To my community,
I attended the teacher’s strike yesterday. I spoke with CTU Union Reps, Teachers, parents like myself, and many other people. I have learned that we have all been misled into bashing these teachers. I feel so horrible for calling on everyone to rally against them. What I found out from those assigned to the bargaining table is offensive to say the least. THE CITY REFUSED to bargain with the CTU, and even WALKED OUT on the bargaining sessions. CTU and these teachers have been faithful to their bargaining meetings prior to the strike. I also found out that over the past 25 years, the city has refused to bargain or even communicate honestly with the CTU.
There is more to the story! I found out from a teacher who wishes to remain anonymous that the reason we have a violence problem in our schools is because the discipline offices in most schools have been discarding the documents they use to create a record of student incidents, and especially those involving violence. This means the students who need help and need an alternate learning environment are slipping through the cracks. I found out that many teachers have filed union grievances which are legal documents, just like a lawsuit is a legal document.
When the discipline offices write up an incident and then trash the paperwork instead of filing it, the incident doesn’t get place din the student’s file. When a student is suspended, the suspension paperwork is there in the file, but NOT the discipline records. This leads to students being undetected by police, courts, mental health professionals, parents, etc.
I want to apologize to our Logan Square teachers for not knowing enough, and using a lack of information to cry for a rally against all of you. While it is true that I have had bad experiences with CPS both as a student and a parent, I found out why those experiences happened, and it wasn’t because of the teachers…it was because of city politics which barred them from doing anything more than a minimum to cooperate with me.
I have found out that there exists a VERY hostile work environment for our city’s teachers. I found out why CPS cries for parent involvement and then shuns or even bullies those parents who do get involved with the schools and their kids’ education. That reason has to do with our Mayors, our city council, and CPS execs wanting our kids and our parents to literally shut up and go away. They care about money, they care about statistics, and all this past 25 years has been a run on our public schools and teachers to close them down and privatize it all. Laurie is right in her statement here on the list. Do NOT discount her!
I have found that I have had to re-teach the lessons to my kids at home that they were taught in school because there is a purposeful lack of real information being given to our kids from th etextbooks, and teachers are barred from teaching real history and real facts from the books. It was only yesterday that I found all of this out and learned why I have to re-teach school lessons to my kids so they learn the correct information.
The city and our city leaders, and CPS execs have been falsifying information to the public, the media, parents, students, and anyone else they talk to. Robin Potter, you and your law firm were right when you spoke up here on the list. Please accept this as my change of heart from new facts learned at the strike from those directly involved in all of this. I sincerely apologize, and ask that everyone realize that I am only human, I am prone to mistakes just like you are.
I urge everyone to support our teachers citywide!
– Dan
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Fred Klonsky 
No offense, Fred, but this should be posted everywhere there is a wall, bulletin board, or
empty space. This covers issues that are pandemic in America. There is a concerted effort by the wingnuts and corporations to make our kids uninformed, uneducated, and just plain stupid. From textbooks that aren’t to curricula that can’t to administrations that won’t, our school systems are racing to the bottom.
Why would I take offense?
Dan, I hope you are looking back at Fred’s blog to read the responses to your letter. Thank you for your heartfelt apologies. I hope this goes viral, as Xian Barrett’s letter. You are big to admit that you made a mistake, just as has Diane Ravitch, the great education historian who was once a proponent of NCLB. Now–after she had seen the devastation it has wrought public schools and their children ALL over this country,–she too admitted she made a mistake–a HUGE one–and she has been shouting this from sea to shining sea.
The sad part of this is–the politicians who are responsible for the wrong-headed advance of this program (now known as Race to the Top) REFUSE to acknowledge the mistake–a mistake which is costing our children their very childhood and futures, and their teachers their livelihood. The public schools are being starved economically (did you know that $76
million was earmarked for charter schools in Chicago?) in order to CAUSE them to fail, based on faulty “standardized” tests. (I would urge you, Dan, & EVERYONE out there to read Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry by Todd Farley (2009, PoliPointPress, paperback, 242 fast-moving hilarious–but heartbreaking– pages {a quick read, I promise you!}–can be found in libraries, $16.95 in bookstores, less on Amazon). This book will tell you how ridiculous these tests are & how incompetent many graders (of written response) are, and how the scores are juked. And THESE tests (which
are costing school districts around the country BILLIONS of $$$) are what our schools and teachers are being judged on and fired for and, ultimately, the public school closed down.
Obviously, I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Our children are being taught tests, learning very little in the process. There was, in fact, a recent enterpreneurship conference in Manhattan (it cost $1,500 to get in) on how to make money from the education “industry.” Google it–I think Stephanie Symons (sp.-?) from Reuters wrote an article about it. Or–find it on “Diane Ravitch’s Blog” or in Valerie Strauss’ “The Answer Sheet” (The Washington Post on-line).
For you parents out there–Dan, join Parents United for Responsible Education (right here in Chicago! Founder Julie Woestehoff, co-founder of the national org. Parents Across
America {P.A.A.}). Look them up & join up. Second order of business, here? (CTU Strike first!) Help organize a protest to fictional, anti-public school, parent-trigger film “Won’t Back
Down,” opening September 28th in Chicago.