Radio interview with CPS teacher on working conditions

[Starry Messenger]

http://bit.ly/OIgO7Q

The first few minutes are about something else, and then the interview starts with a teacher who describes the overcrowding and difficult challenges educators are facing in CPS. Jessica Marshall teaches at least one class of over 40 kids, Sophomore social studies.

[TexasBushwhacker]

1. Yup, people that aren't or haven't taught in public schools should STFU

Not only does she have 43 students (teenagers!) in a social studies, including 2 main streamed special education students, one with autism and the other with Down's Syndrome. There is a special education teacher and two aides. 47 people crammed into the classroom without air conditioning. She said she had 2 more classes with over 30. Her classroom has tables and chairs for 30 kids. She had to bring in folding chairs and stools for the extra students. She points out that if 50% of her evaluation is going to be based on student test scores, she really has no choice but to teach to the test, even though everyone agrees that students need to be challenged with critical thinking skills that CAN'T be tested on standardized tests. She said her students were from diverse backgrounds, but over 80% of CPS students are low income and that presents special challenges.

She pointed out, what does it say to students when they walk into a class that doesn't have enough chairs? What does it say when the mayor and the people on the board of education send their children to private schools with smaller class sizes? She also pointed out she didn't go into teaching for the money. No teacher does. If they're going through contract negotiations that they do once every 4 years, are they going to discuss money? Of course they are! They're teachers, not nuns!

[Starry Messenger]

2. GREAT summary, thank you for that!

Un-effing real! I have 35 students in my high school classes and it's a lot even at that number. 47 people in her room?! She also said that they sometimes try to divide them up by taking some of them out into the stairwells (!!) to teach there. It's criminal what is going on! How can people be shocked that CTU went on strike? All of the city should be outraged by this.

That one caller who called in to ask why Korean schools can have 40 kids in them and the teachers don't complain there made me mad too. She handled him better than I would have. What a meanness of spirit to listen to what she said about the lack of chairs and the crappy hot rooms and then say that to her. I don't know much about Korea, but I seriously doubt the kids are writing on clipboards with no tables, or sitting out in the stairwells getting taught.

[TexasBushwhacker]

3. I found out something else. They have to strike for money.

Everyone is talking about how greedy they are, but BY LAW, they can only strike for monetary issues. They can't legally strike over working conditions and evaluations only.

[Starry Messenger]

4. Isn't that weird?

It's practically designed to make them look unsympathetic in the public eye. Labor laws in the US are demented, but that one is particularly bad. How could you not be legally allowed to strike over working conditions? When people bellyache about how unions don't care about this or that, it really steams me that they don't know the kind of strictures they operate under here.