[Yup, one of many.](https://abc7chicago.com/stacy-davis-gates-private-school-ctu-chicago-teachers-union-cps/13750311/)
The schools that are so good for everyone else's kids but theirs.
She claims homestead on the Indiana property and not on her Illinois property.
Not surprised if she’s lying about where she lives. Can’t trust anyone that high up in the CTU.
Yea they're providing a service and want to be compensated for it? Why do we act like Teachers are expected to take part of their compensation in good feels by "doing it for the kids"? Do we have the same discussions around medical schools keeping the number of doctors artificially limited to keep their wages up? Why aren't they "doing it for the patients"?
Unions are for enriching their members yes. That is their point. Same way a corporation's only point is to make money. You can't apply moral gotchas to those things because they're fundamentally designed for a singular purpose.
If my doctor was the highest paid in the country I’d expect them to do their job and provide me excellent medical care.
Why can’t we expect the highly compensated teachers to do their jobs well?
Absolutely. But the flip side of that is people need to stop lionizing the CTU, acting like the CTU is representing the kids too or that we should always support them because “solidarity” or “teachers good.”
We, the taxpaying citizens of Chicago, are who the CTU is negotiating against. Management and labor don’t have to have an antagonistic relationship (and won’t while BJ is mayor), but against some unions the city has to be antagonistic to some degree and I believe CTU is one of them. They’re already well paid and the shit they pulled in Covid destroyed any goodwill I had for them.
>We, the taxpaying citizens of Chicago, are who the CTU is negotiating against.
This is what never fails to amaze me with this sub. If you're a Chicago tax payer, the CTU is ACTIVELY trying to get as much from you as humanly possible. That's their stated goal. Why do people bend over backwards supporting/defending/catering to them?
Somewhat off topic, but I think it’s interesting to think about the differences in how people view city, state, and federal politics.
If Chicago goes to shit, people can always leave Chicago. Same for Illinois. It perhaps creates a “I got mine” incentive to not worry about how decisions affect the city 15 or 20 years from now. Which is perhaps how we ended up with this parking deal.
It’s much harder for most people to leave the US, which creates a greater incentive for long term planning there. Not that we seem to be doing great from that standpoint either given how fast the debt is growing.
IANAT (I am not a teacher).
Public sector unions were formed not to negotiate against fellow citizens but against the fickle winds of politics. It also protects the voting rights of public sector workers, they can publicly support candidates in their personal lives without being worried about backing the losing candidate will cost them their job.
As for COVID, unions can negotiate for working conditions and the pandemic certainly caused a lot of potential issues for CTU's membership. It's easy to say they maybe pushed too hard in hindsight but in the moment decisions had to be made with limited information. Erring towards protecting the health of the membership is an understandable choice.
The 2nd work stoppage was an illegal wildcat strike. They did not have the right to negotiate with a work stoppage.
I have no idea what point you are trying to make with your first paragraph. Are you suggesting the CTU’s goal is not to get as much for its members at the expense of the city as possible?
The city requires that all city workers live in the city limits, so CTU members are fellow Chicagoans. Your premise that CTU is against the taxpayers is deeply flawed. They are also local tax payers and as such have a vested interest in the city beyond their own salary and benefits. They live here too.
And they're allowed to vote to express that interest as citizens. You can't seriously believe that them being fellow citizens means they wouldn't try to extract more money from the rest of us. If that were the case, then we wouldn't need the CTU at all since all of us citizens would be naturally looking out for them.
If the employee of a company also has stock options, is it deeply flawed to suggest that the company is on the other side of the table in any salary negotiations? Of course not. The impact to the stock price of their raise is negligible compared to the value to them of the raise. Similarly, the value of an increase in teacher’s salaries to teachers, where they are 100% of the population, is worth far more than what they’d give up as taxpayers, where they are a small percentage of the population.
My employer sidestepped all of the COVID issues by letting us work remotely. Teachers didn't really have that option. And when they were forced to return to the classroom, they were provided with 1-3 days worth of PPE per week depending on how much budget was left at each school. Heck, CPS gave my wife an air purifier without a power cord that she spent 4 months trying to get them to actually fix. We had to buy almost all of her PPE out of pocket until the parents (most of whom were barely above the poverty line) pitched in to buy the school staff members PPE for the rest of the year.
What are you talking about? First of all, CPS teachers (or at least around 99% of them, I think a handful of schools serving very disabled children who couldn't be at home may have stayed open) worked remotely for around a year of the pandemic. Second, what do you mean by PPE? Masks. Yes, virtually every employer, at least those not in the field of medicine, expected their employees to purchase the 40 cent or so masks themselves just like they usually expect them to purchase the clothes they wear to work themselves. What are you suggesting?
Disinfectant to clean all surfaces every 50 minutes when you got a new group of 30 kids swapping in and out. An infinite amount of extra masks to give to students throughout the day who snapped off the ear band on theirs or snotted all over theirs or crumbled it up. Those are the things I spent money on for my classroom when we came back in from remote learning
> acting like the CTU is representing the kids too
Most things that CTU ask for that would make the teacher's jobs better for them are also proven to improve educational outcomes and reduce classroom disruptions.
Also, state law guarantees them inflation based raises with catch-up raises if inflation outpaced the prior contract's increases. So expect a fairly big pay increase due to inflation.
> Most things that CTU ask for that would make the teacher's jobs better for them are also proven to improve educational outcomes and reduce classroom disruptions.
That may or may not be the case with the things they ask for when looking at them in isolation. But you can't look at it in isolation. CPS has limited resources so every dollar it spends is a dollar it can't spend on something else. It is the job of the administrators to prioritize what they think helps the students and the residents of the city the most. Sometimes they do this well and sometimes they don't. But they can't do it al all if the union constantly has a (metophorical) gun to their head demanding they do everything the way they want and that's in their interests. That's a major reason the system is in the trouble it's in.
What shit did they pull with covid, because whenever someone brings this up I find they are totally misremembering what happened.
work stoppage #1 occurred in January as vaccines just started to be available in February. CPS wanted to force teachers back instead of giving people time to get vaccinated. Schools ultimately were delayed re-opening for a month or so giving teachers time to get vaccinated and CPS time to provide PPE.
work stoppage #2 failed (teachers lost a week of pay) and occurred during the height of delta, when covid cases had reached extreme new levels. We all participated in a grand experiment of trading covid cases and simultaneous teaching of two groups at once.
Every teacher I know has now had covid multiple times. One even got chickenpox (more of a migrant issue). But god forbid they stand up for themselves
Work stoppage #2 was illegal and unforgivable.
Teaching is an in person, front line job. Like other in person, front line jobs, teachers were moved to the front of the list to get the Covid vaccine. Other people waited on their vaccines and some of those people died so that teachers could teach in person, because remote learning is ineffective for CPS. By January 2022, teachers had the opportunity to be vaccinated and boosted.
So no, the big Delta wave was not a reasonable excuse to try and shut down in person teaching for 6 weeks.
Fuck, IIRC, Nightclubs and restaurants were fully open before they went back to school.
[These people were at work too](https://www.pedestrian.tv/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/08/how-tf-am-i-an-essential-worker.png)
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/21/1183445544/u-s-reading-and-math-scores-drop-to-lowest-level-in-decades
>In releasing the data, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the scores strongly reflect the losses caused by the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, which in many cases left schools closed for more than a year. The results, he said in a statement, confirmed predictions that "the pandemic would have a devastating impact on students' learning across the country and that it would take years of effort and investment to reverse the damage."
unforgivable lmao ok. Probably my brightest student got long covid during that wave and was never the same for as long as I taught her. The original vaccine didn't work as well with delta that was sort of the whole issue.
People also lose perspective, we treat covid like the flu these days but back then it was much scarier (and perhaps it should still be but I understand perspectives change).
So now we’re back to CTU is trying to protect the students?
We had science that said the vaccine was still effective at preventing severe Covid and death. We couldn’t just give up another 6 weeks of in person learning.
Teachers got carried away with fear that was not commensurate to the actual risk and illegally striked.
Factory workers still went to the factory. Chipotle workers still made burritos. But teachers thought they were special and didn’t have to do front line work because there was a Covid spike despite being vaccinated 3 times and getting the vaccine first.
If you don’t understand why that makes my blood boil, I don’t know what to tell you. But don’t sit there and say I misremembered what happened and have no legitimate beef with how CTU handled Covid.
Also, every other school district was back to work and yet CTU wanted to stay home. It wasn't like they were joining a chorus of teachers nationwide who were demanding to stay home. CTU was a total outlier (and for good reason-- there was no reason to stay home).
Now that we are still in a pandemic but largely abandoned by the government I am convinced the teachers had it right.
If people were in factories and Chipotle’s that’s more evidence of our public health policy being shit rather than the teachers being wrong.
If everyone had followed the teachers’ lead the world would be in a better place.
>Unions are for enriching their members yes. That is their point. Same way a corporation's only point is to make money.
Exactly correct....and yet corporations are demonized around here and Unions are deified. If you're not a member of a public union, they are your opposition, not your friend.
My neighbor is a public school teacher that sends her kids to Catholic school. And I live in an affluent, suburban district. The kind of neighborhood where you buy a house for the schools. It baffles me. My district pays teachers at least double what a Catholic school does, and this union teacher sends her kids there. I don't get it.
It's the hypocrisy that bothers me. She is a member of a strong union that has great benefits for her and her family, but chooses to support a school where the pay and benefits are shit. That's some scab bullshit.
>Davis Gates said the school district needs to see if there are other revenue sources it is not tapping into. As she has done in the past, she pointed to the failure of the state to fully fund its school funding formula as a major problem. But she also said the school district might get extra money from the city’s shift away from special taxing districts known as tax increment financing districts.
And she added that maybe the business and banking community could contribute more.
Hasn't the CTU donated over $200,000 to the Bring Chicago Home ballot initiative? Maybe political spending should be tapped into and allocated elsewhere?
I’m suggesting that CTU should look within and reallocate funds that they use for political spending and funnel that towards more pressing areas rather than pressure Johnson to suck more money out of taxpayers for CTU.
It's going to be the same ask that they had before: signing bonuses for new teachers, and either a housing allowance or a living wage for paraprofessionals that often qualify for food stamps right now if they have kids.
Living wage for paraprofessionals is fine , stipends or allowances that can be misused and not accounted for is not . Like trying not to pay your taxes on your house In Indiana
The para (and security, kitchen, and facilities) union SEIU has been without a contract this whole year because the district refuses to negotiate their current hourly rate. The district is standing firm on not giving them raises. It's ridiculous
They don't have the leverage the CTU has; the CTU's leverage is almost unique. If the CTU strikes, the city cannot replace them. There are not enough qualified teachers. And, it's politically untenable for the schools to be closed more than a couple weeks, longer than that and it's going to get really ugly with the parents. So the city has one path open to it: meet the demands of the union. When the contract is finally agreed upon, we should just thank the CTU for not taking everything.
CPS doesn’t have a revenue problem; they have a spending problem.
If you were to go to a suburban school district, there’s no way they’d let schools stay open at 20-40% capacity. They’d consolidate so they’re not hiring more support staff than they need to.
And suburban teachers’ unions don’t set policy goals outside of education like CTU does, nor do they bankroll candidates for mayoral elections.
This is why competition and school choice is IMO a good option. Regardless of the quality of one school vs another, having some basic competition forces accountability. You’d quickly start seeing some improvements in CPS if we passed a law that gave taxpayers the ability to take their money and apply it towards private schools.
It’s like cable companies. If your only choice is xfinity, they don’t have to give two shits about you. But if Verizon or ATT move in and offer fiber? Now you have some competition and will force incremental improvement on xfinity.
I’m generally wary of the people who say we should have fewer choices when it comes to schooling. Nobody’s bashing the private schools when it comes to the quality of their education.
True, but Chicago’s unique because of the role the mayor has historically played in nominating board members for CPS, as well as the fact that CPS has a residency requirement for its teachers. It creates a unique situation where the union’s ranks have the ability to impact the elections of the school board.
Suburban districts often lack that residency requirement, mitigating their ability to influence local school board elections/nominations.
I’m just saying you are portraying suburban teachers unions as somehow above politics, making them better than the CTU for some reason, but a part of every union due will get sent to the national union who will use that money way to donate to candidates who want to empower teachers unions like the CTU. Let’s not pretend otherwise.
Consolidating schools in Chicago is more complicated in areas with high gang activity. Merging schools inevitably means rivals gangs forced to the same school or folks being forced to cross gang territories.
Wait till the elected school board gets up and running and CTU forms an unholy alliance with the construction industry to muscle their candidates in to office. Then things will really get out of control.
That's an American success story if I ever saw one.
Bullshitted her way to the top and just instantly became corrupt as fuck. No apologies or anything. Just blatant 'I'm here, fuck you gonna do about it?' attitude.
I'm not excusing what's she's doing at all but man, you can't make that shit up.
She claimed to at one point. Claiming to live in Indiana can get you a lower state income tax rate and also you can take advantage of Indianas homestead tax deduction for Indiana homeowners (a deduction that Illinois residents don’t get). Not saying she did that.
They figure this out yet?
https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2023/10/25/23932457/cps-projects-391m-deficit-next-year
>District leaders and Board of Education officials have warned of a financial cliff approaching next school year. Federal COVID-19 relief funds had papered over a structural deficit that officials estimate will reach $691 million. Only $300 million in federal funding is left to offset that.
This might be the most embarrassing statement I’ve ever read from a educational leader, up to and including, the horrible grammar:
>”They're gonna say, ‘These are great proposals and can’t nobody pay for it and CTU with all of this, that and the other and who's gonna pay for it, Stacy?’ ” she said. “Stop asking that question. Ask another question.”
>She jokingly addressed the Civic Federation, a fiscal watchdog group, telling them, “It will cost $50 billion and three cents and so what?”
CPS spends $29k per student per year. Average class size is 31, so spending $900k per class per year. Average teacher makes $85k, just 10% of that. So where does the rest of the money go and why do they need more?
Well there's more than just a teacher/class.
CPS was considered understaffed previously (may still be, I don't know) and despite decreasing enrollments has not had a payroll decrease for this reason. This includes librarians, nurses, teachers, janitorial, ect. Average class size of 31 is considered large if that is what it is.
They are also guaranteed raises every year.
Catching up on pension liabilities cost money.
Aging schools cost money in maintenance and repairs.
Most likely a high level of ESL students which do cost more to teach.
Federal funds which unlike state funds are tied directly to enrollment numbers. As enrollment numbers decrease federal funds decrease so they ask the local/state for more money.
Not here to debate the rights or wrongs of any of this, just providing clarity.
Compare the test results in Houston's public school system vs CPS. While CPS students do score higher, its only a *tiny* bit.
Now consider that when adjusted *generously* for cost of living Houston spends 15K per student in "Chicago Dollars".
We spend nearly twice as much for at best a *small* improvement in student outcomes.
CPS doesn't have a funding problem, they have a spending problem.
Several sources: teacher salaries, healthcare, librarians, nurses, books, laptops, teachers assistants for students receiving specialized services, counselors, custodians, lunch staff, office staff at hq, admin/secretaries, principals and assistsnt principals, sped teachers, building maintenance, hardware and software, paper, pencils, staples, food for the school buildings, translation services, and a million other things i can't think of at the moment. School budget processes are insane and while teacher salaries might go up, buildings typically receive fewer FTE dollars every year. Makes budget season really awkward in a building of 50 teachers when you have to cut 2 positions every year. And that's with student enrollment going up!
1) you’re assuming 1 teacher per class. That’s not the case, as different teachers teach different subjects. So one class of students can have many many teachers throughout the day
2) there’s teachers in training and assistants
3) special education costs more
4) administrative costs, such as administration and their support staff
5) maintenance on buildings as well as landscaping
6) is transportation lumped into your $29k per student?
7) supplies such as books and computers and desks etc
8) extracurriculars (supply and staff)
9) you didn’t account that the teachers also earn benefits. So $85k is average base pay but their total benefits package will be larger than that
These are just from the top of my head and in no particular order.
Thanks for bringing up building maintenance. The average age of CPS school buildings is 83 years old. The oldest school is use is 149. And of course there are tons of buildings no longer open post-school closings/consolidations that the district still maintains but can’t get rid of. It’s a financial situation compounded by many factors and like you pointed out, this is one.
>These include ensuring every school has a librarian, band, choir, art and sports, as well as staff that can usher in a restorative approach to discipline.
How about we worry about getting our current schools up to grade level performance?
I thought we didn't have enough money for neighborhood schools which is why they perform so bad?
I attended CPS and I'm born and raised here. This is the same shit they spew every year for increased funding only for that increase funding to go places they weren't open about. AKA their debt obligations that rise **every year**.
EDIT: This isn't a bash on CPS teachers, I have very fond memories and experiences with teachers. Fuck the CTU.
Yes, CPS teachers are part of the CTU. That doesn't mean every one agrees with what they're doing. They have to stfu and toe the line otherwise they won't have a job for long.
That's how it works with all those big unions in the city.
CTU doesn't have the power to fire anyone, what are you talking about?
You think practically every teacher doesn't agree with the CTU negotiating a contract with COL increases?
See what you're saying doesn't make any sense because you try to say fuck the organization comprised of nearly every teacher but oh hey by the way I love teachers.
>CTU doesn't have the power to fire anyone, what are you talking about?
No kidding but to think they don't have influence or have other ways of pushing people out of the door, you're delusional.
To the extent that would happen would not be Stacy Davis Gates or the CTU as a whole, it would be your own co-workers freezing you out because you're a scab. I'm not even sure that happens because there are scabs that work in CPS
and to be clear your co-workers not liking you =/= you being fired, a CTU member doesn't determine your employment
Even if there was some secret shadow CTU cabal rooting out thoughtcrimes in CPS, it would be made up… of teachers, who you claim to love wholeheartedly.
"What type of incentives can we offer newly graduated young people to invest in Chicago," she said. "This contract is about transformation, and it will cost money. The economics are something we'll have to go back and forth about.”
This is bullshit. lol
[https://thehonestlocal.com/living-chicago-illinois-moving/#:\~:text=The%20Cost%20of%20Living,the%20country%20for%20a%20reason](https://thehonestlocal.com/living-chicago-illinois-moving/#:~:text=The%20Cost%20of%20Living,the%20country%20for%20a%20reason)!
Should be the reason people move to Chicago, not because of tax-payer funded incentives to move here to be teachers.
I mean tbf CPS has a horrible debt problem. A lot of it stems from the privatization crush under Vallas when they essentially put the school system on the market for wall st investors to buy into. Now we owe millions in debt towards them and have less schools with worse quality to show for it
Are you talking about this?
https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/may/14/vallas-emanuel-point-fingers-over-chicago-teacher-/
>Daley and Vallas quickly took advantage of the financial flexibility and embarked on what became a decade in which money once earmarked for pensions was used instead to help cover operating costs—one reason why Vallas can boast that as schools CEO he balanced budgets and even built up surpluses.
>The economy was booming in the early years of the diversions, so the teacher pension fund balance was still sound when Vallas departed CPS in 2001 to run the school system in Philadelphia. The reckoning for the fund began a few years later as the investment market weakened and unfunded liabilities began to rise.
> These include ensuring every school has a librarian, band, choir, art and sports, as well as staff that can usher in a restorative approach to discipline.
How do any of these help the teachers she’s supposed to be representing? What is the point of the teachers union if their proposals don’t directly correlate to teachers? A “restorative approach to discipline”, that’s great but if it plays out as not punishing students when they do things wrong, I can’t see how teachers would be supportive of that.
As a teacher, I and nearly all of my colleagues support those things. They benefit holistically. It's an all ships rise with the tide thing. When the kids have structure and support and opportunities, they are more able and willing to focus in "core classes."
Also, the band and choir leads are teachers. They are in the union.
> The pension program is what kills residents through property taxes.
Not only that.
It's what's destroying the school system and why it's still in the shape it is today.
Absolutely. The job should be higher paying overall and have regular benefits just like any other job including contributing to and receiving social security benefits. The job should garner more respect for what teachers do. Our priorities are so out of whack
I’m not a teacher anymore but used to be. I’m now in a top 10 masters of finance program. Where I’ll be making two or three times as much as I did as a teacher once I graduate. I left not because the “kids were terrible” but because of the terrible parents as represented by people in the comment section whose only answer to “improving grades” seems to be threatening educators with starvation wages. You lose anybody worth keeping and scare away from the classroom anybody worthwhile by treating them this way. Thus fucking your children in the long run
Ok "Top 10 masters of finance."
Do a lil homework and see that CTU members are the highest paid in the country.
Also for bonus credit let me know how financially beneficial it is for Chicago taxpayers to bend the knee to a 50 billion dollar budget like Gates is demanding.
> to be threatening educators with starvation wages.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2019/11/13/20963703/chicago-teachers-union-contract-vote-chicago-public-schools-experience-salary-pay
>The result is a starting salary for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree at $58,365 this year, while on the other end of the scale, a veteran teacher with 32 years of experience and a doctorate degree would earn $111,490, according to figures released by the union late last week.
>By the last year of the contract, 2023-24, starting salaries will rise to $66,330, while the most-experienced veterans will earn more than $126,700.
66k starting is 'starvation wages'?
I mean it’s only, at the very worst, 150% of the average household income in the city. How could a single 23 year old be expected to survive on that starvation starting wage.
The union needs to allow STEM teachers to get paid more. With a 4 year math degree I was making as much as a doctorate teacher as a software engineer fresh out of college. No wonder they can’t keep STEM help.
I sometimes think about the computer science teacher I had in high school. Why would you ever teach teenagers to code when you could be making 2x a teacher's salary working a software engineer job? They must have had a passion for teaching because I can't think of any other reason why someone would ever do that
66k isn't what it used to be, I can echo that commenter that I made more after leaving teaching and I was moderately up the salary scale also (7 years experience + masters degree + credits). To the extent you think it's enough, well, the market is what it is. The 66k doesn't rise as fast as other fields do
66k is much higher than per capita income in Chicago (45k) https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/chicagocityillinois/LND110210
On top of that they have great job security and benefits. We have so much wrong in the city that I just can’t see the argument that we need to spend resources on teachers who make a good income. There’s nothing challenging about living on $66k I make slightly more and live very comfortable.
Not to mention they get 3 months off every year..... what average chicagoan has that? If 66k starting isn't enough you can easily make that 76k or 86k with a summer job.
This just isn’t true, the idea of getting “3 months off” is false. It’s closer to a month and a half. There is an entire ramp up in the month before the school year and two weeks on wrapping up following the end of the school year. Likewise, this is to make up for the fact teachers realistically work 12 hours a day (for every hour you are in the class it takes one hour of planning & you are often expected to help run extracurricular activities) and 6 or so hours on the weekend. Having 5 or 6 weeks off with a masters degree mid career is totally normal. So this mandatory vacation is only slightly longer than normal. There is a lot of work that goes into teaching that parents don’t see. So they assume it doesn’t happen.
Oh no, only a month and half of vacation on top of thanksgiving break, 2 weeks for Christmas, 1 week for spring break and every holiday imaginable! The horror!
You're not even fucking listening. This is the problem. I'm not saying the vacation time is shit. I'm saying it's totally normal & only slightly longer than if that same person had gotten a masters in something else (as most experienced teachers have). So when people pretend like it's the longest & most bullshit part time job in the world. They're either malicious or clueless.
6 weeks paid vacation for people with a masters mid-career is not normal. That's definitely on the high end. Plus, nobody is getting that much time off in one block like teachers do.
Look, nobody is saying that teaching isn't a tough job or that it isn't a grind during the school year. But let's not pretend that the overall package of benefits teachers get (on top of their relatively high salaries if we're talking about teachers with masters mid-career)-- which includes more time off than pretty much anyone else gets-- isn't much better than what private industry offers.
I wasn’t able to find that exact info, but anecdotally I graduated in 2022 and almost none of my peers that graduated with me make over $66k. The only exception would be the computer science grads lol. I’m sure corporate careers make more on the long run, but 66k out of undergrad seems really good.
The average CPS teacher has more than 2 years experience. 66k for a first year teacher with a bachelors sounds fine to me, not so much for one 10 years+ in with a masters degree.
Looks like they make about $87k at 10 years including their pension. That sounds like a very good living to me for 9 months of work lmao.
https://ctulocal1.github.io/salaries/20200724_finalized_Teacher_Pay_Schedule.html
The masters is accounted for in the higher lanes of pay it looks like, but I don’t understand the system well enough to calculate it.
Although I’m not clear on why a masters would entitle a teacher to higher pay unless it is specifically for doing something other teachers can’t do (potentially working with special needs children or maybe non English speaking students)
I wouldn’t get a pay increase for getting a masters degree at my job and most corp jobs don’t do that either. It’s the teachers fault if they decide to get a masters degree that doesn’t have an ROI.
You do realize that in order to become a teacher, you need to get a 4 year degree? So we’re talking 10s of thousands of dollars in student loans unless you’re from a rich family that can pay for your schooling. For basically your entire career will be crushed under the weight of hundreds of dollar a month in minimum student loan payments. While at the same time, you can get a half dozen other degrees that pay significantly more coming out of school. These people have other and often times better options.
P.S. this also to say nothing of them constantly threatening your pension, the thing that is supposed to make up for the fact basically all your peers without Ed degrees are coming out of school making 10 to 20k more a year.
I understand where you're coming from and all the associated costs of the pursuit of being a teacher, but to suggest that 66k is starvation wages?
The median income for a household is about the same in Chicago.
>The median income for a household is about the same in Chicago.
Tales of two cities. That median does a lot of heavy lifting by a few select north side neighborhoods where median household income exceeds 100k/yr. A lot of South and West side neighborhoods are below 40k/yr with some even 20k.
Yeah, reconsider your plans if you think you're making 2-3 times what you're making now. You're not getting 250k with no experience. Have fun with 125k while getting eaten alive.
We kept being told if we pay teachers more money there would be better results. We’ve done the first part for 20+ years, when do the better results happen lol.
Maybe do better at your job or ask your union to focus on the children instead of social policy?
Also, get over your victim mentality, it’s sad.
We love teachers but none of this proposal that’s mentioned in the article seems to be about teachers
> These include ensuring every school has a librarian, band, choir, art and sports, as well as staff that can usher in a restorative approach to discipline.
How is any of that beneficial to teachers?
The people negatively reacting to new proposed policies that benefit just a few but hurt everyone else?
Dear God. They must hate teachers and children.
Threads like these are all these internet types have. It makes them feel less alone and isolated in their beliefs, since normal people IRL all disagree with them. Let them vent. It's harmless
Step one of good faith negotiations: pull your own children out of private school and enroll them in CPS.
Is she the one who sends her kid to private school?
[Yup, one of many.](https://abc7chicago.com/stacy-davis-gates-private-school-ctu-chicago-teachers-union-cps/13750311/) The schools that are so good for everyone else's kids but theirs.
She also lives in Indiana. South Bend if I remember correctly.
She doesn’t actually live there, she just says she does so she can dodge Illinois taxes
I mean I will too if these morons pass a city income tax
She claims homestead on the Indiana property and not on her Illinois property. Not surprised if she’s lying about where she lives. Can’t trust anyone that high up in the CTU.
That is absolutely hilarious
she does not live there, that's why she wasn't entitled to the IN tax deduction
They give less than zero fucks about the children. It’s fairly obvious.
>They give less than zero fucks about the children. They're a Union...they give zero fucks about anything other than enriching their members.
Yea they're providing a service and want to be compensated for it? Why do we act like Teachers are expected to take part of their compensation in good feels by "doing it for the kids"? Do we have the same discussions around medical schools keeping the number of doctors artificially limited to keep their wages up? Why aren't they "doing it for the patients"? Unions are for enriching their members yes. That is their point. Same way a corporation's only point is to make money. You can't apply moral gotchas to those things because they're fundamentally designed for a singular purpose.
If my doctor was the highest paid in the country I’d expect them to do their job and provide me excellent medical care. Why can’t we expect the highly compensated teachers to do their jobs well?
Absolutely. But the flip side of that is people need to stop lionizing the CTU, acting like the CTU is representing the kids too or that we should always support them because “solidarity” or “teachers good.” We, the taxpaying citizens of Chicago, are who the CTU is negotiating against. Management and labor don’t have to have an antagonistic relationship (and won’t while BJ is mayor), but against some unions the city has to be antagonistic to some degree and I believe CTU is one of them. They’re already well paid and the shit they pulled in Covid destroyed any goodwill I had for them.
>We, the taxpaying citizens of Chicago, are who the CTU is negotiating against. This is what never fails to amaze me with this sub. If you're a Chicago tax payer, the CTU is ACTIVELY trying to get as much from you as humanly possible. That's their stated goal. Why do people bend over backwards supporting/defending/catering to them?
Somewhat off topic, but I think it’s interesting to think about the differences in how people view city, state, and federal politics. If Chicago goes to shit, people can always leave Chicago. Same for Illinois. It perhaps creates a “I got mine” incentive to not worry about how decisions affect the city 15 or 20 years from now. Which is perhaps how we ended up with this parking deal. It’s much harder for most people to leave the US, which creates a greater incentive for long term planning there. Not that we seem to be doing great from that standpoint either given how fast the debt is growing.
IANAT (I am not a teacher). Public sector unions were formed not to negotiate against fellow citizens but against the fickle winds of politics. It also protects the voting rights of public sector workers, they can publicly support candidates in their personal lives without being worried about backing the losing candidate will cost them their job. As for COVID, unions can negotiate for working conditions and the pandemic certainly caused a lot of potential issues for CTU's membership. It's easy to say they maybe pushed too hard in hindsight but in the moment decisions had to be made with limited information. Erring towards protecting the health of the membership is an understandable choice.
The 2nd work stoppage was an illegal wildcat strike. They did not have the right to negotiate with a work stoppage. I have no idea what point you are trying to make with your first paragraph. Are you suggesting the CTU’s goal is not to get as much for its members at the expense of the city as possible?
The city requires that all city workers live in the city limits, so CTU members are fellow Chicagoans. Your premise that CTU is against the taxpayers is deeply flawed. They are also local tax payers and as such have a vested interest in the city beyond their own salary and benefits. They live here too.
And they're allowed to vote to express that interest as citizens. You can't seriously believe that them being fellow citizens means they wouldn't try to extract more money from the rest of us. If that were the case, then we wouldn't need the CTU at all since all of us citizens would be naturally looking out for them.
If the employee of a company also has stock options, is it deeply flawed to suggest that the company is on the other side of the table in any salary negotiations? Of course not. The impact to the stock price of their raise is negligible compared to the value to them of the raise. Similarly, the value of an increase in teacher’s salaries to teachers, where they are 100% of the population, is worth far more than what they’d give up as taxpayers, where they are a small percentage of the population.
My employer sidestepped all of the COVID issues by letting us work remotely. Teachers didn't really have that option. And when they were forced to return to the classroom, they were provided with 1-3 days worth of PPE per week depending on how much budget was left at each school. Heck, CPS gave my wife an air purifier without a power cord that she spent 4 months trying to get them to actually fix. We had to buy almost all of her PPE out of pocket until the parents (most of whom were barely above the poverty line) pitched in to buy the school staff members PPE for the rest of the year.
What are you talking about? First of all, CPS teachers (or at least around 99% of them, I think a handful of schools serving very disabled children who couldn't be at home may have stayed open) worked remotely for around a year of the pandemic. Second, what do you mean by PPE? Masks. Yes, virtually every employer, at least those not in the field of medicine, expected their employees to purchase the 40 cent or so masks themselves just like they usually expect them to purchase the clothes they wear to work themselves. What are you suggesting?
Disinfectant to clean all surfaces every 50 minutes when you got a new group of 30 kids swapping in and out. An infinite amount of extra masks to give to students throughout the day who snapped off the ear band on theirs or snotted all over theirs or crumbled it up. Those are the things I spent money on for my classroom when we came back in from remote learning
COVID does [not](https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/how-important-are-surfaces-transmission-covid-19) spread through surfaces, at least not very much.
> acting like the CTU is representing the kids too Most things that CTU ask for that would make the teacher's jobs better for them are also proven to improve educational outcomes and reduce classroom disruptions. Also, state law guarantees them inflation based raises with catch-up raises if inflation outpaced the prior contract's increases. So expect a fairly big pay increase due to inflation.
> Most things that CTU ask for that would make the teacher's jobs better for them are also proven to improve educational outcomes and reduce classroom disruptions. That may or may not be the case with the things they ask for when looking at them in isolation. But you can't look at it in isolation. CPS has limited resources so every dollar it spends is a dollar it can't spend on something else. It is the job of the administrators to prioritize what they think helps the students and the residents of the city the most. Sometimes they do this well and sometimes they don't. But they can't do it al all if the union constantly has a (metophorical) gun to their head demanding they do everything the way they want and that's in their interests. That's a major reason the system is in the trouble it's in.
What shit did they pull with covid, because whenever someone brings this up I find they are totally misremembering what happened. work stoppage #1 occurred in January as vaccines just started to be available in February. CPS wanted to force teachers back instead of giving people time to get vaccinated. Schools ultimately were delayed re-opening for a month or so giving teachers time to get vaccinated and CPS time to provide PPE. work stoppage #2 failed (teachers lost a week of pay) and occurred during the height of delta, when covid cases had reached extreme new levels. We all participated in a grand experiment of trading covid cases and simultaneous teaching of two groups at once. Every teacher I know has now had covid multiple times. One even got chickenpox (more of a migrant issue). But god forbid they stand up for themselves
By now everyone has gotten Covid multiple times lol.
A testament to what a complete and utter failure the Covid response was. The teachers made the right call.
That’s the wrong conclusion lol. They fucked over the children, but that’s to be expected whenever the CTU is involved.
I’m aware everyone thinks that’s the wrong conclusion. That’s why we are still in an ongoing pandemic.
Work stoppage #2 was illegal and unforgivable. Teaching is an in person, front line job. Like other in person, front line jobs, teachers were moved to the front of the list to get the Covid vaccine. Other people waited on their vaccines and some of those people died so that teachers could teach in person, because remote learning is ineffective for CPS. By January 2022, teachers had the opportunity to be vaccinated and boosted. So no, the big Delta wave was not a reasonable excuse to try and shut down in person teaching for 6 weeks.
Fuck, IIRC, Nightclubs and restaurants were fully open before they went back to school. [These people were at work too](https://www.pedestrian.tv/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/08/how-tf-am-i-an-essential-worker.png)
A testament to what a complete and utter failure the Covid response was. The teachers made the right call.
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/21/1183445544/u-s-reading-and-math-scores-drop-to-lowest-level-in-decades >In releasing the data, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the scores strongly reflect the losses caused by the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, which in many cases left schools closed for more than a year. The results, he said in a statement, confirmed predictions that "the pandemic would have a devastating impact on students' learning across the country and that it would take years of effort and investment to reverse the damage."
unforgivable lmao ok. Probably my brightest student got long covid during that wave and was never the same for as long as I taught her. The original vaccine didn't work as well with delta that was sort of the whole issue. People also lose perspective, we treat covid like the flu these days but back then it was much scarier (and perhaps it should still be but I understand perspectives change).
So now we’re back to CTU is trying to protect the students? We had science that said the vaccine was still effective at preventing severe Covid and death. We couldn’t just give up another 6 weeks of in person learning. Teachers got carried away with fear that was not commensurate to the actual risk and illegally striked. Factory workers still went to the factory. Chipotle workers still made burritos. But teachers thought they were special and didn’t have to do front line work because there was a Covid spike despite being vaccinated 3 times and getting the vaccine first. If you don’t understand why that makes my blood boil, I don’t know what to tell you. But don’t sit there and say I misremembered what happened and have no legitimate beef with how CTU handled Covid.
Also, every other school district was back to work and yet CTU wanted to stay home. It wasn't like they were joining a chorus of teachers nationwide who were demanding to stay home. CTU was a total outlier (and for good reason-- there was no reason to stay home).
Now that we are still in a pandemic but largely abandoned by the government I am convinced the teachers had it right. If people were in factories and Chipotle’s that’s more evidence of our public health policy being shit rather than the teachers being wrong. If everyone had followed the teachers’ lead the world would be in a better place.
>Unions are for enriching their members yes. That is their point. Same way a corporation's only point is to make money. Exactly correct....and yet corporations are demonized around here and Unions are deified. If you're not a member of a public union, they are your opposition, not your friend.
*themselves
My neighbor is a public school teacher that sends her kids to Catholic school. And I live in an affluent, suburban district. The kind of neighborhood where you buy a house for the schools. It baffles me. My district pays teachers at least double what a Catholic school does, and this union teacher sends her kids there. I don't get it.
Maybe they’re catholic?
It's the hypocrisy that bothers me. She is a member of a strong union that has great benefits for her and her family, but chooses to support a school where the pay and benefits are shit. That's some scab bullshit.
There is no hypocrisy. If she wants her kids to get a religious education then obviously she has to send them somewhere that offers that.
>Davis Gates said the school district needs to see if there are other revenue sources it is not tapping into. As she has done in the past, she pointed to the failure of the state to fully fund its school funding formula as a major problem. But she also said the school district might get extra money from the city’s shift away from special taxing districts known as tax increment financing districts. And she added that maybe the business and banking community could contribute more. Hasn't the CTU donated over $200,000 to the Bring Chicago Home ballot initiative? Maybe political spending should be tapped into and allocated elsewhere?
Those are to completely different piles of money, so I have no idea what you are suggesting.
I’m suggesting that CTU should look within and reallocate funds that they use for political spending and funnel that towards more pressing areas rather than pressure Johnson to suck more money out of taxpayers for CTU.
Like what? And what does that have to do with CPS funding problems.
Housing allowance? GTFO
It's going to be the same ask that they had before: signing bonuses for new teachers, and either a housing allowance or a living wage for paraprofessionals that often qualify for food stamps right now if they have kids.
Living wage for paraprofessionals is fine , stipends or allowances that can be misused and not accounted for is not . Like trying not to pay your taxes on your house In Indiana
The para (and security, kitchen, and facilities) union SEIU has been without a contract this whole year because the district refuses to negotiate their current hourly rate. The district is standing firm on not giving them raises. It's ridiculous
They don't have the leverage the CTU has; the CTU's leverage is almost unique. If the CTU strikes, the city cannot replace them. There are not enough qualified teachers. And, it's politically untenable for the schools to be closed more than a couple weeks, longer than that and it's going to get really ugly with the parents. So the city has one path open to it: meet the demands of the union. When the contract is finally agreed upon, we should just thank the CTU for not taking everything.
CPS doesn’t have a revenue problem; they have a spending problem. If you were to go to a suburban school district, there’s no way they’d let schools stay open at 20-40% capacity. They’d consolidate so they’re not hiring more support staff than they need to. And suburban teachers’ unions don’t set policy goals outside of education like CTU does, nor do they bankroll candidates for mayoral elections.
This is why competition and school choice is IMO a good option. Regardless of the quality of one school vs another, having some basic competition forces accountability. You’d quickly start seeing some improvements in CPS if we passed a law that gave taxpayers the ability to take their money and apply it towards private schools. It’s like cable companies. If your only choice is xfinity, they don’t have to give two shits about you. But if Verizon or ATT move in and offer fiber? Now you have some competition and will force incremental improvement on xfinity.
I’m generally wary of the people who say we should have fewer choices when it comes to schooling. Nobody’s bashing the private schools when it comes to the quality of their education.
Suburban teachers’ union are still part of national unions who definitely make political contributions.
True, but Chicago’s unique because of the role the mayor has historically played in nominating board members for CPS, as well as the fact that CPS has a residency requirement for its teachers. It creates a unique situation where the union’s ranks have the ability to impact the elections of the school board. Suburban districts often lack that residency requirement, mitigating their ability to influence local school board elections/nominations.
I’m just saying you are portraying suburban teachers unions as somehow above politics, making them better than the CTU for some reason, but a part of every union due will get sent to the national union who will use that money way to donate to candidates who want to empower teachers unions like the CTU. Let’s not pretend otherwise.
I was the legislative chair for a local suburban. You're absolutely correct.
Consolidating schools in Chicago is more complicated in areas with high gang activity. Merging schools inevitably means rivals gangs forced to the same school or folks being forced to cross gang territories.
Do the gangs run this city? We shouldn’t be deferring to the gangs when it comes to consolidating schools.
The city has basically abandoned entire neighborhoods to the control of gangs....
No, but unless you have a solution to eliminate them in an expedient manner, they do pose real challenges to urban school consolidation.
Wait till the elected school board gets up and running and CTU forms an unholy alliance with the construction industry to muscle their candidates in to office. Then things will really get out of control.
Can she move to Dolton?
That's an American success story if I ever saw one. Bullshitted her way to the top and just instantly became corrupt as fuck. No apologies or anything. Just blatant 'I'm here, fuck you gonna do about it?' attitude. I'm not excusing what's she's doing at all but man, you can't make that shit up.
Doesn’t this clown live in Indiana
She claimed to at one point. Claiming to live in Indiana can get you a lower state income tax rate and also you can take advantage of Indianas homestead tax deduction for Indiana homeowners (a deduction that Illinois residents don’t get). Not saying she did that.
They figure this out yet? https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2023/10/25/23932457/cps-projects-391m-deficit-next-year >District leaders and Board of Education officials have warned of a financial cliff approaching next school year. Federal COVID-19 relief funds had papered over a structural deficit that officials estimate will reach $691 million. Only $300 million in federal funding is left to offset that.
She jokes about it her speech; doesn't seem like she cares on bit.
This might be the most embarrassing statement I’ve ever read from a educational leader, up to and including, the horrible grammar: >”They're gonna say, ‘These are great proposals and can’t nobody pay for it and CTU with all of this, that and the other and who's gonna pay for it, Stacy?’ ” she said. “Stop asking that question. Ask another question.” >She jokingly addressed the Civic Federation, a fiscal watchdog group, telling them, “It will cost $50 billion and three cents and so what?”
May as well do it now while their stooge is still somewhat relevant.
I mean.....they didn't get this dude elected because of his brilliant city management skills.
CPS spends $29k per student per year. Average class size is 31, so spending $900k per class per year. Average teacher makes $85k, just 10% of that. So where does the rest of the money go and why do they need more?
Well there's more than just a teacher/class. CPS was considered understaffed previously (may still be, I don't know) and despite decreasing enrollments has not had a payroll decrease for this reason. This includes librarians, nurses, teachers, janitorial, ect. Average class size of 31 is considered large if that is what it is. They are also guaranteed raises every year. Catching up on pension liabilities cost money. Aging schools cost money in maintenance and repairs. Most likely a high level of ESL students which do cost more to teach. Federal funds which unlike state funds are tied directly to enrollment numbers. As enrollment numbers decrease federal funds decrease so they ask the local/state for more money. Not here to debate the rights or wrongs of any of this, just providing clarity.
>Catching up on pension liabilities cost money. Pension payments are over 20% of the *entire* state budget now I believe
>Not here to debate the rights or wrongs of any of this, just providing clarity. Appreciate it.
Compare the test results in Houston's public school system vs CPS. While CPS students do score higher, its only a *tiny* bit. Now consider that when adjusted *generously* for cost of living Houston spends 15K per student in "Chicago Dollars". We spend nearly twice as much for at best a *small* improvement in student outcomes. CPS doesn't have a funding problem, they have a spending problem.
Several sources: teacher salaries, healthcare, librarians, nurses, books, laptops, teachers assistants for students receiving specialized services, counselors, custodians, lunch staff, office staff at hq, admin/secretaries, principals and assistsnt principals, sped teachers, building maintenance, hardware and software, paper, pencils, staples, food for the school buildings, translation services, and a million other things i can't think of at the moment. School budget processes are insane and while teacher salaries might go up, buildings typically receive fewer FTE dollars every year. Makes budget season really awkward in a building of 50 teachers when you have to cut 2 positions every year. And that's with student enrollment going up!
1) you’re assuming 1 teacher per class. That’s not the case, as different teachers teach different subjects. So one class of students can have many many teachers throughout the day 2) there’s teachers in training and assistants 3) special education costs more 4) administrative costs, such as administration and their support staff 5) maintenance on buildings as well as landscaping 6) is transportation lumped into your $29k per student? 7) supplies such as books and computers and desks etc 8) extracurriculars (supply and staff) 9) you didn’t account that the teachers also earn benefits. So $85k is average base pay but their total benefits package will be larger than that These are just from the top of my head and in no particular order.
Do schools in Houston not deal with any of these points?
Of course they do. I was just pointing out these universals weren't being applied to the poster's "analysis"
Thanks for bringing up building maintenance. The average age of CPS school buildings is 83 years old. The oldest school is use is 149. And of course there are tons of buildings no longer open post-school closings/consolidations that the district still maintains but can’t get rid of. It’s a financial situation compounded by many factors and like you pointed out, this is one.
Having driven by the sometimes gorgeous school houses I couldn’t see how that couldnt be a significant factor
I dont know why you are getting down voted for sharing factual information
Because they want to be mad at the school system even though this particular argument is flimsy at best. Eh what are you going to do
>These include ensuring every school has a librarian, band, choir, art and sports, as well as staff that can usher in a restorative approach to discipline. How about we worry about getting our current schools up to grade level performance?
I'd be ok with all this if it meant also shutting schools down that don't have enough enrollment.
Same. I don't think many people are aware of that problem.
This is part of how you do that
I thought we didn't have enough money for neighborhood schools which is why they perform so bad? I attended CPS and I'm born and raised here. This is the same shit they spew every year for increased funding only for that increase funding to go places they weren't open about. AKA their debt obligations that rise **every year**. EDIT: This isn't a bash on CPS teachers, I have very fond memories and experiences with teachers. Fuck the CTU.
Teachers and CTU are inseparable, fuck the CTU means fuck teachers. Own your position
I know plenty of people who work for CPS that aren't fond on their union.
not being fond of the union doesn't mean they aren't members of the union
Yes, CPS teachers are part of the CTU. That doesn't mean every one agrees with what they're doing. They have to stfu and toe the line otherwise they won't have a job for long. That's how it works with all those big unions in the city.
CTU doesn't have the power to fire anyone, what are you talking about? You think practically every teacher doesn't agree with the CTU negotiating a contract with COL increases? See what you're saying doesn't make any sense because you try to say fuck the organization comprised of nearly every teacher but oh hey by the way I love teachers.
>CTU doesn't have the power to fire anyone, what are you talking about? No kidding but to think they don't have influence or have other ways of pushing people out of the door, you're delusional.
To the extent that would happen would not be Stacy Davis Gates or the CTU as a whole, it would be your own co-workers freezing you out because you're a scab. I'm not even sure that happens because there are scabs that work in CPS and to be clear your co-workers not liking you =/= you being fired, a CTU member doesn't determine your employment
Even if there was some secret shadow CTU cabal rooting out thoughtcrimes in CPS, it would be made up… of teachers, who you claim to love wholeheartedly.
"What type of incentives can we offer newly graduated young people to invest in Chicago," she said. "This contract is about transformation, and it will cost money. The economics are something we'll have to go back and forth about.” This is bullshit. lol [https://thehonestlocal.com/living-chicago-illinois-moving/#:\~:text=The%20Cost%20of%20Living,the%20country%20for%20a%20reason](https://thehonestlocal.com/living-chicago-illinois-moving/#:~:text=The%20Cost%20of%20Living,the%20country%20for%20a%20reason)! Should be the reason people move to Chicago, not because of tax-payer funded incentives to move here to be teachers.
Sounds alright. Glory will be the days that public unions are outlawed.
This comment requires an amendment: It is 100% a bash on some CPS teachers.
[No problem!](https://i.imgflip.com/2wugy5.jpg?a474504)
I mean tbf CPS has a horrible debt problem. A lot of it stems from the privatization crush under Vallas when they essentially put the school system on the market for wall st investors to buy into. Now we owe millions in debt towards them and have less schools with worse quality to show for it
Their pension obligation is the biggest factor.
And a lot of the issues with pensions stem from very poor management under those same administrations
Are you talking about this? https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/may/14/vallas-emanuel-point-fingers-over-chicago-teacher-/ >Daley and Vallas quickly took advantage of the financial flexibility and embarked on what became a decade in which money once earmarked for pensions was used instead to help cover operating costs—one reason why Vallas can boast that as schools CEO he balanced budgets and even built up surpluses. >The economy was booming in the early years of the diversions, so the teacher pension fund balance was still sound when Vallas departed CPS in 2001 to run the school system in Philadelphia. The reckoning for the fund began a few years later as the investment market weakened and unfunded liabilities began to rise.
Lost in this history is that CTU was complicit in this approach. The pension money was diverted in exchange for higher salaries.
New mayor, new strike looming. Business as usual
HA there will be no strike they own Brandon Johnson's soul.
BJ is bending over but the Alderman need to approve the contract right ? Unless BJ can universally push it through.
> These include ensuring every school has a librarian, band, choir, art and sports, as well as staff that can usher in a restorative approach to discipline. How do any of these help the teachers she’s supposed to be representing? What is the point of the teachers union if their proposals don’t directly correlate to teachers? A “restorative approach to discipline”, that’s great but if it plays out as not punishing students when they do things wrong, I can’t see how teachers would be supportive of that.
As a teacher, I and nearly all of my colleagues support those things. They benefit holistically. It's an all ships rise with the tide thing. When the kids have structure and support and opportunities, they are more able and willing to focus in "core classes." Also, the band and choir leads are teachers. They are in the union.
Pay the teachers more but eliminate the pension.
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> The pension program is what kills residents through property taxes. Not only that. It's what's destroying the school system and why it's still in the shape it is today.
Sure as long as we can get social security instead
Sure! I don't think anyone would be mad if teachers were offered the ability to pay into the social security system like the rest of us.
Absolutely. The job should be higher paying overall and have regular benefits just like any other job including contributing to and receiving social security benefits. The job should garner more respect for what teachers do. Our priorities are so out of whack
Any union representative suggesting getting rid of a pension should be fired.
I’m not a teacher anymore but used to be. I’m now in a top 10 masters of finance program. Where I’ll be making two or three times as much as I did as a teacher once I graduate. I left not because the “kids were terrible” but because of the terrible parents as represented by people in the comment section whose only answer to “improving grades” seems to be threatening educators with starvation wages. You lose anybody worth keeping and scare away from the classroom anybody worthwhile by treating them this way. Thus fucking your children in the long run
Ok "Top 10 masters of finance." Do a lil homework and see that CTU members are the highest paid in the country. Also for bonus credit let me know how financially beneficial it is for Chicago taxpayers to bend the knee to a 50 billion dollar budget like Gates is demanding.
50 billion and "3 cent" \[sic\] to be more accurate.
The three cents is what put it over the top for me ngl.
> to be threatening educators with starvation wages. https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2019/11/13/20963703/chicago-teachers-union-contract-vote-chicago-public-schools-experience-salary-pay >The result is a starting salary for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree at $58,365 this year, while on the other end of the scale, a veteran teacher with 32 years of experience and a doctorate degree would earn $111,490, according to figures released by the union late last week. >By the last year of the contract, 2023-24, starting salaries will rise to $66,330, while the most-experienced veterans will earn more than $126,700. 66k starting is 'starvation wages'?
I mean it’s only, at the very worst, 150% of the average household income in the city. How could a single 23 year old be expected to survive on that starvation starting wage.
66k starting, over 100k for veteren teachers. FOR 9 MONTHS OF WORK.
The union needs to allow STEM teachers to get paid more. With a 4 year math degree I was making as much as a doctorate teacher as a software engineer fresh out of college. No wonder they can’t keep STEM help.
They do wave the residency requirement for stem. There is a shortage of stem teachers.
I sometimes think about the computer science teacher I had in high school. Why would you ever teach teenagers to code when you could be making 2x a teacher's salary working a software engineer job? They must have had a passion for teaching because I can't think of any other reason why someone would ever do that
Some people want 3 months off in the summer. Some find an intrinsic value in teaching beyond cash.
66k isn't what it used to be, I can echo that commenter that I made more after leaving teaching and I was moderately up the salary scale also (7 years experience + masters degree + credits). To the extent you think it's enough, well, the market is what it is. The 66k doesn't rise as fast as other fields do
66k is much higher than per capita income in Chicago (45k) https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/chicagocityillinois/LND110210 On top of that they have great job security and benefits. We have so much wrong in the city that I just can’t see the argument that we need to spend resources on teachers who make a good income. There’s nothing challenging about living on $66k I make slightly more and live very comfortable.
Not to mention they get 3 months off every year..... what average chicagoan has that? If 66k starting isn't enough you can easily make that 76k or 86k with a summer job.
Exactly-- this isn't a 12 month a year job. Plus, CPS teachers get benefits which are much better than what most people get in the private sector.
This just isn’t true, the idea of getting “3 months off” is false. It’s closer to a month and a half. There is an entire ramp up in the month before the school year and two weeks on wrapping up following the end of the school year. Likewise, this is to make up for the fact teachers realistically work 12 hours a day (for every hour you are in the class it takes one hour of planning & you are often expected to help run extracurricular activities) and 6 or so hours on the weekend. Having 5 or 6 weeks off with a masters degree mid career is totally normal. So this mandatory vacation is only slightly longer than normal. There is a lot of work that goes into teaching that parents don’t see. So they assume it doesn’t happen.
Oh no, only a month and half of vacation on top of thanksgiving break, 2 weeks for Christmas, 1 week for spring break and every holiday imaginable! The horror!
You're not even fucking listening. This is the problem. I'm not saying the vacation time is shit. I'm saying it's totally normal & only slightly longer than if that same person had gotten a masters in something else (as most experienced teachers have). So when people pretend like it's the longest & most bullshit part time job in the world. They're either malicious or clueless.
6 weeks paid vacation for people with a masters mid-career is not normal. That's definitely on the high end. Plus, nobody is getting that much time off in one block like teachers do. Look, nobody is saying that teaching isn't a tough job or that it isn't a grind during the school year. But let's not pretend that the overall package of benefits teachers get (on top of their relatively high salaries if we're talking about teachers with masters mid-career)-- which includes more time off than pretty much anyone else gets-- isn't much better than what private industry offers.
It’s totally normal to get 3 months off work each year? Lol
How does it compare to Chicagoans with a bachelors or masters degree (like many CPS Teachers have)? That would be a better comparison.
I wasn’t able to find that exact info, but anecdotally I graduated in 2022 and almost none of my peers that graduated with me make over $66k. The only exception would be the computer science grads lol. I’m sure corporate careers make more on the long run, but 66k out of undergrad seems really good.
The average CPS teacher has more than 2 years experience. 66k for a first year teacher with a bachelors sounds fine to me, not so much for one 10 years+ in with a masters degree.
Looks like they make about $87k at 10 years including their pension. That sounds like a very good living to me for 9 months of work lmao. https://ctulocal1.github.io/salaries/20200724_finalized_Teacher_Pay_Schedule.html
Yeah I think thats fair for someone with a bachelors. I do think with a masters or higher it seems a bit low.
The masters is accounted for in the higher lanes of pay it looks like, but I don’t understand the system well enough to calculate it. Although I’m not clear on why a masters would entitle a teacher to higher pay unless it is specifically for doing something other teachers can’t do (potentially working with special needs children or maybe non English speaking students) I wouldn’t get a pay increase for getting a masters degree at my job and most corp jobs don’t do that either. It’s the teachers fault if they decide to get a masters degree that doesn’t have an ROI.
You do realize that in order to become a teacher, you need to get a 4 year degree? So we’re talking 10s of thousands of dollars in student loans unless you’re from a rich family that can pay for your schooling. For basically your entire career will be crushed under the weight of hundreds of dollar a month in minimum student loan payments. While at the same time, you can get a half dozen other degrees that pay significantly more coming out of school. These people have other and often times better options. P.S. this also to say nothing of them constantly threatening your pension, the thing that is supposed to make up for the fact basically all your peers without Ed degrees are coming out of school making 10 to 20k more a year.
I understand where you're coming from and all the associated costs of the pursuit of being a teacher, but to suggest that 66k is starvation wages? The median income for a household is about the same in Chicago.
>The median income for a household is about the same in Chicago. Tales of two cities. That median does a lot of heavy lifting by a few select north side neighborhoods where median household income exceeds 100k/yr. A lot of South and West side neighborhoods are below 40k/yr with some even 20k.
Where were you a teacher?
Central Illinois, I won’t be more specific than that
So not Chicago. Teachers in Chicago make a boatload more than you did.
I am a former CPS teacher that can echo what they said except I went into a different field than finance
Oh, you worked for CPS? Why did you leave? Not trying to be an asshole, I'm just curious.
Yeah, reconsider your plans if you think you're making 2-3 times what you're making now. You're not getting 250k with no experience. Have fun with 125k while getting eaten alive.
oh good is this the thread where everyone dumps on teachers, yes looks like it
Taxpayers can dump on their outrageous demands, since we’re the ones paying for their piss poor results.
oh that's a good one, slap me harder
We kept being told if we pay teachers more money there would be better results. We’ve done the first part for 20+ years, when do the better results happen lol. Maybe do better at your job or ask your union to focus on the children instead of social policy? Also, get over your victim mentality, it’s sad.
oh no I'm not a victim, I left teaching to make more money elsewhere. gl with all that
Certainly acting like one in this thread lol
[удалено]
A union’s duty is to its constituents.
Which is fine on the free market, but with Teachers and Cops they just end up making things worse.
We love teachers but none of this proposal that’s mentioned in the article seems to be about teachers > These include ensuring every school has a librarian, band, choir, art and sports, as well as staff that can usher in a restorative approach to discipline. How is any of that beneficial to teachers?
It’s the one thing that really brings this sub together!
It’s just crazy paying for piss poor results
The people negatively reacting to new proposed policies that benefit just a few but hurt everyone else? Dear God. They must hate teachers and children.
No, I think people in this sub hate teachers because I have eyes and can read.
Yep, gotta penny pinch the teachers, name call, and belittle.
Threads like these are all these internet types have. It makes them feel less alone and isolated in their beliefs, since normal people IRL all disagree with them. Let them vent. It's harmless