Jackson Potter is co-chair of CORE, the Chicago Teacher Union caucus that just won control of the union. Here is responds to the Chicago Sun-Times “fire the teacher” editorial.
July 7, 2010
In the editorial “Teachers’ performance counts more than years,” [June 27] the Sun-Times weighs in on the controversial topic of teacher evaluations. Unfortunately, the piece is very one-sided. The paper accepts without question the district’s contention that the 200 unsatisfactory teachers deserve to be fired immediately. It is never questioned who put these people in that category, whether a struggling teacher can improve with compassion and mentoring, or what is really behind the Board of Education’s new policy.
It turns out that there are quite a few abusive principals in the system who degrade the ratings of teachers who stand up for their students, themselves and their colleagues.
What happens if a teacher blows the whistle on an administration for stealing from a school budget or misappropriating funds? Are we setting the stage to allow that administration to retaliate against that person?
In addition, the district has a financial incentive to get rid of veteran teachers who cost more in terms of base salary and benefits. With a budget crisis looming, these cuts look increasingly like cost-saving measures.
Teaching is extremely hard work. I would like to invite the editorial staff of the Sun-Times to teach at a CPS school for a week and see how they do. Not one beginning teacher I have ever known feels like they do a satisfactory job; it is an occupation that takes years to master. A slash-and-burn approach to teacher ratings without due process, without an attempt to help professionals improve instruction, is an approach doomed to fail.
Jackson Potter, co-chair,
Caucus of Rank and File Educators
Fred Klonsky 
Excellent!
I would fax this to as many unions posible so that they may put it on their web homepages. The “teacher bashing” angle is also being used by those not in our profession, as a quick fix, and to put us in the same boat with the private sector. The question is often asked, “why should YOU pelple get to keep your jobs”, to which I reply, we trained long and hard in order to teach your children, so work with, not against us.
Sorry for the typos- I’m not a “bad teacher.”