Jim Broadway reports in his Illinois School Policy Update the next few weeks will be crucial to the future of teacher tenure and seniority rights in the state.
Illinois teachers will be under the gun in Aurora Thursday and Friday when the new House Education Reform Committee holds perhaps its only hearings before legislators are asked to consider its findings in early January.
Although the committee postings are conspicuously silent on the topics – no bills are assigned to the panel, and just a blank space follows the words “subject matter.”
The agenda:
Thursday’s 1 p.m. topics will be “Streamlining Teacher Dismissal, Reforming Teacher Tenure, Linking Layoffs to Performance, and Mutual Consent in Teacher Placement.” Friday’s 10 a.m. event will cover “Strike Reform and Enhanced School Report Card.”
Whoa! Someone took “Waiting for Superman” seriously.
As to format, four “panels” will make 30-minute presentations each to committee members. In order of appearance for both hearings, the panels are described as: “Education Reform”; Unions; School Management; and “Miscellaneous.”
After up to two hours of presentations, the panel members will be questioned by legislators on the committee. The agenda (received – indirectly – from Advance Illinois) includes no “public comment” opportunity. If you go, you’ll just get to watch.
The Illinois Math and Science Academy (Lecture Hall), 1500 W. Sullivan Rd., Aurora is the venue for both hearings.
What is at stake?
Questions arise. Who set the agenda? Who decided whom to invite? Why isn’t the committee meeting at the Capitol? Are the committee’s “findings” already drafted? And exactly who are these “miscellaneous” people?
Perhaps we’ll learn the answers in Aurora. Hope to see you there.
What will come of all this? We won’t learn that this week, but a battle royal seems on the horizon. The teachers’ unions are said to be bracing for a fight, drawing lines in the sand and calling in their chits. A rumble is likely in Springfield, January 3-11.
Those eight days represent the best chance for the General Assembly to generate revenue to address the state’s fiscal crisis (raise taxes). To do that in a bipartisan way, the majority Democrats will have to give something to the Republican caucuses.
That “something” may include a pound of the teachers’ flesh.
The leadership of the state’s two teachers unions have to take a hard line. While the rank-and-file teachers should contact their legislators on these issues, in the end it is the leadership that must do the heavy lifting. Each legislator and the governor must know that there will be consequences if the rights of teachers are surrendered. And the leadership must know that there will be consequences for them as well.
Fred Klonsky 