Year 4: 1.03 x 1.02 x 1.02 x 1.02 = 1.09304424 To get 16%, you need a 3.78% increase per year for four years. > [@](#): > > 1. Standardized test scores – as someone who’s worked in test prep for ten years, I can tell you that standardized tests measure NOTHING but your family’s income level. So every multi-millionaire’s child gets at least a 2200 on the SAT? Actually, you do make a point, but I think there’s also a cause-and-effect relationship between the quality of teaching at a school and the general income range of the families that live in that area, especially as the rich areas will vote for higher property taxes for the schools in question. I also agree that test scores should have very little, if anything, to do with a teacher’s evaluation, if for no other reason than it seems to be too easy to “stick a troublemaker teacher with poor students.” > [@](#): > > WTF is up with all this testing, btw??? When I was in school (I’m 38), the only legally-required tests I had to take were US and Illinois constitution tests in both 8th grade and HS – and it was up to the teacher to decide how to format it. My best guess is, one too many instances of somebody receiving a HS diploma who couldn’t read it because he/she was never taught how to read. (There does not appear to be any way around this possibility that does not punish blind students as well.) When I was in HS in California in the late 1970s, the state had just started testing all HS students in reading, writing, and mathematics, but only to see if they could perform at some minimum level (I want to say fifth-grade level, but I am not sure). There’s a fine line between “What should a student know?” and “Teaching to the test”. Whenever I hear someone say, “School should be a place where you are taught how to learn things and apply critical thinking,” I think of the people who use “critical thinking” to defend statements like “Nobody has ever walked on the moon” and “The 9/11 attacks were staged by the USA government.” ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/56 "2012-09-13T22:16:00Z")
> [@Gundy](#): > > Just got this via a school group – this presents a much more detailed picture of the evaluation process. I’m seeing the CTU’s point on some of this…hm. Great post, **Gundy**. I will admit my bias – my wife’s a CPS teacher, and it’s been ugly for them since Rahm was elected (and even before, really). And the media seems awfully fixated on the money issue, which leads people who half pay attention to form oppinions like “Oh those poor teachers, no more cavier in the teacher’s lounge.” It’s way beyond the money when there are so many other issues at stake. Have you ever heard of a teacher who wanted to be a teacher for the pay? Chicago fire fighters are now working without a contract and the police will also be without one soon but these two departments cannot strike. Other departments are going to be facing issues as well. I have no cite, but it very much seems to me that the current mayor doesn’t really care too much for Chicago’s middle class, is only interested in making money for his people, doesn’t really care about the city, and won’t be around for another term. “policitcs as usual” right? Yuck. ---
**Author:** ![SanDiegoTim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@SanDiegoTim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanDiegoTim)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/57 "2012-09-14T15:10:39Z")
I don’t think the problem is what teachers get paid so much as it is they all get paid the same. The concept of tenure is absurd. It doesn’t exist anywhere in our economy (or in life for that matter)other than education and, to a limited extent, in government. Decertify the union, pay the good teachers more and fire the bad ones. ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/58 "2012-09-14T15:24:26Z")
My sense is that the is some sympathy here over pay but almost none for their stance of merit based pay. The longer it goes on, (imho) the less sympathy there will be for the teachers. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/59 "2012-09-14T15:28:27Z")
> [@SanDiegoTim](#): > > The concept of tenure is absurd. It doesn’t exist anywhere in our economy (or in life for that matter)other than education and, to a limited extent, in government. Just noting that teaching is education. Not that I necessarily think teachers should have tenure. > [@](#): > > Decertify the union, pay the good teachers more and fire the bad ones. If you decertify the union, the good teachers will get paid less and the bad ones will be fired (along with a few good ones). ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358/60 "2012-09-14T16:17:37Z")
Merit pay for teachers is a vengeful principal’s dream. If you want the public schools to run amok internally with favoritism, nepotism, and a whole lot of Erase To The Top, go ahead and install a system that rewards teachers for the students’ grades. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-strike/634358.md?page=4)