The Chicago Board of Education just voted to approve raising class sizes to 35, and subsequently eliminating teaching positions, numbered in the thousands. The Republican across the hall at work came into my classroom today and asked facetiously, "So do you have 35 desks in your classroom?" Also, facetiously, I turned and counted the rows of 5 in my room, "Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty....." I paused at this point because I was frankly surprised. Then I said, "Thirty-five." With the one extra desk by the wall, not in a row, the total came to thirty-six. Mind you, I was surprised. I have had thirty-one desks in my room for the better part of the year. At one time I had thirty-two, but one disappeared mysteriously. Now, just as mysteriously, an extra row of five desks had appeared in my classroom overnight.
It would appear that CPS has made their decision and the administration of my particular school has begun to comply with that decision. Oddly, the guy across the hall did not have thirty-five desks and I did. Makes a guy begin to wonder whether administration has it in for him or not. "Congrats Mr. Ray. In light of the new classroom size guidelines, you have been chosen as the first recipient of an outrageously oversized class. Thought we'd try it out on you first. See how it flies." What the @#&*(!?
Meanwhile I have seen reference in the Chicago Sun-Times for two days running that this is a power play. It seems that the downtown people have agreed to give all teachers the 4% cost of living raise that is in the current contract. There will just be a lot fewer teachers to receive said raise. The suggestion is that if teachers are willing to forgo the 4% raise, jobs will be saved. On the other side a hardass no budge woman was just elected President of the Chicago Teachers Union and judging by her stance, a strike could be imminent come fall. I believe this is the point where references to rocks and hard places usually come in.
Then there is the money that comes from the state. Just last week I was part of a group of teachers who were chosen to meet with the Assistant Secretary of Education, Carmel Martin. This guy is Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan's right-hand man, and the "go to guy" on promoting the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Mr. Martin specifically mentioned that as a part of the revamped, reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act, money would be included to help avoid the sort of mass layoffs of teachers we are talking about here.
Of course this money has to be approved by the Congress of the United States and we all know how lightning fast they move to approve money for such projects. There will be Republicans decrying the downfall of the republic due to money being given to lazy-ass, do-nothing teachers who are failing our children and deserve to be fired. With a sizable Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, some watered-down version of this bill will be passed, eventually. Then the money will be filtered down to the state level for distribution. Before it can be distributed the state General Assembly will have to wail and gnash some teeth, going through a process similar to that that was described on the national level. By the time any actual money reaches the Chicago Public Schools, a couple thousand teachers will have been relieved of their employment, and if the central office administration can play the public sentiment correctly, the remaining, employed teachers will have to forgo their 4% cost of living raises to boot.
In a best case scenario, the extra money from the feds will be filtered down to CPS and the Board of Ed and the Teachers Union will work out some reasonable compromise. This would probably look like, oh I don't know, maybe a 2-3% raise instead of the usual 4%. Classroom size will be increased to maybe 30, instead of 35 and both sides will be able to crow about how the other side was being stubborn and intransigent, but hard-nosed sticktoitiveness from their side (Choose one.) averted near disaster.
All of that being said, I anticipate returning to work after the summer and finding that I will make a little more than I did this year, but not that much. I anticipate that a larger class size will be de rigeur, but I already had two freshman classes with over thirty kids in them this year. Officially we had a twenty-eight max this year, but I had 33 and 32, respectively, in two classes. So much for the union watching my back.
What we have here is a lot of posturing for the press and for the public on both sides. The reality of how it will play out is basically predictable. Can we just cut to the chase and get it over?
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