* Teacher evaluations, school closings, layoffs contentious
* Union says no school on Friday, calls meeting to discuss
progress
* Union president says not known if schools would open
Monday
By Renita D. Young
CHICAGO, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Chicago public school students
will stay out of class for a fifth day on Friday, after the
teachers union and the nation’s third-largest school district
negotiated long into the night on reforms sought by Mayor Rahm
Emanuel without reaching a deal.
The strike by 29,000 public school teachers and support
staff, affecting 350,000 kindergarten, elementary and high
school students, is the biggest private or public labor dispute
in the United States in a year.
Both the Chicago school district and officials of the
Chicago Teachers Union had sounded optimistic on Thursday that a
deal could be reached.
But when they emerged early on Friday morning after hours of
negotiations union President Karen Lewis said she did not know
if schools would be open by Monday.
“We had some good conversations,” Lewis said. But she
declined to quantify how close the two sides were to a deal.
“I’m just really tired,” she said.
Lewis said the House of Delegates, a wider consultative
group within the union, would meet at 2 p.m. local time Friday
(3 p.m. EDT) for an update on the talks.
The union was not expected to halt the strike until
agreement is reached on all the issues.
“Typically, unions don’t until the whole contract is done,”
said teachers union attorney Robert Bloch.
Lewis, who called Emanuel a “bully” and “liar” before
leading teachers on their first strike in 25 years, said there
was progress on the two most vexing issues. They are using
student test scores to evaluate teachers and giving more
authority to local principals to hire teachers.
The union is concerned that more than a quarter of its
membership could be fired because the teachers work in poor
neighborhoods where students perform badly on standardized
tests, which Emanuel wants to use to evaluate teachers.
COMPROMISE OFFER
Emanuel’s negotiators released a copy of their latest
compromise offer on teacher evaluations. The mayor would phase
in the new teacher evaluation system over five years and give no
more than 20 percent weight to standardized tests. Classroom
observations and a survey of students would also be used.
Other unresolved issues include the role of principals in
hiring teachers and what happens to teachers when a school
closes and teachers face layoffs.
The union fears Emanuel plans to close scores of schools,
putting unionized teachers out of work. In recent years, about
100 public schools have been closed, with officials usually
citing low enrollment. At the same time, a similar number of
publicly funded, non-union charter schools have opened.
About 52,000 students enrolled at those schools have not
been affected by the strike this week.
Thousands of teachers and supporters held another rally in
downtown Chicago on Thursday to underscore their strike resolve.
Support for the union from Chicago parents appeared to be
holding up. A new poll for Capital Fax by We Ask America found
66 percent of parents with children in Chicago Public Schools
supported the strike.
The majority of people who opposed the strike were either
white voters or had children in private schools, Capital Fax
said. Some 85 percent of students in Chicago Public Schools are
either African-American or Hispanic. The poll surveyed 1,344
voting Chicago households on Wednesday.
Emanuel supporters also weighed in on Chicago media with
television and radio ads calling on the union to end the strike.
Democrats for Education Reform, a group backed by major
financiers, hedge funds and philanthropists, ran an ad quoting
from Chicago newspapers saying the union should go back to work.
The strike in Barack Obama’s home city has put the U.S.
president in a tough spot. Emanuel is a former top aide to Obama
and the president is counting on labor unions to drum up support
for his re-election on Nov. 6. Obama’s own Education Department
has championed some of the reforms Emanuel is seeking.
Both sides agree Chicago schools need fixing. Chicago
students consistently perform poorly on standardized math and
reading tests. About 60 percent of high school students
graduate, compared with 75 percent nationwide.
More than 80 percent of Chicago public school students
qualify for free school lunches because they come from
low-income households.
The fight does not appear to center on wages, with the
school district offering an average 16 percent increase over
four years and some benefit improvements.
But a major credit rating agency on Thursday warned that
Chicago cannot afford the salary rises it is offering the
teachers, and any deal will bust the budget.
“It’s highly likely that actual salary increases will exceed
budgeted salary increases,” Moody’s Investor Services said.
Rating agencies already have downgraded the debt rating of
the school district, which means it might have to pay a higher
interest rate to issue debt to finance deficits.
