Five
Student: Ms. Barton, you are seriously one of the sweetest people I've ever met in my whole life.
Me: Aw, that's sweet of you to say. I wish you would tell my freshmen.
Student: They don't like you?
Me: Yeah, they say that I'm mean.
Student: Well, you gotta be mean to freshmen. We put a freshman in a locker the other day.
Another student later insisted that the student who said the above was being sarcastic when he called me sweet, but I promise you he was not.
The student who called me sweet, by the way, has given me and my co-teacher hip-hop names. I am Dr. Jetlife, and my co-teacher is B-murder. Another student of my co-teacher's has started using this moniker:
Six (day after the election)
Student: B-murder, I knew Barack Obama was gonna get back to bidness.
**********************************************************************
Some really great articles about education have come out in the last few days. Here they are:
Bill Ayers, "Open Letter to President Obama"
Charles Payne, "Getting the Questions Right on Chicago Schools"
Chicago Tribune Series on truancy, "An Empty Desk Epidemic"
Plus, by Charlie Tocci and yours truly, "What We've Learned about Unions Since the Strike" I think Charlie would agree with me that the articles listed above are way more powerful.
Showing posts with label contract. Show all posts
Showing posts with label contract. Show all posts
Monday, November 12, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Needs Improvement: An Evaluation of CPS's REACH Students
With the new contract, CPS has rolled out a new evaluation program called REACH students. This program was developed by a committee formed of CPS people and Chicago Teachers Union people. The committee was required by the 2010 Illinois State Law called the Performance Evaluation Reform Act (PERA), a law that was passed as a part of Illinois's application for federal education money under Race to the Top. Race to the Top required states to include pilot programs for performance-based pay, so PERA was designed to pave the way for "real" evaluations so that those ratings could be used to differentiate teachers in order to reward "the best" teachers and fire "the worst" teachers. (Does this line sound familiar from the presidential campaign? It should, since President Obama says it all the time, except when he sort of fudges it and leaves out the firing part. But most research shows that it's really, really hard to evaluate teachers with the purpose of ranking them in this way. I think one stat I heard said that only about 5% of teachers can be considered "the best" year after year, and only about 5% can be considered "the worst." The other 90% fall in the middle.)
So, PERA also made some rules for how the new evaluation systems would be formed. Funny thing is, the Illinois Senate, when they crafted this law, made different rules for the Chicago Public School District than for all the other districts in Illinois. In the rest of Illinois, teachers unions and districts would negotiate over the system, and if they couldn't reach an agreement, the system would default to a generic one formulated by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). In CPS, if CPS and CTU couldn't reach an agreement, then CTU would be required by state law to accept CPS's "last best offer."
CTU walked away from the table after 4 months of negotiations. Publicly and on paper, the strike was about wages and benefits. State law dictates that these are the things over which unions can call a work stoppage. In reality, and not-so-secretly, the strike was about many more things, and the evaluation system was at the top of the list. CTU ended up winning concessions for the evaluations: before the strike, 40% of teacher's rating was going to ultimately depend on student performance measures, i.e., test scores and performance-based assessments (different, district-created tests that teachers grade themselves). After the strike, that proportion will max out at 30% in year 3 of the new contract.
What is the other 70%? Classroom practice, i.e., observations by "qualified evaluators." Only administrators can become qualified evaluators. Every non-tenured teacher must be formally observed 4 times per year (this is a big improvement from the previous systems 1-2 times), and each formal observation must follow a very strict procedure involving pre- and post-conferences and the gathering of evidence. All of this is to the good: it is much, much harder, under the new system, for an administrator to give a teacher an unsatisfactory rating without proof that the teacher's performance really is unsatisfactory, and the system is designed to be, in theory, more supportive of teacher development. Instead of one observation and rating per year, this system requires that teachers receive some sort of coaching so that their practice can improve.
The rubric that CPS has adopted is called "The CPS Framework for Teaching Adapted from the Danielson Framework for Teaching and Approved by Charlotte Danielson." I call it a rubric because that's what it is--a gigantic rubric. And it's a great rubric--it really does describe some best practices and is research-based. I'm very familiar with the Danielson rubric because AUSL has used it for years, beginning just before my residency year. So we were given time to study it and we used it to evaluate ourselves when we were residents. It was also used to rate us when we were residents--something that Charlotte Danielson reportedly said should not be done. But apparently now Danielson (or "Charlotte," as many of AUSL's leaders call her) is OK with that, since the CPS Framework for Teaching was approved-by-her.
Interestingly, Danielson's 4 ratings have retained their names--Unsatisfactory, Basic, Proficient, and Distinguished. But CPS's evaluation system gives the equivalent ratings different names: "Basic" is "Developing" and "Distinguished" is "Excellent." Both of these changes are revealing. When I was a resident, we were constantly told that "Basic" was where a first-year teacher could be expected to be most of the time. They also had this saying about Distinguished: "It's a nice place to visit, but don't expect to live there." Now, in CPS, it seems like we're likely to experience some grade inflation, if you will. Teachers who would normally get "Basic," the equivalent of a C, might now get "Proficient," the equivalent of a B. When I taught college, I often gave Bs to students I thought deserved Cs in order to avoid the time suck of debating with students over their grades. I imagine that principals will feel the same way. Meanwhile, where "Distinguished" was once reserved for only award-winning teachers, it will now be given to any teacher deemed "Excellent." Now, I know that CPS has always pressured administrators to be very stingy with the "Excellent" rating, so this might not be as much of a problem. But when they try to reintroduce performance pay in the next contract, we'll see which teachers start angling for that Excellent rating.
From the union side, the change of "Basic" to "Developing" (a euphemism that the CTU won instead of having to use PERA's label, "Needs Improvement") creates an upward push to categorize teachers as "Proficient" who might not actually be proficient on Danielson's scale. CPS wanted to say that a teacher who earned a "developing" rating for two consecutive years would automatically be rated "unsatisfactory." This is how the CTU could say that the new system was putting thousands of teachers at risk for dismissal. In the final contract, two "developing" ratings will only turn into an "unsatisfactory" if you don't, in so many words, actually "develop."
In sum, not counting the use of test scores, which I will repeat are, at present, an unreliable indicator of teacher proficiency or student growth, the new evaluation system does a lot more to protect teachers.
But now let's look at implementation. Let me preface this with a BIG CAVEAT: What I'm writing below is not intended in any way to impugn the administrators at my school or any of the other CPS administrators who I know well. In fact, I think it will show the ways in which CPS administrators have had their hands tied by CPS even worse than teachers. After all, administrators do not have a union. They are the only people who work in a CPS building who are not in a union. Thus, they, like teachers, are forced to implement all kinds of policies that have not been well thought-through or are only, as I say below, in the "rudimentary" stages. Their job is tough. My beef is not with them. It is with CPS.
First, let's see how Charlotte Danielson describes a "Proficient" assessment system (Domain 1e):
Overall rating for component 1e: B+ (Basic-plus. I averaged the scores using the numbers 1-4 for the ratings and got an average of 2.375.)
So, CPS's average score for component 3d is, at 2.19, is Basic.
Wow, that took me several hours to write. And I was only looking at 2 components out of a total of 19. My school has more than 50 non-tenured teachers, at 4 times a year, for 3 administrators. They have A TON OF WORK TO DO. Did anyone think through these logistics?
Two domains, two scores of Basic. Sounds like CPS Needs Improvement. Let's hope they have this up and running by next year, or they might get canned. Given their scores in the past in Component 4a, Reflecting on Teaching and Learning, I'm not optimistic.
So, PERA also made some rules for how the new evaluation systems would be formed. Funny thing is, the Illinois Senate, when they crafted this law, made different rules for the Chicago Public School District than for all the other districts in Illinois. In the rest of Illinois, teachers unions and districts would negotiate over the system, and if they couldn't reach an agreement, the system would default to a generic one formulated by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). In CPS, if CPS and CTU couldn't reach an agreement, then CTU would be required by state law to accept CPS's "last best offer."
CTU walked away from the table after 4 months of negotiations. Publicly and on paper, the strike was about wages and benefits. State law dictates that these are the things over which unions can call a work stoppage. In reality, and not-so-secretly, the strike was about many more things, and the evaluation system was at the top of the list. CTU ended up winning concessions for the evaluations: before the strike, 40% of teacher's rating was going to ultimately depend on student performance measures, i.e., test scores and performance-based assessments (different, district-created tests that teachers grade themselves). After the strike, that proportion will max out at 30% in year 3 of the new contract.
What is the other 70%? Classroom practice, i.e., observations by "qualified evaluators." Only administrators can become qualified evaluators. Every non-tenured teacher must be formally observed 4 times per year (this is a big improvement from the previous systems 1-2 times), and each formal observation must follow a very strict procedure involving pre- and post-conferences and the gathering of evidence. All of this is to the good: it is much, much harder, under the new system, for an administrator to give a teacher an unsatisfactory rating without proof that the teacher's performance really is unsatisfactory, and the system is designed to be, in theory, more supportive of teacher development. Instead of one observation and rating per year, this system requires that teachers receive some sort of coaching so that their practice can improve.
The rubric that CPS has adopted is called "The CPS Framework for Teaching Adapted from the Danielson Framework for Teaching and Approved by Charlotte Danielson." I call it a rubric because that's what it is--a gigantic rubric. And it's a great rubric--it really does describe some best practices and is research-based. I'm very familiar with the Danielson rubric because AUSL has used it for years, beginning just before my residency year. So we were given time to study it and we used it to evaluate ourselves when we were residents. It was also used to rate us when we were residents--something that Charlotte Danielson reportedly said should not be done. But apparently now Danielson (or "Charlotte," as many of AUSL's leaders call her) is OK with that, since the CPS Framework for Teaching was approved-by-her.
Interestingly, Danielson's 4 ratings have retained their names--Unsatisfactory, Basic, Proficient, and Distinguished. But CPS's evaluation system gives the equivalent ratings different names: "Basic" is "Developing" and "Distinguished" is "Excellent." Both of these changes are revealing. When I was a resident, we were constantly told that "Basic" was where a first-year teacher could be expected to be most of the time. They also had this saying about Distinguished: "It's a nice place to visit, but don't expect to live there." Now, in CPS, it seems like we're likely to experience some grade inflation, if you will. Teachers who would normally get "Basic," the equivalent of a C, might now get "Proficient," the equivalent of a B. When I taught college, I often gave Bs to students I thought deserved Cs in order to avoid the time suck of debating with students over their grades. I imagine that principals will feel the same way. Meanwhile, where "Distinguished" was once reserved for only award-winning teachers, it will now be given to any teacher deemed "Excellent." Now, I know that CPS has always pressured administrators to be very stingy with the "Excellent" rating, so this might not be as much of a problem. But when they try to reintroduce performance pay in the next contract, we'll see which teachers start angling for that Excellent rating.
From the union side, the change of "Basic" to "Developing" (a euphemism that the CTU won instead of having to use PERA's label, "Needs Improvement") creates an upward push to categorize teachers as "Proficient" who might not actually be proficient on Danielson's scale. CPS wanted to say that a teacher who earned a "developing" rating for two consecutive years would automatically be rated "unsatisfactory." This is how the CTU could say that the new system was putting thousands of teachers at risk for dismissal. In the final contract, two "developing" ratings will only turn into an "unsatisfactory" if you don't, in so many words, actually "develop."
In sum, not counting the use of test scores, which I will repeat are, at present, an unreliable indicator of teacher proficiency or student growth, the new evaluation system does a lot more to protect teachers.
But now let's look at implementation. Let me preface this with a BIG CAVEAT: What I'm writing below is not intended in any way to impugn the administrators at my school or any of the other CPS administrators who I know well. In fact, I think it will show the ways in which CPS administrators have had their hands tied by CPS even worse than teachers. After all, administrators do not have a union. They are the only people who work in a CPS building who are not in a union. Thus, they, like teachers, are forced to implement all kinds of policies that have not been well thought-through or are only, as I say below, in the "rudimentary" stages. Their job is tough. My beef is not with them. It is with CPS.
First, let's see how Charlotte Danielson describes a "Proficient" assessment system (Domain 1e):
(1) Teacher’s plan for student assessment is aligned with the standards-based learning objectives identified for the unit and lesson; (2) assessment methodologies may have been adapted for groups of students. (3) Assessments clearly identify and describe student expectations and provide descriptors for each level of performance. (4) Teacher selects and designs formative assessments that measure student learning and/or growth. (5) Teacher uses prior assessment results to design units and lessons that target groups of students.I've numbered each of the sentences so that we can evaluate CPS's evaluation system, one at a time, and, for the sake of this argument, I've replaced the word "teacher" with "CPS" and "student" with "teachers."
(1) CPS's plan for student assessment is aligned with the standards-based learning objectives identified for the unit and lessonThis is somewhat true. If the objective is to produce "excellent" teachers, then CPS has identified a standard (Danielson's Framework) and they're using an assessment (Danielson's Framework) that is aligned with the standard. So I would give CPS a P (Proficient) in this element.
(2) assessment methodologies may have been adapted for groups of teachersAgain, this is somewhat true. Probationary Appointed Teachers (PATs or untenured teachers) are being observed 4 times, and tenured teachers will be observed once (a minimum) or twice (at least 50% of tenured teachers in a building must be observed twice). The framework for those teachers, however, is the same, and the point scales used to determine final ratings are the same. The descriptors for "Basic" and "Unsatisfactory" don't say anything about differentiating assessment for different groups, but I think I have to give CPS a B (Basic) in this element.
(3) Assessments clearly identify and describe student expectations and provide descriptors for each level of performance.Expectations are certainly clearly identified--check. But many teachers in the district began this year with little or no familiarity with the Danielson Framework. We had our first PD about Danielson yesterday, after the first round of observations already took place. (It was a very good PD, because our administrators, unlike some, want us to be successful. Our administrators also have lots of familiarity with Danielson already because they have been in AUSL schools for years.) So I would give CPS a P- (Proficient-minus) here. The expectations are clearly described, but they are long and complex and have not been taught to us. We'll come back to that when we get to Component 3d.
(4) CPS selects and designs formative assessments that measure teacher learning and/or growth.The answer to this one is yes and no. We have four observations, and we don't get our "summative" final rating until the end of the year. But we still don't know (and our admin doesn't, either) how the four observations are being used to determine the final rating. Will they be averaged? Will growth be taken into account? We don't yet have enough information to say. I haven't yet received my grades from my first observation, so I don't know yet whether they are designed to reflect growth. Let's look at what Danielson says for "basic" in this part of the component:
Teacher’s approach to the use of formative assessment is rudimentary, only partially measuring student learning or growth.Since this is the first year of the evaluation system, I might actually go along with a word like "rudimentary." The electronic system that admin will be using to deliver our scores and that we'll be using to see our scores is not yet up and running. So CPS gets a B here. One more:
(5) CPS uses prior assessment results to design units and lessons that target groups of teachers.Again, not sure about this one yet. I'm supposed to get my first scores on Tuesday, so I suppose I'll find out then what kinds of supports I'll be getting to improve. I feel bad for my administration here, though, because we don't have very much professional development time in our calendar at all this year. Will they differentiate instruction for teachers with different ratings? It remains to be seen. So we'll give CPS an N/A here. Not enough information available yet.
Overall rating for component 1e: B+ (Basic-plus. I averaged the scores using the numbers 1-4 for the ratings and got an average of 2.375.)
OK, phew. That took over an hour to write. Now let's look at the use of assessment in the Instruction domain (Domain 3). The relevant part is component 3d, "Using Assessment in Instruction." Here's the language for a Proficient rating:
(1) Teacher regularly uses formative assessment during instruction to monitor student progress and to check for understanding of student learning. (2) CPS uses questions/prompts/assessments for evidence of learning. (3) Students can explain the criteria by which their work will be assessed; some of them engage in self-assessment. (4) Teacher provides accurate and specific feedback to individual students that advance learning.
OK, let's take these one at a time. Again, I'm going to change the word "teacher" to "CPS" and the word "students" to "teachers."
(1) CPS regularly uses formative assessment during instruction to monitor teacher progress and to check for understanding of teacher learning.Once again, the system requires 4 formal observations. There can also be any number of informal observations, i.e., "spot checks," where the evaluator can walk into your room at any time. For an informal observation, you're supposed to receive feedback. Every knows that working in an AUSL school turns your classroom into a fishbowl. So yes, I've had people walk in a lot. But I don't think any of those walk-ins have been official "informal observations," because I haven't gotten much feedback about them. (To be clear, this is not a criticism of my administrators!! They are doing their utmost with a system that was not designed by them.) CPS also says that teachers can opt to have their first of the four observations be treated as a "practice." So that means that you can use your feedback from that one to grow. If you take the first one as a practice, then there is a required end-of-year informal observation (at least, I think it comes after all four formals). So this piece remains to be seen, but as it's written in the REACH system, it's not clear what is "formative" and what is "summative." But it does seem like the observations are going to used to monitor progress. So CPS gets a P.
(2) CPS uses questions/prompts/assessments for evidence of learning.Yes, this works. In our post-conference, we have a form with questions. And administrators have to provide evidence for our ratings. Another P.
(3) Students can explain the criteria by which their work will be assessed; some of them engage in self-assessment.My students have this text lingo word that is spelled skuuuuuuuuuurrrrrr! It is the sound of a car putting on its brakes and means "back it up!" Teachers had a preliminary "training" about REACH during our week-long institute at the beginning of the school year where we were read a script and asked to sign a piece of paper that said we understood the script. Our next PD about REACH was yesterday. So, in the first quarter of the year, we've received about 2.5 total hours of PD about the evaluation system. People are confused. And in my building the majority of teachers were already intimately familiar with Danielson's Framework. And only 1 hour of the PD we've received was scripted by CPS--the other 2 hours were designed and given by our admin in order to support us. So I really can't imagine how teachers who have never seen Danielson before must be feeling. Plus, we still don't have a clue what the score ranges in our contract mean in real life. The language for "Unsatisfactory" sounds more appropriate to my empirical observations and my guesses based on how much PD has been required by CPS: "[Teachers] cannot explain the criteria by which their work will be assessed and do not engage in self-assessment." I'm an easy grader, so I'll give CPS a B- (Basic-minus) on this one, since some teachers in AUSL schools can describe the criteria and know how to self-assess. Next sentence, please.
(4) CPS provides accurate and specific feedback to individual teachers that advance learning.OK, CPS created this reportedly awesome online system that evaluators can use to upload their observation data and provide feedback to teachers. I say "reportedly" because IT IS NOT ONLINE YET. It is only in its pilot stage. But most schools have already completed their first round of observations. While we are waiting for the system to go live, we're being given pencil-and-paper grades (which are sitting in my school mailbox as I write) and we're supposed to email CPS if we have a question. The language in Danielson for Unsatisfactory says "[CPS]’s feedback is absent or of poor quality." Now, remember my caveat! This is not a criticism of my administration. They are being asked to use a system that is not yet up-and-running to report our assessment results. How messed up is that? I'll give CPS a U+ on this one.
So, CPS's average score for component 3d is, at 2.19, is Basic.
Wow, that took me several hours to write. And I was only looking at 2 components out of a total of 19. My school has more than 50 non-tenured teachers, at 4 times a year, for 3 administrators. They have A TON OF WORK TO DO. Did anyone think through these logistics?
Two domains, two scores of Basic. Sounds like CPS Needs Improvement. Let's hope they have this up and running by next year, or they might get canned. Given their scores in the past in Component 4a, Reflecting on Teaching and Learning, I'm not optimistic.
Monday, September 24, 2012
You get a lot of time off.
This is something that Todd pointed out to me. It's true. But technically, we're called 39-week employees, which means that we don't get paid for our summers off. We do get to keep our health insurance benefits in the summers, but our salaries are for 39 weeks (two less than the 41 that you calculate we get paid for--and yes, it's nice!)
It's true that I love having summers off. It's one of the great perks of working in education. But you can't say that I get paid a lot for someone who gets summers off and also say that it's ok for me to work 60 hours a week when it's not the summer (which averages out over the course of a 50-week year to more than 40 hours per week).
And yes, some doctors get less time off than that, but my family members who are (retired) doctors got 6 paid vacation weeks and 4 paid conference weeks. So that's 10 weeks. Plus sick days, plus paid family leave. And that particular family member made roughly 5 times what I make. I'm just sayin.
Todd says that at his job FMLA is encouraged for any sick days more than a week. In CPS, you have to use 10 paid sick days before you can file for FMLA. And then, under the old contract, you would have to use and take pay for all of your sick days during your FMLA. So, during my recent illness, at one point I thought I would be out for six weeks. I would have had to use all 20 of my paid sick days, whether I wanted to or not. And there are two days this year that I want to use for personal business--for my dissertation defense and for my PhD graduation. I would have had to put my job at risk by taking these days as "zero days"--that is, unpaid absences, which can be cause for discipline or dismissal.
Yes, our medical benefit is awesome. Again, unions have been trading benefits for wages for decades. We make WAY LESS than people with comparable levels of education. Many CPS teachers have TWO masters degrees.
Todd asked: "Is the union sticking to seniority as the primary determinant of salary / benefits?" Yes, seniority and level of educational attainment. But seniority is worth much more than educational attainment. I'm going to get a raise of about $1750 annually when I get my PhD. (I was previously in "Lane V," which is a master's degree plus 45 credit hours. From Lane V to Lane VI (PhD or EdD) will be $1750. From Lane I (BA only) to Lane VI is a little less than $10K. Pretty good, and probably worth how much the degree cost me, but conventional wisdom is that changing "lanes," that is, getting more education, isn't worth it if you have to pay for it. There is a new teacher at my school who is an economist, and I'm going to get him to calculate my loss in earning power for not working from age 24-30.)
It's true that I love having summers off. It's one of the great perks of working in education. But you can't say that I get paid a lot for someone who gets summers off and also say that it's ok for me to work 60 hours a week when it's not the summer (which averages out over the course of a 50-week year to more than 40 hours per week).
And yes, some doctors get less time off than that, but my family members who are (retired) doctors got 6 paid vacation weeks and 4 paid conference weeks. So that's 10 weeks. Plus sick days, plus paid family leave. And that particular family member made roughly 5 times what I make. I'm just sayin.
Todd says that at his job FMLA is encouraged for any sick days more than a week. In CPS, you have to use 10 paid sick days before you can file for FMLA. And then, under the old contract, you would have to use and take pay for all of your sick days during your FMLA. So, during my recent illness, at one point I thought I would be out for six weeks. I would have had to use all 20 of my paid sick days, whether I wanted to or not. And there are two days this year that I want to use for personal business--for my dissertation defense and for my PhD graduation. I would have had to put my job at risk by taking these days as "zero days"--that is, unpaid absences, which can be cause for discipline or dismissal.
Yes, our medical benefit is awesome. Again, unions have been trading benefits for wages for decades. We make WAY LESS than people with comparable levels of education. Many CPS teachers have TWO masters degrees.
Todd asked: "Is the union sticking to seniority as the primary determinant of salary / benefits?" Yes, seniority and level of educational attainment. But seniority is worth much more than educational attainment. I'm going to get a raise of about $1750 annually when I get my PhD. (I was previously in "Lane V," which is a master's degree plus 45 credit hours. From Lane V to Lane VI (PhD or EdD) will be $1750. From Lane I (BA only) to Lane VI is a little less than $10K. Pretty good, and probably worth how much the degree cost me, but conventional wisdom is that changing "lanes," that is, getting more education, isn't worth it if you have to pay for it. There is a new teacher at my school who is an economist, and I'm going to get him to calculate my loss in earning power for not working from age 24-30.)
Let's say my salary was 70% of what I would make if I worked 50 weeks of the year. That would mean my salary, with 3 years teaching experience and a PhD, would be $92,372. Do you think that's fair, even with sweet benefits? I mean, I wouldn't complain if I made $92K. Hey, I can't complain about what I make right now. But it is certainly not commensurate with what other people with my level of education make.
P.S. I'm inappropriately frank about what I make. That's because it's part of the public record anyway! I'm a public sector worker. :)
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Letter to my brother: benefits
My brother has been wondering about the new CTU contract and what it means for teachers. I wrote him a long email about salaries. This one is about benefits.
Dear Todd,
The benefits of being a unionized teacher are pretty nice, as I'm sure you can imagine. Most unionized workers have traded better benefits for stagnant wages for decades. In CPS, we have high quality health care coverage for pretty decent prices. We also get ten paid vacation days (one week of our winter break is "paid," the other is not, and our one-week spring break is paid), three personal business days, and ten sick days per year. CPS also pays an additional 7% of our salary as a "pension pick up" into the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF). The pension pickup is not taxable, but often gets included in published figures of our salary. This is sort of misleading, about which see more below.
There were big disagreements in the contract negotiations over all three of these benefits (health care, vacation days, and pensions). So, let's look at one at a time.
Health care. CPS wanted to increase the premiums paid for health insurance, only for couples and families. We pay our premium as a percentage of salary rather than as a set contribution amount. I think this is fairly unusual; I know that New York doesn't do it. It's also quite low--I think it's 2% for Chris and me to both be on Chris's. CPS wanted to increase the family contribution by quite a bit. The union beat this back.
CPS also wanted to institute a "wellness program" for all CTU members. Chicago has actually gotten almost all of the city employee unions to sign on to this--the last holdouts are the police. Of course, this is to bring down costs. It's going to be sort of a pain in the butt. We have to do annual "biometric screenings" and then keep some sort of account online where we record "points" of some sort once a month for engaging in healthy activities. The only example I've been given of how to do this is reading articles online about healthy habits. So it's mostly just a cost savings, and not actually designed for wellness, which is sort of silly. This doesn't bother me so much, though, because I heard that a staggering proportion of members were not using their insurance well, instead using the ER for most of their health care needs. Yikes! Why don't they just do some health insurance education, you ask? I dunno. HMOs are hard to use, I promise you that.
Sick days. In the past, CPS employees have been able to "bank" their accumulated sick days and personal days. They can then use them in case of long-term illness or family/maternity leave, or they can have the days paid out at their final pay rate when they retire or leave the system. Arne Duncan, our illustrious Secretary of Education, received a $50K sick day payout when he became ed secretary. (Duncan then said in statements that the system was flawed. But he didn't offer to return his payout.)
So CPS wanted to do away with our ability to bank sick days. Initially, they were talking about instituting a "use or lose" policy. Other districts have done this with disastrous effects, from what I've heard. CPS doesn't actually have enough day-to-day substitute teachers to cover all of the absences if every teacher actually took all 10 sick days every year. Also, many teachers (Chris included) didn't want to lose the sick days they had already banked.
The compromise that was reached is pretty great. Previously banked sick days go into a special bank, to be paid out under the old terms. New sick days can still be accumulated up to 45 days to be used as necessary (sick days can also be donated, which is cool). Our three personal days will be use or lose. And, best part, CPS will now offer employees paid short-term disability/maternity/family leave. The first 30 days are paid out at 100% of your salary. After that, it steps down, and you can take up to 90 days. For young teachers new to the system, this is huge, as it means that you don't need to work for several years to accumulate sick days before you can take a paid maternity or paternity leave.
Pensions. The sick day thing wasn't an easy sell, and it really divided the membership along veteran/rookie lines. So did pensions. Initially, CPS was pushing to institute a new two-tier system where current employees would stick to the old pension plan, but new employees would get put into a defined contribution plan. This was obviously divisive. People my age and younger are obviously worried that the pension won't work out for us, so we would rather be able to have a little bit more control over our retirement money. People who are closer to retirement are worried about the weakening of the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, which is actually (thankfully) separate from Illinois's state pension fund and very solvent. Unfortunately, CPS has been diverting money from the CTPF for the last few years to pay for deficits.
Also unfortunately, CTU is one of many teachers unions that foregoes Social Security taxes in favor of their pension contributions (not all teachers unions do this). Many people don't know this, and this is why I think it's unfair to count our pension pickup as part of our "income." It's true that we don't pay social security, so I guess our net income is higher than it normally would be. But we don't *receive* social security either, so it's sort of misleading. I'm sure you can calculate how fair this is in monetary terms, but that's not within my mathematical power.
Anyway, CPS backed off changing our pension contribution scheme pretty quickly. And eventually they agreed to maintain our 7% pension pickup. The best part is, for awhile CPS was saying in the news that we were being offered a 16% raise over 4 years. Guess how they got this number? 3% + 2% + 2% + 2% + 7%. That's right. They haven't actually been paying our pension pickup for the last four years, so they counted starting to pay it again as a RAISE. And here they're saying we're the ones who don't know how to teach math.
The benefits of being a unionized teacher are pretty nice, as I'm sure you can imagine. Most unionized workers have traded better benefits for stagnant wages for decades. In CPS, we have high quality health care coverage for pretty decent prices. We also get ten paid vacation days (one week of our winter break is "paid," the other is not, and our one-week spring break is paid), three personal business days, and ten sick days per year. CPS also pays an additional 7% of our salary as a "pension pick up" into the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF). The pension pickup is not taxable, but often gets included in published figures of our salary. This is sort of misleading, about which see more below.
There were big disagreements in the contract negotiations over all three of these benefits (health care, vacation days, and pensions). So, let's look at one at a time.
Health care. CPS wanted to increase the premiums paid for health insurance, only for couples and families. We pay our premium as a percentage of salary rather than as a set contribution amount. I think this is fairly unusual; I know that New York doesn't do it. It's also quite low--I think it's 2% for Chris and me to both be on Chris's. CPS wanted to increase the family contribution by quite a bit. The union beat this back.
CPS also wanted to institute a "wellness program" for all CTU members. Chicago has actually gotten almost all of the city employee unions to sign on to this--the last holdouts are the police. Of course, this is to bring down costs. It's going to be sort of a pain in the butt. We have to do annual "biometric screenings" and then keep some sort of account online where we record "points" of some sort once a month for engaging in healthy activities. The only example I've been given of how to do this is reading articles online about healthy habits. So it's mostly just a cost savings, and not actually designed for wellness, which is sort of silly. This doesn't bother me so much, though, because I heard that a staggering proportion of members were not using their insurance well, instead using the ER for most of their health care needs. Yikes! Why don't they just do some health insurance education, you ask? I dunno. HMOs are hard to use, I promise you that.
Sick days. In the past, CPS employees have been able to "bank" their accumulated sick days and personal days. They can then use them in case of long-term illness or family/maternity leave, or they can have the days paid out at their final pay rate when they retire or leave the system. Arne Duncan, our illustrious Secretary of Education, received a $50K sick day payout when he became ed secretary. (Duncan then said in statements that the system was flawed. But he didn't offer to return his payout.)
So CPS wanted to do away with our ability to bank sick days. Initially, they were talking about instituting a "use or lose" policy. Other districts have done this with disastrous effects, from what I've heard. CPS doesn't actually have enough day-to-day substitute teachers to cover all of the absences if every teacher actually took all 10 sick days every year. Also, many teachers (Chris included) didn't want to lose the sick days they had already banked.
The compromise that was reached is pretty great. Previously banked sick days go into a special bank, to be paid out under the old terms. New sick days can still be accumulated up to 45 days to be used as necessary (sick days can also be donated, which is cool). Our three personal days will be use or lose. And, best part, CPS will now offer employees paid short-term disability/maternity/family leave. The first 30 days are paid out at 100% of your salary. After that, it steps down, and you can take up to 90 days. For young teachers new to the system, this is huge, as it means that you don't need to work for several years to accumulate sick days before you can take a paid maternity or paternity leave.
Pensions. The sick day thing wasn't an easy sell, and it really divided the membership along veteran/rookie lines. So did pensions. Initially, CPS was pushing to institute a new two-tier system where current employees would stick to the old pension plan, but new employees would get put into a defined contribution plan. This was obviously divisive. People my age and younger are obviously worried that the pension won't work out for us, so we would rather be able to have a little bit more control over our retirement money. People who are closer to retirement are worried about the weakening of the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, which is actually (thankfully) separate from Illinois's state pension fund and very solvent. Unfortunately, CPS has been diverting money from the CTPF for the last few years to pay for deficits.
Also unfortunately, CTU is one of many teachers unions that foregoes Social Security taxes in favor of their pension contributions (not all teachers unions do this). Many people don't know this, and this is why I think it's unfair to count our pension pickup as part of our "income." It's true that we don't pay social security, so I guess our net income is higher than it normally would be. But we don't *receive* social security either, so it's sort of misleading. I'm sure you can calculate how fair this is in monetary terms, but that's not within my mathematical power.
Anyway, CPS backed off changing our pension contribution scheme pretty quickly. And eventually they agreed to maintain our 7% pension pickup. The best part is, for awhile CPS was saying in the news that we were being offered a 16% raise over 4 years. Guess how they got this number? 3% + 2% + 2% + 2% + 7%. That's right. They haven't actually been paying our pension pickup for the last four years, so they counted starting to pay it again as a RAISE. And here they're saying we're the ones who don't know how to teach math.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Short History of CPS-CTU salary talks that I wrote for my brother
I wrote this email to one of my brothers just now, and then thought it might be helpful for others who read my blog.
Dear Todd,
I've been meaning to write back to you since I got your email about Karen and how we were still out. Karen doesn't always look great in the news, but I've grown to really respect and admire her as a leader.
We only decided to stay out on Sunday because the lawyers had not finished writing the tentative agreement. In the past, other teachers' unions have had items clawed back when they went back to the classroom too early. Everyone wanted the strike to be over, and it would have been really hard to muster everyone to go back out again if something like that happened. If we had reconvened on Monday, it would have been during Rosh Hashanah, which many in the House of Delegates (including myself) thought would be in appropriate. So we met Tuesday. This gave them enough time to finish writing the agreement.
I honestly wasn't worried about losing public support when we voted Sunday, and the honks and thumbs up that we got on the picket line on Monday felt no different from last week--if anything, we had even more support from families who understood that we wanted something in writing before we could go back into the building. There was still a minority of delegates on Tuesday that wanted to stay out and hold out for more--by and large the people who wanted to hold out were doing so on the basis of salary and benefits. The problem is, these people are out of touch with economic reality and/or are conspiracy theorists who believe that CPS is hiding cash under its mattress.
I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to read any of the reports estimating what the new contract is going to cost the district. But they'll come up with the money. They always do. It was their bad for creating and ratifying a budget before they had a contract with the teachers.
Nothing in the tentative contract is a secret. What might have seemed odd to someone on the outside though is the way that the union kept saying that it wasn't about the money, and yet that we were striking over wages and benefits and layoffs. This is because of a new Illinois state law that says we can only strike over wages and benefits and layoff practices. We had to keep saying that we were striking on those things, even though they were actually negotiating on other things in the contract, because otherwise the strike could be declared illegal. And yes, Rahm tried to do that. Big baby. Part of me really wanted to see him try to use a court order to make the teachers go back to work. The Chicago Police are completely on the teachers' side--they always give us thumbs ups at our rallies--because their contract is up next.
The salary sticking point was tricky. The backstory is that the Board canceled a promised 4% raise for the 2011-12 school year, the last year of our previous contract. At the end of the 2010-11 year, they said that they could only honor the raise if they laid off teachers. CTU staged a couple of protests over this and even threatened to reopen the contract early, but we never got the money. Then when the 2011-12 school year started, Rahm Emanuel announced that he was going to use his prerogative under a new state law to extend the Chicago school day. (This was a big campaign promise of his--he used a completely made up statistic about how kids in Houston attend school for a total of 4 years longer than Chicago students over the course of their lives. By the way, Chicago does not have the shortest day in the nation. And most research says the length of time in the classroom does not correlate to student achievement or graduation rates. But who's paying attention to doing what makes sense?) The union cried foul and actually got a court order from the ILRB for him to stop. But then he went into individual schools (many run by AUSL, the organization that runs my school) and offered teachers $1000 bonuses to agree to a longer day. Many of these teachers felt coerced into voting yes. The ILRB said that the district had to stop having teachers vote waivers on the longer day, but that the schools that already had voted would keep their longer day.
The longer day became the signature reform in the new contract talks, at least on Rahm and the city's side. They created a huge propaganda machine referring it to as the "Full School Day," as if teachers had previously been doing half days! We were forced to pass out letters to our students from the district explaining how important it was to make this change. Meanwhile, CPS wanted to add 90 minutes to the elementary school day (45 to the high school day) and 10 teaching days to the school year, and they initially offered no pay raise. They said they couldn't afford it. Then they started offering 2% in the first year of a 4-year contract, followed by a salary freeze in years 2 and 3, and the implementation of a total overhaul of our compensation scheme in year 4 of our contract.
The big line in the news throughout negotiations was that CTU had "demanded a 30% pay increase." The actual number was somewhere between 26% and 29%. Of course, no one expected to get a raise like this, but personally I thought it was a bad PR move on our part all along. The point they were trying to make is that the city was asking us to work 19% more than our existing time while also claiming that these are unprecedented times of austerity. We needed to make sacrifices for the children, they said, which is more of this "education crisis" nonsense where politicians try to make it look like they're going to fix everything right away because there's no time to lose.
When everything went into arbitration over the summer, the arbitrator stunned everyone by coming out on the side of the CTU, at least on wages. My favorite part of his report was where he likened CPS to someone who has bought a car and can no longer make the payments, but wants to keep the car anyway. The longer day was their idea, and if they couldn't pay for it, then they didn't need to have it. Except that it was one of Rahm's top five campaign promises. The arbitrator, who has a reputation for being fairly financially conservative, recommended a 13% raise. He came to this number by deciding that CTU had fared better than the rest of the economy during the last contract, so we were slightly overpaid, and basically figuring the difference for a 19% increase in time. He stressed that teachers are just like all other workers--you can't ask them to work more time for free. (The CTU had meanwhile commissioned a report from the School of Labor Relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that found that teachers work an average of 58 hours a week during the school year. I was only sad that this report was issued by the labor relations department at the school, which I thought made it less credible than it would have been had it been done with the school of education.)
Of course, as soon as the arbitrator went against what CPS wanted, they said he was a crazy idiot, and we were back at the table. So, in the end, we got a 3-year contract with COLA increases of 3%, 2%, and 2%. We also got to keep our salary "steps," which are increases we receive for years of teaching experience. We have an option to extend our contract for a 4th year for another 3%, but it has to be agreed upon by both the union and the district. This is the most I have ever felt like a baseball player.
I have more to say about steps, so-called "merit pay," and benefits, but I'll leave it at that for now!
Dear Todd,
I've been meaning to write back to you since I got your email about Karen and how we were still out. Karen doesn't always look great in the news, but I've grown to really respect and admire her as a leader.
We only decided to stay out on Sunday because the lawyers had not finished writing the tentative agreement. In the past, other teachers' unions have had items clawed back when they went back to the classroom too early. Everyone wanted the strike to be over, and it would have been really hard to muster everyone to go back out again if something like that happened. If we had reconvened on Monday, it would have been during Rosh Hashanah, which many in the House of Delegates (including myself) thought would be in appropriate. So we met Tuesday. This gave them enough time to finish writing the agreement.
I honestly wasn't worried about losing public support when we voted Sunday, and the honks and thumbs up that we got on the picket line on Monday felt no different from last week--if anything, we had even more support from families who understood that we wanted something in writing before we could go back into the building. There was still a minority of delegates on Tuesday that wanted to stay out and hold out for more--by and large the people who wanted to hold out were doing so on the basis of salary and benefits. The problem is, these people are out of touch with economic reality and/or are conspiracy theorists who believe that CPS is hiding cash under its mattress.
I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to read any of the reports estimating what the new contract is going to cost the district. But they'll come up with the money. They always do. It was their bad for creating and ratifying a budget before they had a contract with the teachers.
Nothing in the tentative contract is a secret. What might have seemed odd to someone on the outside though is the way that the union kept saying that it wasn't about the money, and yet that we were striking over wages and benefits and layoffs. This is because of a new Illinois state law that says we can only strike over wages and benefits and layoff practices. We had to keep saying that we were striking on those things, even though they were actually negotiating on other things in the contract, because otherwise the strike could be declared illegal. And yes, Rahm tried to do that. Big baby. Part of me really wanted to see him try to use a court order to make the teachers go back to work. The Chicago Police are completely on the teachers' side--they always give us thumbs ups at our rallies--because their contract is up next.
The salary sticking point was tricky. The backstory is that the Board canceled a promised 4% raise for the 2011-12 school year, the last year of our previous contract. At the end of the 2010-11 year, they said that they could only honor the raise if they laid off teachers. CTU staged a couple of protests over this and even threatened to reopen the contract early, but we never got the money. Then when the 2011-12 school year started, Rahm Emanuel announced that he was going to use his prerogative under a new state law to extend the Chicago school day. (This was a big campaign promise of his--he used a completely made up statistic about how kids in Houston attend school for a total of 4 years longer than Chicago students over the course of their lives. By the way, Chicago does not have the shortest day in the nation. And most research says the length of time in the classroom does not correlate to student achievement or graduation rates. But who's paying attention to doing what makes sense?) The union cried foul and actually got a court order from the ILRB for him to stop. But then he went into individual schools (many run by AUSL, the organization that runs my school) and offered teachers $1000 bonuses to agree to a longer day. Many of these teachers felt coerced into voting yes. The ILRB said that the district had to stop having teachers vote waivers on the longer day, but that the schools that already had voted would keep their longer day.
The longer day became the signature reform in the new contract talks, at least on Rahm and the city's side. They created a huge propaganda machine referring it to as the "Full School Day," as if teachers had previously been doing half days! We were forced to pass out letters to our students from the district explaining how important it was to make this change. Meanwhile, CPS wanted to add 90 minutes to the elementary school day (45 to the high school day) and 10 teaching days to the school year, and they initially offered no pay raise. They said they couldn't afford it. Then they started offering 2% in the first year of a 4-year contract, followed by a salary freeze in years 2 and 3, and the implementation of a total overhaul of our compensation scheme in year 4 of our contract.
The big line in the news throughout negotiations was that CTU had "demanded a 30% pay increase." The actual number was somewhere between 26% and 29%. Of course, no one expected to get a raise like this, but personally I thought it was a bad PR move on our part all along. The point they were trying to make is that the city was asking us to work 19% more than our existing time while also claiming that these are unprecedented times of austerity. We needed to make sacrifices for the children, they said, which is more of this "education crisis" nonsense where politicians try to make it look like they're going to fix everything right away because there's no time to lose.
When everything went into arbitration over the summer, the arbitrator stunned everyone by coming out on the side of the CTU, at least on wages. My favorite part of his report was where he likened CPS to someone who has bought a car and can no longer make the payments, but wants to keep the car anyway. The longer day was their idea, and if they couldn't pay for it, then they didn't need to have it. Except that it was one of Rahm's top five campaign promises. The arbitrator, who has a reputation for being fairly financially conservative, recommended a 13% raise. He came to this number by deciding that CTU had fared better than the rest of the economy during the last contract, so we were slightly overpaid, and basically figuring the difference for a 19% increase in time. He stressed that teachers are just like all other workers--you can't ask them to work more time for free. (The CTU had meanwhile commissioned a report from the School of Labor Relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that found that teachers work an average of 58 hours a week during the school year. I was only sad that this report was issued by the labor relations department at the school, which I thought made it less credible than it would have been had it been done with the school of education.)
Of course, as soon as the arbitrator went against what CPS wanted, they said he was a crazy idiot, and we were back at the table. So, in the end, we got a 3-year contract with COLA increases of 3%, 2%, and 2%. We also got to keep our salary "steps," which are increases we receive for years of teaching experience. We have an option to extend our contract for a 4th year for another 3%, but it has to be agreed upon by both the union and the district. This is the most I have ever felt like a baseball player.
I have more to say about steps, so-called "merit pay," and benefits, but I'll leave it at that for now!
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