For over 350,000 Chicago schoolchildren, vacation has never seemed so politically charged.
While the economy continues to limp towards something resembling recovery, the Chicago Teachers’ Union spurned an offer last week from the city which would have provided for a 16 percent pay increase over the next four years, and their week-long strike marches on in “The Windy City.”
Economically speaking, the union’s actions defy logic. The state and local governments – who pay the teachers’ salaries – receive most of their revenue from property and sales taxes and are seriously strapped for cash, as consumer consumption sputters along at an anemic rate. The latest “U-6” unemployment data (which includes underemployed and “discouraged” workers) remains at a staggering 14.7 percent. Wages everywhere have frozen, and national core inflation sits at a stagnant .2 percent. These indicators make the union’s pay raise rejection all the more inexplicable.
It’s not as if the union’s clients were living in destitution to begin with. They already earn roughly $76,000 per year in a city where the median income is under $35,000 and 19.6 percent of the population is below the poverty line. Still, the union has the gall to argue that padding teachers’ already ample salaries should be the city’s top priority.
But economic insanity aside, understand what this strike is really about: the Chicago teachers don’t want to enter the real world of professional accountability.
Most professions have some kind of evaluating oversight process – if you don’t perform to standard, you’re expendable. This is what the free market is all about. With an abundance of young energetic teachers being pumped out of American universities, nothing scares tenured veteran teachers more than being expendable.
What new evaluation metric is so horrifyingly appalling to the teachers that it’s compelling them to forsake the children they’ve professed an educational obligation to?
Standardized test scores.
The slimy labor leaders complain that socio-economic factors out of their control will render standardized testing an ineffective measurement of instructor proficiency. They have rationalized the massive work boycott by asserting that all the teachers want is “the tools and conditions to do their jobs and help all students succeed.”
There might be some truth in this. But how is quitting school for a week and allowing the kids to hang out in their rough neighborhoods all day unfettered by school supervision an acceptable solution? In no way does this help “all students succeed” or alleviate socio-economic pressures. There must be a more constructive process to reconcile the teachers’ demands with city policy.
The Chicago folks shouldn’t have anything to worry about concerning the testing scores anyway- after all, a 2009 study showed that less than one-half of 1 percent of city teachers were rated “unsatisfactory,” while 94 percent were rated “superior” or “excellent.” What a shockingly successful group of educators the city must have.
Meanwhile, Chicago’s schoolchildren are achieving at below-average levels on the national scale and lag behind their peers in other large urban areas.
This strike represents everything that’s wrong with modern unions: motivated by greed and buoyed by misguided entitlement, the union knows they hold all the leverage. Public opinion be damned – without them, the show can’t go on.
I don’t believe the delusional position of the Chicago union is reflective of all teachers. But, it sickens me that these supposed “shapers of young minds” are so staunchly opposed to much-needed objective evaluation and have frivolously disregarded economic realities. It also saddens me that hundreds of thousands of Chicago schoolchildren are being used as a pawn in their shamelessly ugly game.
These teachers could benefit from some educational lessons themselves – on accountability, on the economy and on professional responsibility. Most of all, however, they need a reality check.
Henry Downes is a sophomore majoring in economics. His column runs on Tuesday.
