Well the teachers decided to strike, not because of money (they’re offered a 16% pay raise) but because of the job evaluation process. The board wants to grade 45% of teachers performance based on their students’ test scores. Get this, the teachers union thinks that would lead to more cheating.
Numbers behind the scene reveal how pitiful the Chicago school system is. 21K teachers to teach 400K students or one teacher for every 19 students. A $5.1 billion total budget divided up between 400K students comes to $12,800.00 per student. And the pie in the face caveat is CPS graduates just over 50% or its high school students with a good portion of its graduates needing further work to enter college. The teachers were asked not to picket schools acting as day care centers and they responded by picketing those schools using drums to disrupt any meaningful activities going on inside.
CPS is simply a microcosm of what’s wrong with government getting involved in anything but governing. Schools need to be schools and not restaurants and day-care centers.
For the sake of the students both present and in the future we need to provide school vouchers at the least. Better yet, privatize the entire school system and let private/parochial schools do what they’ve been doing all along.
|