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Referred Law 16 Worse Than Policy Driving Chicago Teachers to Strike

In a Facebook post, Rep. Rev. Steve Hickey (R-9/Sioux Falls) got me thinking about the possible impact of the Chicago teachers' strike on the campaign to overturn Governor Dennis Daugaard's terrible, horrible, no-good education reform law (Referred Law 16 on our November ballot). Chicago and South Dakota are worlds apart in labor policy, but Chicago teachers are striking over less than the harm Referred Law 16 would do to our schools.

The two major sticking points that have driven Chicago teachers to the picket line are a teacher recall policy and test-based teacher evaluations. The recall policy was part of a deal the Chicago Teachers Union thought they had with Chicago Public Schools: the union agreed to accept longer working days, and CPS agreed to rehire 500 teachers who'd been laid off. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is now backing away from CPS's side of that deal. Nothing in Governor Daugaard's education plan aligns with this recall plan.

Where Governor Daugaard's plan does find some parallel in what's got Chicago teachers hot is a new teacher evaluation system promoted by Chicago's own President Barack Obama. The rating system will count student test scores as 30% of every teacher's evaluation.

At a downtown rally Monday, Rick Sawicki, a seventh- grade teacher at Evergreen Middle School, said it's unfair to tie a teacher's evaluation to student performance. He compared it to a coach not being able to pick the members of his team but still being evaluated on how they do on the field.

"There are a lot of factors that go into a child's education that is not reflected in test scores," he said. "Children are more to me than their test scores" [Bill Ruthhart and Diane Rado, "Job Security at Heart of Two Stumbling Blocks," Chicago Tribune, September 11, 2012].

Basing 30% of their evaluation on bubble tests is bad enough to drive Chicago teachers to the streets. Governor Daugaard would impose a statewide teacher evaluation system that bases 50% of teachers' ratings on bubble tests. I wouldn't blame any teacher for striking over such bad policy.

But anyone laboring under the illusion that South Dakota's teacher union exercises anything like the power of the Chicago Teachers Union needs a reality check. South Dakota law prohibits teachers from striking. South Dakota's teacher union has nothing like the power of unions elsewhere. For example, here in Spearfish, my school board just finalized our contract for this year. The local union argued for more benefits but could not reach an agreement with the board. The board thus wrote the contract itself and imposed it unilaterally. There will be no strike; we'll just keep teaching and send some polite folks to say "Please? Pretty please?" next spring. Those who find the working conditions imposed from above unacceptable will simply seek other employment.

The same will happen if voters allow Governor Daugaard's Referred Law 16 to stand. South Dakota teachers cannot and will not strike. They'll just stop working in South Dakota schools for good and take their talents to other economic sectors or, worse, to other states.

The Chicago teachers' strike highlights just one toxic tendril, the reliance on standardized tests to evaluate teachers, of Governor Daugaard's counterproductive Referred Law 16. Whatever the outcome in Chicago, South Dakota has plenty of its own reasons to reject Governor Daugaard's bad ideas for our schools.

18 Comments

  1. DB 2012.09.11

    Chicago is a bit of a different story. These teachers make on average 76k plus benefits. They were offered a 16% raise over 4 years in a school district that has a $665M deficit and an unfunded pension plan. Now, remember, the Chicago school district averages a 40-50% dropout rate, with some schools being as high as 85%. Last year, they celebrated an overall graduation rate of 60% for the first time......ever. Then again, you can thank the charter schools for that. They seem to be the only ones who can keep kids in school. The unions aren't big fans of the charter schools, but why would they when their teachers aren't paying them to do nothing. But hey, they spent $160m over 6 years from 1995-2001 with Annenberg Challenge Money and that still couldn't do anything.

    I guess I fail to see why they are striking because their results are right there for everyone to see.... I think the taxpayers should be protesting their leaders and schools and demand better results for their dollar. Don't kid yourself, the strike is all about money.

  2. SuperSweet 2012.09.11

    Off topic: what is your take on Obama 2016?

  3. Jack Anderson 2012.09.11

    There is most certainly a monetary component to this strike as DB rightfully points out.

    And while this story is convenient to use as a method to bash Prince Dennis and his precious HB1234-- you really ought to address the fact that the Chicago teachers are also marching because they are DIS-SATISFIED with a proposed 16% pay increase over the next four years.

    Would teachers in S.D. take to the streets if they received a 4% pay hike for each of the next 4 years ?

    Somehow, I doubt it.

  4. caheidelberger Post author | 2012.09.11

    (Obama 2016? I must have missed that storyline. Michelle?)

    Jack, again, the Chicago-SD comparison doesn't work. South Dakota teachers have been used and abused so long that their reaction to any pay increase would be woefully out of proportion to the net effect... which would be to leave us last in the nation short of any raise less than 20%.

    And there's nothing wrong with looking at a specific policy that is driving the strike. These teachers are saying that even with what you guys consider overly generous pay increases, some bad policies, like the over-reliance on bubble tests to evaluate teachers, makes working conditions unacceptable. In other words, you can't pay us enough to put up with some baloney.

  5. grudznick 2012.09.11

    I'm in favor of giving good teachers in SD and even in Chicago raises. Even big raises, or $5,000 raises like 1.2.3.4 would do.

    I am not in favor of keeping bad teachers, or of any teachers striking. I find it heartening to hear that SD teachers would not strike and sad that the slackards in Chicago are striking. I hope the good ones that aren't striking get raises.

  6. jana 2012.09.11

    Here's the fact check from The Chicago Tribune. Wish there was more detail, but the 16% raise looks to be more like 2% per year for 4 years. Oh yeah, and the 4% raise they were promised last year was rescinded.

    Money is usually an issue, but there is much more involved in this strike than money.

    There are other things Including class size, school closures and the push to privatize the schools and bust the collective bargaining and union.

    http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-09/news/sns-rt-us-chicago-schools-strikebre8870fx-20120908_1_chicago-teachers-school-reform-pension-system

  7. Donald Pay 2012.09.11

    DB is wrong. The Chicago strike is not about pay. The 16 percent increase is to compensate for added hours in the school year, not for a pay increase. Also, DB must not have spent any time in Chicago lately. The cost of living there is substantially higher than SD. And the pension was raided for money by the city.

    The schools in Chicago are abysmal, but how much of it is the teachers' fault? If you listen to Chicago radio you find out that the Chicago School District does not deliver textbooks until week six of school, so teachers have to "teach" the first six weeks without any curricular materials. It's a broken system, and teachers have been pointing this out for years. Why are they being made the scapegoat? Oh, I know why. The Mayor and others want to break the union so the teachers won't be able to point out the politicians' failures. No tenure, no ability to speak up. Convenient, isn't it.

  8. jana 2012.09.11

    Good points Donald. Just remember that breaking public workers is a major goal of ALEC and the Republicans that let others think for them.

    Heck, drove by a firehouse today and saw the flags planted in the ground to remember those "union thugs" that ran into the Twin Towers to save lives. I also remembered how those same union members were respected and heralded as heroes across the country and used as Republican props

    Today, those same pandering Republicans, Thune, Ryan, Boehner, Cantor etc voted against those heroes and the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.

    Thune defended his no vote against the 9/11 heroes to this way:
    On December 9, 2010, Defending his vote against the Zadroga Bill to radio host Don Imus, Thune "explained that preserving the Bush tax cuts was more of a priority."

    http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/12/15/135187/thune-911-responders/

  9. caheidelberger Post author | 2012.09.11

    Well put, Donald. DB and Jack just want to regurgitate the usual anti-union, anti-teacher propaganda. They also don't want to talk about real South Dakota issues. If they focused on what's happening in South Dakota, they'd realize the union bogeyman can't hide the fact that our underpaid teachers are overperforming and are willing to reject the competitive merit pay promised in Referred Law 16 to protect their students from bad policy.

  10. grudznick 2012.09.11

    Unions are more antiquated than my oldest pair of britches, Mr. Pay. They have served their purpose and should stop sucking money from the most ignorant and poor of our fine working women and gentlemen who don't need a cut of their hard earned pay going to the fatcat union bosses.

  11. Donald Pay 2012.09.11

    Another thing I learned today listening to Chicago talk radio was that neither the President of the Chicago School District nor Rahm Emmanuel has bothered to attend any negotiating sessions. They have left it all up to some out-of-state lawyers that have a history of breaking unions.

    As a result of reforms in the 1970s, union "bosses" are elected by their members under tighter rules than govern our governmental elections. While the Republicans are are busy conducting election fraud, unions run fair elections.

  12. caheidelberger Post author | 2012.09.11

    Say, Donald, what is Rahm Emanuel's problem? Has being mayor turned him that strongly against teachers? Is he really so wedded to protecting himself from whatever political failures he inherited when he took office that he will bury teachers? Ugh.

  13. caheidelberger Post author | 2012.09.11

    Unions antiquated... really? Workers no longer need to organize to fight for their interests against much more rich and powerful corporate bosses? If unions aren't the mechanism through which to achieve that end, then how do we protect workers and check corporate power?

  14. Donald Pay 2012.09.11

    There is a bipartisan effort to privatize education. It's driven mostly by the right, but also by people like Gates and others who view education as a way to make money. They captured the DLC wing of the Democratic Party in the 1990s, which is why Clinton was such an idiot on education.

    My issue with these people came as a result of watching how these creeps used prison labor in South Dakota to subsidize selling computers to schools. A lot of the big push on technology in the classroom was simply a moneymaking operation by Gateway and others.

  15. jana 2012.09.11

    Grud...I know the popular thing to say about unions is that they are antiquated.

    Why do you think that? Or are you talking to a chair?

    So are you saying that unions are no longer needed to secure livable working wages? Well I guess that means that wages for the working middle class must be rising at a steady rate...wait?...what?

    Or are you saying that there are no longer safety issues in the work place? We could ask some the people in the mines...at least the ones that didn't die in a collapse.

    Maybe it's that everyone has equal access to the boardroom and they don't need collective bargaining to ensure that their wages, working conditions and healthcare benefits are competitive.

    Or maybe you are thinking that we don't need the unions that protect American jobs from employers that want to hire undocumented workers to cut their expenses.

    Do you think that in this day of billion dollar corporate lobbies, Citizens United and unlimited corporate influence on our laws and elections that working people having a voice in Pierre and Washington DC is a bad thing?

    I'm not saying unions are perfect...but I think I know the real reason Republicans have pushed the "antiquated" memes and laced them with words like "thugs" "hard earned pay" and "Fat cat union bosses."

    I'd be interested in hearing what your thoughts on why unions are antiquated.

    In the mean time, we'll try and keep those darned kids off of your lawn.

    By the way, if you've got britches that old...I'd bet they were made by union labor in the good old US of A.

  16. caheidelberger Post author | 2012.09.11

    Jana, Grudz's comment is rather like saying democracy and grass-roots organizing are antiquated, because the plutocrats have us outgunned. But what else are we supposed to do?

  17. Dave 2012.09.11

    Look for the union label. :)

  18. Steve O'Brien 2012.09.12

    Jack,

    The 16% over 4 years was something the teachers could have lived with; the stumbling block was the evaluation and working conditions (especially AC for those hot classrooms). The standard of bashing the greedy teacher doesn't play here (if we are looking at the truth). Add to this that Chicago administration voted to rescind the 4% raise teachers were to receive this year, and it starts to focus the economic debate more clearly on good faith practices and greed.

    We know from the discussion here that tests scores are not a singular determination of student achievement and should not be treated as such. We know that plans that link those scores to teacher pay fail to achieve gains in student or teacher performance - at times even driving both down.

    Again, here as in Chicago, the larger issue is ignored: US schools are underfunded. The tax system in Illinois, as here in SD, is property tax based - fantastically regressive.

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