Why I Voted to Authorize the Chicago Teachers' Strike

    A preschool teacher in the Chicago Public Schools
    explains why she and thousands of her fellow teachers
    voted "yes" to authorizing a strike.

By Lara Lindh

AlterNet
June 22, 2012

http://www.alternet.org/education/155980/why_i_voted_to_authorize_the_chicago_teachers%27_strike

Earlier this month, members of the Chicago Teachers Union
(CTU) voted by a nearly 90 percent majority to give the union
authorization to call a strike.

Actually, around 8.5 percent of the union membership didn't
vote, so they were counted as "no" votes. So among CTU members
who voted, 98 percent said "yes" to strike authorization:
That's 23,780 yes to 482 no.

The overwhelming support for strike authorization seemed to
confuse the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Jean-Claude
Brizard, who likes to assure us that he loves and respects
teachers as he destroys our schools and degrades our union.
But the vote didn't come as a surprise to me.

Here's why I voted, along with the vast majority my brothers
and sisters in the CTU, an enthusiastic "yes" to strike
authorization.

Reason No. 1: As has happened to me every spring since 2008, I
was warned by my boss in March that my preschool teaching
position was threatened for the following school year due to
budget cuts. As I have done every spring since 2008, I spent
countless hours readying my resume and my teaching portfolio,
combing the want ads, and annoying my colleagues looking for
another job for this coming fall.

With a son, a mortgage, very little savings and a job that I
love and would grieve to loose, I tried to muster the
enthusiasm necessary to hunt for another job while
simultaneously remaining the kind of "super-teacher" that
we're expected to be in order to maintain an evaluation rating
that would allow us to be hired by another principal.

In May, I was informed my job was safe, but my assistant
teacher's wasn't. Due to budget cuts, she's being replaced
with a cheaper, part-time version.

Reason No. 2: May is supposed to be a wonderful month for
preschool teachers: We ready our student's yearlong work
portfolios and bask in the glow of their progress and
reminisce about how far we've come. We go on field trips and
have culminating projects that we enjoy sharing with our
students and families. We look forward to summer break. We
begin to say goodbye to the little people we've nurtured and
loved and taught for the proceeding nine months.

This May, I spent the entire month, as I have for the past
three years, conducting a standardized test on my 4- and 5-
year-old students to determine their "kindergarten readiness."

It used to be that by virtue of turning 5 years old, you were
deemed "kindergarten ready." Those days are over. In the name
of accountability (which always seems to mean accountability
for those with the least say-so), we have turned our schools
into test-taking factories, with no child too young to be
tested.

Reason No. 3: The day before the strike vote, my school clerk
stopped me in the hallway. He had an emergency letter from
Jean-Claude Brizard that we had to distribute to parents
informing them of why the strike vote was wrong thing for
teachers to do and insulting our collective intelligence by
claiming that our leadership hadn't informed us of what was at
stake in our contract negotiations.

The attempt by Brizard to turn parents against teachers was
expected, his condescending tone familiar, but what was
unheard-of was that the letter was translated into Spanish,
Mandarin, Polish and Arabic. As a teacher of English Language
Learners, I was dumbfounded. We can never--I repeat, NEVER!--
get materials or information translated into our students'
home languages without doing it ourselves.

Was this the proverbial final straw? No, I had already made up
my mind to vote "yes" because I want dignity, respect and
resources for what I do and for the students I teach. But it
did underline to me that if they can so easily find the
resources to drag us down, then they can be forced to find the
resources to build up public education.

Reason No. 4: The $5.2 million in TIF money the city council
just handed to billionairess CPS board member and infamous
union buster Penny Pritzker to build another Hyatt Hotel for
her empire. Resources not there? Yeah, right.

I voted "yes" because I have self-respect, and I was always
taught (and teach) that when you stand up for yourself against
bullies and liars, others will stand up with you. Well, the
teachers are standing up. Will you join us?

[Lara Lindh is a Preschool for All teacher in the Chicago
Public Schools.]

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