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9486 in the collection
Thousands jam Loop streets protesting attacks on public schools, Board of Education budget cuts
Elementary Teacher Comment: Interestingly enough, the 10 pm news gave only 15-20 seconds to this event. It came from Channel 5, after a longer piece highlighting Mayor Daley vowing not to raise taxes and explaining how city employees were taking furlough days to help reduce budget deficits. If you blinked you would have missed the news on the rally entirely. All you might have seen was a thin crowd walking around City Hall and Marilyn Stewart's press conference rather than the massive never ending crowd blocking the streets!
This reporter says he came away from the protest exhilarated — not only by the excitement of confronting the Mayor, Huberman, and the school board, but by a sense of power and unity one could scarcely guess had lain dormant in this union of 30,000 educators. May this spirit spread to other cities.
by Nate Goldbaum
At least 5,000 teachers, students and families took the streets of downtown Chicago to send a message to Mayor Daley and Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Ron Huberman that we won't accept his fuzzy math, nor the layoffs and class size increases he's proposed. The massive march and rallies (there were several stops) took place on the afternoon of May 25, 2010. Educators and families in the schools are furious that Huberman has proposed raising official class sizes from 30 to 35. This would result in thousands of teachers losing their positions and a significant decline in the quality of education that teachers could provide. These threats are clearly meant to pressure teachers into giving up the 4 percent raises promised in our contract, on top of increased health insurance deductions permitted by contract loopholes.
Clark Street became a sea of red shirts and signs demanding that the Board of Education stop treating students "like sardines."
Hand-made posters also attacked the proposed cuts to World Language and Bilingual Education as well as targeting Daley's TIF coffers. The most popular chant on the march was simply "Save Our Schools", but the massive crowd also took up chants like "Mayor Daley we're no fools, use TIF money to save our schools." Popular refrains included, "They say cut back, we say fight back" and "Bankers got bailed out, schools got sold out."
Although the marchers demonstrated amazing unity, the event was marred by partisan maneuvering related to the June 11 CTU runoff election. As many readers know, the first round in the election resulted in two of the five slates — CORE and UPC — with the highest number of votes, but no clear majority for citywide offices. The result is a runoff for most offices and executive board positions in the 30,000-member union.
That second vote scheduled to be held on June 11 will pit the incumbent's UPC (United Progressive Caucus) against Karen Lewis' CORE (Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators) for leadership of the union.
King High School Chemistry teacher Karen Lewis became the front runner in the race for the presidency of the Chicago Teachers Union on May 25, just before the rally, when the CTU finally published the results of the May 21 voting for union offices in Chicago's public schools. The results showed that Lewis's CORE ticket had won the city's high school decisively in the first round of the voting.
Leaders of community groups that form GEM (Grassroots Education Movement) held joint meetings with leaders of CORE and the current leadership of the CTU. Yet, CORE activists allege that the agreed logistics were not carried out by Stewart and the Sergeants-at-Arms who were charged with leading the march.
CORE Co-chair Jackson Potter told one reporter, "We met two times in the last two weeks, and we struggled through some issues [to reach agreements], but eventually, the union leadership pulled out of virtually all those agreements..." While the CTU's official representatives had argued that there be no rally addressing the crowd, Stewart led an "impromptu" rally in front of TV cameras at 125 South Clark Street without allowing any opportunity for CORE speakers. CTU leadership had also agreed to hold a joint press conference but reneged on that agreement, as well.
Ironically, Stewart's watchword was "Unity": "United we stand, divided we beg," quipped the current CTU President. Like her dozens of "informational meetings" in schools across the city these past weeks, Marilyn Stewart used a "non-partisan" forum for self-promotion. She made no acknowledgment that the initiative for the protest, as well as a great deal of the mobilization, came from CORE members.
CORE members had fanned out across the city in the weeks leading up to this event, combining their campaign for union offices with promoting the rally. They stuffed teachers' mailboxes with nearly 30,000 full-color posters that the caucus had designed and purchased to inform members about untapped CPS funds and to promote the rally. The CTU faxed delegates and sent emails as promotion.
CORE and other activists within the Chicago Teachers Union spend part of their time during the May 25 marches and rallies discussing union politics. Above (left to right) Red Hajiharis, Linda Porter, and Jackson Potter. Hajiharis and Porter ran for CTU President in the recent five-way race and are now out of the race for the June 11 runoffs, which will be between the incumbent Marilyn Stewart and CORE candidate Karen Lewis. Linda Porter and her CSDU caucus endorsed CORE immediately after learning of the preliminary voting results showing that CSDU was running behind. Substance photo by Garth Liebhaber.Despite the maneuvering of the current CTU leadership at the rally, the sentiment of thousands of marchers clearly was unity — and power. The crowd seemed tireless as they marched from CPS headquarters up to the County Building and back again. Their shouts and cheers echoed off the skyscraper walls as marchers took the streets. One rumor has it that Mayor Daley himself was delayed from leaving City Hall by the multitudes who'd stopped traffic. One can only imagine what "Daleyisms" he might have muttered under his breath.
This reporter came away from the protest exhilarated — not only by the excitement of confronting the Mayor, Huberman, and the school board, but by a sense of power and unity one could scarcely guess had lain dormant in this union of 30,000 educators. Does this action portend a reawakening among Chicago's teachers and a revival of the CTU? Let's hope so.
Without specifying the Chicago Transit Authority cronies that Ron Huberman brought into the school system at a cost of more than $10 million a year ago, teachers knew that the city's massive bureaucracy was not only incompetent without any knowledge of the schools, but also expensive at a time when teachers are facing huge class size increases and other cuts. Substance photo by Garth Liebhaber.The crowds were estimated at between 5,000 and 10,000 people, according to Substance reporters and photographers who covered different parts of the lengthy protests. Most of the protesters were public school teachers and students. They jammed Chicago's Loop between City Hall, the State of Illinois building, and the headquarters of the Chicago Board of Education.
The march and rallies took place at various locations in downtown Chicago between 4:00 p.m. and as late as 6:00 p.m.
The march and rallies, which were organized by the Chicago Teachers Union and various community and union groups, including CORE (the Caucus of Rank and File Educators), resulted in police blocking several city streets between Randolph and Clark streets (north of City Hall at the Thompson State of Illinois Building) to City Hall (on Washington St. south of City Hall, where a large crowd filled the street for an impromptu rally) to the headquarters of the Chicago Public Schools at 125 S. Clark St., four blocks south of City Hall. At CPS, speakers demanded the ouster of schools CEO Ron Huberman and denounced his budget numbers as lies.
Buses were organized by local schools and (some) by the Chicago Teachers Union.
At one point, according to witnesses who spoke with Substance, Mayor Richard M. Daley's limosine was stuck in traffic because of the protests, which he was trying to avoid and ignore.
— Nate Goldbaum
Substance
2010-05-26
http://substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1430§ion=Article
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
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