The late Chicago alderman, Vito Marzullo.
When teachers and boards of education enter into negotiations there is a script that is followed.
Teachers, like employees everywhere, want a yearly raise. This is natural because the cost of things never comes down.
As the late Chicago Machine 25th ward alderman Vito Marzullo used to say, “Everything-a goin’ up. Only da rain and snow a comin’ down.”
To cover increases in the cost of living CPS teachers have already negotiated a 4% pay raise for the coming year. But Rahm the Bomb ordered his hand-picked members of the board of education to rescind the raise. This has caused CTU President Karen Lewis to demand a reopener of contract negotiations.
According to the script, the board goes to the local media and says that even without the 4% the teachers are already getting a raise because of their automatic salary schedule step increase.
It happens every time. Our Park Ridge board does the same thing every time we negotiate a contract. We call the cost of living increase our raise. They call the step increase plus the cost of living increase our raise.
The media takes the board side every time. So we have the Sun-Times saying this in yesterday’s news story:
Even without the four percent previously-negotiated raises, 75 percent of all teachers will get automatic raises of between 1 percent and 5 percent for adding another year of experience or for increasing their credentials.
The folks reading this at home say, “What the hell? Teachers get an automatic pay increase each year! I don’t get an automatic pay increase each year.”
But here is what the Sun-Times never says. Because of the nature of teaching, I don’t have the opportunity for a promotion. It doesn’t matter how great a teacher I am. It doesn’t matter if I have a degree from Harvard or Paducah State. If I want to stay in the classroom teaching kids and not become, God forgive, an administrator, there’s no such thing as a promotion. In the private sector, someone with my years of experience, training and degrees would get a new title. Maybe a corner office. And more money.
But not in teaching. As a result, built into the salary schedule is a periodic increase. A step up in the salary schedule.
Some people use this to argue for merit pay. But mainly what it does is keep good teachers in the classroom instead of becoming paper pushing Type 75s.
Of course, it begs the question, if the Rahm the Bomb can’t afford a salary increase, where would the money for the merit pay or longer school day come from?
Fred Klonsky 
I guess it only stands to reason, Fred. That the same kids who so obviously failed to exploit the talents of their own teachers should, in response to the vacissitudes of adult life, wish to more fully exploit your enormous surplus values as child care workers. It’s Slacker Capitalism, Dude: Slack to the Future.
Excellent blog Fred! Don’t forget those at the top don’t usually get a salary step.
I have never once encountered a merit pay-pusher who didn’t also want to decrease the overal expenditure for education. The two go hand-in-hand, politically.
I have never once encountered a merit pay-pusher who didn’t also want to decrease the overal expenditure for education. The two go hand-in-hand, politically, as far as I can tell.
Merit Pay? Easy… lower teacher’s salaries to a so-called base pay, much less than step 1A on a typical salary schedule (which in my high C of L district is $42,600) and pay the difference as “merit pay” based on test scores. Maybe you’ll earn it and maybe you won’t. Course if you don’t, you’re also fired. Teachers as salespeople… working on commission. Have I got a deal for you…
That’s the plan, Stan! I can’t count how many negotiations have started with our board proposing a “step O,” below a present entry level step 1. But unlike our state leadership, we know how to say, “no.”
I think the important thing to look at here is not so much the denial of raises. There are two issues that I see. First CPS has not, to my knowledge, allowed a thorough, forensic audit of its budget to actually prove it has a deficit. I don’t doubt they have one. I doubt the $720 million they claim they have. I have heard no mention of cuts to the area offices. These have become another layer of beauracracy and patronage between the central office and the schools. The Chief Area Officers (CAO) make between $120,000 to $160,000 and they don’t have to have education credentials. I am not sure what the area office budgets are but I would assume they run into the “several” millions. I hear the question over and over again from teachers, “What do the CAOs do?” There are several stories on Substance and District 299 about the dictatorial styles and wasteful spending of the CAOs. From what I understand while CPS claims it has made cuts to central office I have heard no mention of cuts to the area offices.
The second issue is this continues the demoralizing attack on teachers and teachers unions. It continues the rhetoric that de-professionalizes us. One of my favorite lines from HBO’s The Wire is when Herk is telling Bunk about a hearing he is about to have. Bunk replies to him, “Son. They’re going to beat on you like a mule.” That’s the way I feel. We are constantly told that we don’t work hard enough. Then we’re told we don’t deserve our “generous” benefits. But then at the end of the beating we are told how much respect we have for our teachers. This happened at least twice this week in press releases and letters CPS teachers received from Board President David Vitale and CEO Jean Claude Brizzard as they talked about rescinding our raises. I also received this personally on Thursday as our equivalent to the CAO spoke to our staff. In one breath he praised our staff for a second straight year of test score gains and then in the next breath basically told us it wasn’t good enough.
The great majority of teachers work hard and really care about their students. We didn’t get into teaching for the pay. But when you come at us and take away collective bargaining rights that allow us to advocate for our students and try to build a long lasting relationship with our schools our students and schools in turn lose also. When you tell us you want to take away our pensions and raises for a financial mess we did not create and then have your mayor tell you that, “You got a raise and students got the shaft” you demoralize and de-professionalize us. I just wonder what it will take for us to be considered worthy of what we earn. When will we be seen as stallions as opposed to mules?