StrangeSox

I did find this on CTU's daily strike flyer: Not sure about the strategy of telling the public how little you matter will work out...

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 02:28 PM) The solution of: more money is simply not a solution in this economic climate. Part of what they are fighting for is more equitable distribution of resources among CPS schools, so "more money" is a realistic option for many of the struggling schools. I believe they could also shift money from other parts of Chicago's budget or even from other parts of the CPS budget (like, say, recent administrator raises). There is nothing that says they only have exactly $x dollars and that this amount is completely inflexible. edit: I'm looking to see if I can find something about proposed budget or funding from CTU. The above is my supposition. If you started college with 1.5 years worth of credit, you definitely benefited. Hell, the fact that you were able to go to college shows that you benefited from better schools.

QUOTE (flippedoutpunk @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 02:07 PM) We already have a freakin water bottle tax. I think they're running out of ideas for ways to tax us Chicagoans. That was a waste/littering thing, like the DC plastic bag tax that drastically cut down on the number of plastic bags winding up in the Potomac.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 02:03 PM) Surely the recall election can put an end to all this yeah? They couldn't even deliver all of their members, and were terrible at delivering union households. They also lacked any sort of national support. But no, I don't think one recall election puts an end to the idea that unions a good base support for progressive politics. Recall elections are rare, usually unsuccessful and widely disliked.

It could come from elsewhere in the Chicago budget or from increased or different taxation. Part of the message of the strike would be that the government (Emmanuel, school board) are not best-serving the interests of the public in that they're under-funding education. Farley's point 3 discusses that. Those links are broader discussions than what specifically CTU is striking over, though. Edit: just keep in mind that they're pieces of political rhetoric and they're mainly about some upper-crust liberals not really supporting labor unions. The first two are in response to Yglesias' piece here, which I forgot to link.

I'm not surprised to see the NY Times siding against labor. Most of the media-class liberals are tepid about labor unions in the first place. (Liberal Blogger) Kevin Drum: Why People Hate Teachers Unions (Progressive blogger/professor who usually focuses on military and transnational politics) Robert Farley: The Great Divide (Leftist prof/blogger/author) Corey Robin is less kind: Why Do People Hate Teachers Unions? Because They Hate Teachers.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Sep 11, 2012 -> 07:40 PM) Sadly, there's a lot of truth in this: Middle-class white dude is oblivious to what his policy preferences actually mean, where they're rooted and how they work in practice. A good video. lol, it even has a "but some of my best friends are black!" line in there. And a defense of Trent Lott.

Mitt Romney: "I didn't know [LGBT people] had families." On the heels of this:

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 10:29 AM) I wonder what our response will be. A rocket attack upon an embassy is technically an attack upon the U.S. and thus an act of war, but this appears to have been the work of a mob, as opposed to the Libyan government or army, and Libya is profusely apologizing and saying all the right things. I would hope arresting and turning over the responsible parties to the U.S. would be the goal here and that we take control of that, but no doubt this thing will become an election year political football. Well they are sort of victim-blaming, saying that the US should have gotten its people out of there after the events in Cairo etc., but they are condemning the attacks and, of course, blaming them on Qaddafi supporters.

But why?

QUOTE (flippedoutpunk @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 10:29 AM) Like Balta said, the mortgage has to get paid. They dont get a cent if they stay at home and watch Jerry Springer. Get a little bit of strike pay and look like your supporting the cause, its win-win I just wasn't clear if that's what you meant or not. thanks for the clarification.

...what?

QUOTE (flippedoutpunk @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 10:24 AM) ive read that in certain unions, strikers are given strike pay in order to try to compensate for not getting paid by their employers. Is this true of the CTU? If so, it would help explain why a lot of my anti-union CPS friends are downtown dressed in red and smiling for the camera with $300 sunglasses on. Many unions have strike funds that they build up so that members aren't living completely without income during a strike. I'm not sure if CTU has one or not. Without a strike fund, management/boards would not have to wait very long for members' resolve to break. See the NFL players lockout for an example of that. I don't understand your post, though. Your friends are CPS teachers that are anti-union but are out there on the streets?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 09:55 AM) Duke, can you back that up? Any reason not to change the thread title, or are we just assuming "any group of angry people in middle eastern country = Al Qaeda"? I think it's safe to assume that Duke likes to troll with "outrageous!" opinions.

Here's a link: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2...2108737726.html

I haven't heard anything linking this to AQ. Everything I've heard has said it was reactions to some dumb movie someone in the US made.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 09:38 AM) I guess that is second-hand info through the head of my local teachers union. By and large teachers don't want to give up their summers, supposedly by a ridiculous amount. They're definitely not full-throated in support of it, but the headlines of the studies they link seem to range from positive to neutral-with-both-good-and-some-concerns.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 09:32 AM) Wait wait wait...that's not what the data I've seen shows. The data shows that you get teachers in this country teaching more hours than any other country...but that doesn't mean that you get students getting more instruction than in any other country, that just means we expect the teachers in this country to work more hours than anywhere else. http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Ma...-the-US-compare

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 09:34 AM) The problem is the NEA is the biggest opposition to fixing the school year. They don't seem particularly negative here, but I don't really know their history on the issue.

CPS janitors have filed a strike notice. I believe it's a solidarity thing.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 09:29 AM) Of course you can. If you show me a baseball player who starts off as a 23 year old hitting .250 and 3 years later has turned into a .390 hitter every year, you can still say "but he still makes an out most of the time", but that doesn't disprove the claim "He's developed into an incredible hitter". The trend towards people moving into the cities has been unmistakeable. Has that taken every neighborhood in the world and made it wealthy? Of course not. Will it ever? Will a baseball player ever bat 1.000 over a season? Gentrification can have negative impacts, too.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 09:28 AM) Sorry, I misread what you were talking about then. I think if they set the expectations, it would work better than simply extending it on the students because of an action by the teachers. But again, these CPS contracts guarantee a certain number of working days, whether you extend them into the summer or not, they will end up with the same number of days off. Instead of a 3 month summer break, students will simply get a week off every month. Perhaps that would work better, but they have to start doing it across the board. Let's say that the strike ends this week. I'd think that 8 months or so is plenty of time for students' expectations of when they're getting out this next summer to reset to the shifted calender.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 09:26 AM) These schools still attend the exact same number of days, as per CPS contract. They just get more 2 week breaks throughout the year. Right, but the research shows that's a better structure. Not having enough in-class days likely isn't the central problem because we have more instructional hours than almost every other country.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Sep 12, 2012 -> 09:22 AM) I'm not saying added school is bad, but warmer weather WILL affect American students when they've grown up with guaranteed vacation days all summer long. If you started new kids from K-onward with a full school year, they'd probably adapt better to this than current students. This has nothing to do with my point that American students will tend to concentrate less as their extended vacation looms closer. Also, since the teachers contract guarantees these vacations...try taking them away now. Hell, Rham tried to extend their school day by 1 hour and they flipped out and wanted huge raises. Try going to them and saying there will be no more summer vacation. LOL. Again, based on reality...their contracts, their unions...you can't just ignore these factors...which is what you're doing here. You can have the same number of days but without the giant 10-week chasm in the middle. Chicago's Track E schools are moving toward this now. http://www.cps.edu/Programs/DistrictInitia...endarTrackE.pdf