Campaign puts Trib on the defense. “We love $100K teachers!”
What a bunch of assholes!
Obviously stung by the campaign to cancel subscriptions and internet links to the Tribune company, the paper runs and editorial today that is so defensive it would make a Blagojevich attorney blush.
“We love $100,000 teachers,” the editorial board proclaims.
Right.
The Trib argues that they would be for every teacher getting more money if only “poor performance wasn’t protected by union contracts.”
Okay, my brothers and sisters on the editorial board. Here’s my offer. I’ve been teaching for 25 years and negotiated more than half a dozen union contracts. I don’t make $100,000 a year. But I’ll bet a year’s salary if you can find any language in our contract that protects poor teacher performance.
In fact, our evaluation language, which was negotiated between our board and our union, lists over 90 specific objective characteristics that define quality instruction that administrators MUST use in assessing teacher performance.
Has any member of the Tribune editorial board ever even read a teacher union contract?
One last thing. Today’s Trib editorial mentions Park Ridge as one of the suburbs that pays its teachers a hundred grand.
Nope.
Perhaps they meant District 207, the high school district that covers a number of towns in the Northwest suburbs. Some of District 207 teachers, who have worked over 20 years and have earned the maximum in professional development credits, make that kind of money.
But the only Park Ridge school district is mine. District 64 has nearly 400 teachers. None earn $100,000 on the salary schedule.
Apparently if you’re still reading the Trib, it’s your job to figure out what they mean when they print something as a fact.
Facts seem to be difficult things.
For the Chicago Tribune.
I am so happy to read this blog Fred that I could jump for joy if my hip would let me! We need to keep being diligent and stand up for ourselves. Let’s continue to boycott the Trib until they holler “uncle”and see the light! Keep up the good work!
I live in a decent sized city, and have a friend who retired a few years ago at $82,000, AFTER 33 years of service and in conjunciton with a quasi admiinistrative job. If he’d been simply on a teacher’s scale, it wouldn’t have been that much. People need facts before they jump on something , as was exhibited this week in the Sherrod case. Cancellation of subscriptions was just the ticket!!!
That’s the same line of crap they always trudge out. Unions protect the contract for all members. The notion that they should follow the rules for only selected teachers is ridiculous on its face. It’s like saying only the innocent deserve a defense. In fact, it’s like saying no one is innocent, because we’ve pressed charges against these people and they are therefore guilty, or “bad teachers.”
Arne Duncan gets paid over 100K, and you never hear these folks complaining about his utter incompetence, or that of Bill Gates, or Wal-Mart, or whoever pays for these “reforms” that never help kids.
The Trib is actually worse than that. The Trib suggests that union contracts provide purposeful protection of poor performance, that the intent of union contracts is to protect poor performance. But ours (and not only ours) defines and promotes quality performance. Which is one of the reasons that the best, highest quality schools are union schools.
The Trib has a long time history of union bashing. Several years ago, when Jacob Loeb was Supt. of CPS, teachers who joined unions were fired. The Trib supported this in their editorials. I got this bit of knowledge from a friend who has written and published articles on union history.
Whoops, forgot to mention Loeb was Supt. after World War I. Now, that’s a long time to be bashing unions.
They say absolutely whatever they feel like about union contracts, and they do it everywhere. Bill Gates, hero of the AFT, said the norm was principals are not permitted to observe teachers. He said they could do it once a year if they had permission. Contracts protect everyone, and it’s the job of the union to enforce the contract for all members. The implication they should do otherwise is like the Texan from Catch 22 who thought decent folk should get more votes than other people–indecent folk.
Great comparison to Catch 22!
So the wager is on the table. I bet them a year’s salary that they couldn’t find any language in our contract that protects poor teaching performance. In fact, we are specifically prohibited from grieving the content of an evaluation. On the other hand, we are legally required to protect a teacher’s due process rights. Is the Tribune opposed to teachers having due process?