What Can We Learn from the Chicago Teachers Strike?

This week, the Chicago Teachers union voted to suspends their strike, in America’s third largest city. The rank and file members of the union wanted time to digest the tentative agreement that had been reached between city and the union leadership. This strike was unusual in several respects. In other states, like Wisconsin, New Jersey and Ohio, the attacks against tenure and teacher assessment were initiated by Republican governors who are often seen as anti-union. In Chicago, the city is lead by a Democratic mayor, Rahm Emanuel, who not coincidentally was the chief of staff in the Obama White House. In several previous blogs I have mentioned that one of problems of American public education is that it has become politicized and until we can divorce the politics from the true needs of our students, true and meaningful reform cannot occur.

The other big issue that was brought to forefront during this current strike is that of teacher assessment. How do you measure in a meaningful way, how successful a classroom teacher is and what impact has he or she had on the students in the class? One of the “management” parameters is to measure how students perform on the state wide assessment tests. School officials feel that this is the best way to quantify with solid data, that a student’s performance on a one day, one time test, can somehow determine who is an effective teacher. Most of us in the profession know that there are too many variables for this to be a 100% effective measure. What about students who have not been on the class all year or what about students with limited English comprehension? What about students with learning disabilities who are required to take the test? The list goes on. We cannot leave out the fact that once these parameters are in place, teachers spend an inordinate amount of time prepping the students for the test to the detriment of other learning.

When I first started teaching, teacher evaluations were very subjective. The school principal or assistant principal came into the class, perhaps three times a year, and observed the class. He or she then wrote up an observation of the lesson and had a meeting with the teacher pointing out the strengths and weakness. The teacher had the opportunity to rebut, in writing any disagreements to the observation.

Today’s evaluations are more complex and by necessity, must be more thorough. While student assessment is an integral piece of the evaluation puzzle, it should not be the only statistic used to determine if a teacher should be eligible for tenure or deserve a pay raise. Just as there is no statistical evidence to support the notion that obtaining an advanced degree makes one a better teacher, neither does getting students to perform on a standardized test.

c. J. Margolis 2012