Education Week - May 18, 2016 - 18

Tensions Rise
In Windy City
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

Photography by Alyssa Schukar for Education Week

nancial problems. They include Duncan and
Ron Huberman, Duncan's successor. Duncan,
until recently the U.S. secretary of education,
did not return several requests for comment.
Huberman declined an interview request.
Even so, many of the ministers who gathered
at a community center on the city's West Side
last month to call on state lawmakers for school
funding are not interested in assigning blame.
Their pews are filled with teachers, school
counselors, parents, and students; taking sides
would be too divisive. And the crisis is too urgent and the stakes too high to be distracted by
fingerpointing, they say.
"I really don't care who is at fault, my biggest thing is finding a solution-finding a
solution for our children, finding a solution
for our future, finding a solution for our communities," said Angelina Zayas, a pastor and
the executive director of Grace and Peace
Community Center.

Claypool wants teachers to help make a dent
by paying more into their pensions. The union
counters that the city has failed to tap available revenue-raising avenues, such as releasing local development dollars and establishing
a swath of new taxes.
"None of those things are preferable to progressive revenue solutions, ... but you make
the bed you sleep in," the union's Potter said.
"We've been saying these things all along, and
mum was the word. They'd rather try and lower
the cost curve and cut pensions and impose
mass layoffs and mass school closings."

Racial Subtext
The ministers' gathering was powerful, beginning and ending with prayers, rich with
the cadences of African-American church
services. One pastor quoted the book of Nehemiah, 4:13: "Fight for your sons, fight for
your daughters."
When his turn came to speak, Claypool underscored the crisis' racial subtext, at one point
holding up a framed copy of a 1954 New York
Times front page featuring the U.S. Supreme
Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
The district's efforts to build support among
the black community's religious leaders comes
as one sign that it recognizes the need for more
allies, if belatedly.
Even under Democratic governors, the disparities continued. The district did push during the recent tenures of Govs. Rod Blagojevich
and Pat Quinn, both Democrats, for a more equitable funding formula and pension parity, Vitale contends, but not as publicly or effectively
as it might have done.
Now, any fixes to state funding must be approved by Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican,
who has bluntly called for a district bank-

Union Digs In

ruptcy and a state takeover rather than a
so-called "bailout."
Some downstate and suburban lawmakers also flinch at the idea of a funding fix,
especially Republicans and those representing suburban districts that would stand to
receive less in state funding under a school

finance rewrite.
While the conflict between the city and
state looms large, there's also a third major
player in this crisis: the Chicago Teachers
Union. Its vision for who should bear the pain
while a state fix is negotiated differs markedly from the city's.

CONTRACTUAL STICKING POINTS
CITY REVENUE

The Chicago Teachers Union wants the district to back some
of its proposals for raising more revenue, including:
* Releasing tax-increment financing, or TIF. TIF is an
economic-development tool created to establish special
funding for targeted areas in the city for 23-year periods.
During that time, much tax revenue created by propertyvalue increases is swept into the TIF district and used
for development, rather than collected by taxing bodies.
Critics, including the teachers' union, argue that the TIF
has siphoned off funds that otherwise would have gone to
schools. The Chicago district says that considerable TIF
money has been spent on school construction.
* Restoring or introducing ride-sharing-service taxes, hotel
taxes, and personal-property-lease taxes, among others.
* Suing banks that offered the district risky financial
products.

CONTRACT LENGTH

The district seeks a four-year pact, while the union
wants a two-year deal.

PENSION PICKUP

Technically, teachers are supposed to pay 9 percent
of their salaries into pensions. But under a 1981 labor
agreement, teachers put in just 2 percent, while the
district covers the rest. The district wants teachers to
pay the full share; the union says that would amount to a
7 percent pay cut.

SALARIES AND BENEFITS

The district has offered an 8.75 pay increase over four
years, plus the restoration of "step and lane" premiums,
which were canceled in 2015 when the contract expired.
The union counters that ending the pension pickup and
raising health-care contributions would reduce salaries
by the end of a four-year contract.

CLASS SIZES

The most recent district offer contains retirement
incentives for teachers. The union says it won't agree
to policies that shrink the teaching force. To help guard
against member losses, it wants the new contract to
enforce maximum class sizes.

Negotiations over a teacher contract, expired
for nearly a year now, seem to have stalled.
The union's "big bargaining committee"--an
appointed panel of educators from its various
divisions-in February rejected the city's latest
contract offer before it was put to the rank and
file, citing a lack of trust that the district would
keep up its end of the bargain. It also scotched
an independent fact-finder's report in April that
took the district's offer as its starting point.
The CTU maintains the offer had fundamental flaws by not guarding against more lost positions. But there are political considerations
shaping the union's response, too.
"Karen is under a lot of pressure to make a
deal, but if she's going to make it, she's buying
CPS' reality about the financial mess," said Jim
Vail, a union delegate and former big bargaining-committee member.
Both the district and union have individually lobbied in Springfield for fixes to the state's
funding formula. Yet Claypool and Lewis have
not joined forces to make the case to state lawmakers Springfield together.
In December, teachers overwhelmingly approved a strike vote, though the union now says
a strike by the end of the school year is unlikely.
Nearly all teachers support the union, though
that support is hardly a blank check.
Alejandra Marquez, a 2nd grade teacher
at R.H. Lee Elementary School, thinks the
CTU should stand firm on its demand for
class-size limits. But she also sees room for
compromises-like gradually increasing
teachers' share of the pension cost-in areas
that continue to be sticking points for the city
and union.
"What bothers me the most is that they do
not have our children's best interests at heart,"
Marquez said about the district. "I think if that
were the case, they would listen to the educators,
and I don't feel that they do. Honestly, I don't feel
CTU listens to us most of the time, either."
During the seven-day strike in 2012, public opinion largely favored the union. And a

Education Week - May 18, 2016

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