Smash-up over Chicago schools
What happens when the irresistible force meets the immovable object? A force such as Mayor Rahm Emanuel, pushing to expand the school day without a proportional hike in salaries. Which puts him on a collision course with Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, in the role of immovable object.
The contract for the 30,000-member CTU expires June 30. Emanuel has said that when they get a new one, teachers will work more without the big raise they typically get.
Lewis says that won’t happen — the leaked initial union request was 30 percent. To show they are serious, the CTU says 150 schools approved a strike in a mock vote.
With that image — the onrushing express of Emanuel, the boulderon-the-tracks of Lewis — I spoke to both on Friday to try to figure out what’s going to happen next.
I started with Lewis, telling her that in the war of public opinion, in my opinion, the union is getting clobbered. A 30 percent pay raise, really? Even as a pie-in-the-sky, ask-for-the-moon-and-settle-forCleveland opening gambit, that strikes the average working Joe as excessive and out of touch.
“It’s not 30 percent,” Lewis said. “No, we didn’t ask for 30 percent.”
I hadn’t quite expected that response — that’s the figure the newspapers reported, the figure the city is waving like a red flag.
“They have to make a big splash,” she said.
Whatever the true figure — and I’ve talked to people who’ve seen it — workers are giving back. The newspaper guild, to pick a random example, gave up its pension, its seniority and took a 15 percent pay cut three years ago.
“We’re never going to win when we start comparing,” she said, perhaps with unconscious prophecy, shifting into a mocking voice: “‘I got a 15 percent pay cut!’ ‘I don’t have a pension!’ That isn’t what we’re interested in. We’re interested in a better school system.”
Isn’t that what Emanuel wants, too?
“We are dealing with someone who wants to come in and make a whole lot of pronouncements and move on,” Lewis said, denying the mayor’s frequent claim that Chicago schools have the shortest day and year in the nation.
“That has been said so much, but it’s not true,” she said. “To take a page from the mayor’s book, if you just say the same thing over and over again, people will believe it’s true.”
“Are you saying the mayor is lying?”
“Absolutely,” she said. In her view, the school day debate is really “all about shaming and humiliating teachers and blaming teachers for things out of control. This isn’t about what’s best for kids; it’s a political plan.”
Lewis said the mayor ignores the needs of schoolchildren, and for a shocking reason.
“Who’s populating the schools?” she asked. “The blacks and Latinos — 92 percent. And not just color. These are working class. Those are not the people who come to mind if you look at who the mayor listens to, who he caters to.”
I’ll confess, I was eager to talk to Rahm Emanuel after this — Howdy, Mr. Mayor, the president of the CTU says you’re a liar who doesn’t care about children of color.
“The one thing I always said when it comes to education,” Emanuel replied, “I take the quote from Dr. King, ‘the fierce urgency of now.’ The whole focus of everybody is talking about politics. I want everybody to stop making personal charges and deal with the classroom. Take that shorter school day, and a school year that is the shortest . . . ” But Lewis says that isn’t true. “I don’t want to debate the length of the day,” he said. “I want to discuss how to better use it. Here’s constantly this desire to stay stuck with the status quo. I’ve been to schools where they’re combining math and science because there’s not enough time in the day, not enough in the week. We do have the shortest day, and we are
A force such as Mayor Rahm Emanuel, pushing to expand the school day without a proportional hike in salaries. Which puts him on a collision course with Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, in the role of immovable object.
going to lengthen the day so it isn’t a choice of math vs. science. My view is let’s stop debating it, let’s have a fuller discussion how to best utilize it. The high school graduation rate is 54 percent. How could anyone want the status quo?”
But how are you going to negotiate with someone who says these outrageous things?
“I don’t listen to the noise,” he said. “I focus on the classroom and put my attention on what is needed there. We have really great teachers, and they need to be liberated from a system that is broken so they can teach.”
What’s the bottom line? Lewis is obviously passionate. “I am so committed to what this school system can be,” she said. She also has a habit of spraying reckless accusations and might be leading teachers off a cliff. And the mayor is a buzzsaw who seems to have already cut the union off at the knees. So to get back to my original question: In this case, the immovable object will eventually move.