Chicago Public School (CPS) are on strike right now. And they have been for a week. All I have to say is I'm going to get a LOT of flack for this post, and I'm sorry, but this is the way I feel.
My cousin, my friends, and several of my Aunts and Uncles are teachers. but COME on!!
What are the teachers striking over?? CPS wants to increase the school day. A 7 hour school day for elementary students (increase of 75 minutes), and a 7.5 hour day (increase of 30 min) for high school students. All I have to say is omg... these elementary students only had a school day of 5.5 hours?!?!? That's crazy! When I was in elementary school (A LONG time ago) I had a 6.5 hour day. So personally I think 5.5 hours is WAAAAAY too short. And yes, that NEEDS to be increased. And yeah. highschool should be 7.5 hours! I mean wow... Just crazy.
Unfortunately, the teachers want a pay increase for this time. But honestly, the state and city are BROKE! I think that's pretty selfish to demand more money. My father works for the state of Illinois and they are doing layoffs.
Personally I think teachers are spoiled because they do not need to worry about getting laid off or anything after they get tenure. I knew SOOO many High school teachers that would just get lazy in their tenure years because they didn't have to try. Normal people constantly have to worry about job performance and getting fired/laid off. I am very grateful for my aunts and uncles and cousins and friends who get tenure, but there are MANY people who don't deserve it. Personally, I think teachers Tenure should get re-evaluated every 5 years. If a teacher starts to slack, I would put that teacher on "probation" for tenure removal for 3 school year. If they didn't turn it around that first year, they would get tenure removed.
The CPS school system also wants to tie teachers evaluations to performance. Personally this just makes me laugh. I mean seriously, shouldn't this be like a no brainer? lol! But I do understand why the CPS teachers don't want this to pass. The CPS teachers think that student performance is directly linked to home conditions. So, alright. I take the CPS teachers side on this one.
One of the problems is... CPS teachers are among the highest paid in the country. According to CNN "The median base salary for teachers in the Chicago public schools in 2011 was $67,974." I mean that's a pretty good salary! These teachers have 3 weeks of June, all of July, and 3 weeks of August off of work. So... lets do the math. A typical man year is 2088 hours, or approximately 261 work days (including paid holidays) However, teachers have 3 weeks off in June (15 days), All of July (20 days), and 3 weeks in August (15 days). A total of 50 days they have off. (This is conservative considering July this year had 22 work days). So teachers work 211 days.
An elementary teacher has a 7 hour day at school. But they should get at least 30 minutes for lunch off. So that really means they work a 6.5 hour day, because I mean I don't get paid for lunch, do You?
So... lets assume each day the teachers spend 1.5 hours after classes grading papers or preparing for the next day. That's EVERY day some days its more, some days its less. I'm NOT taking into account that teachers get Spring Break and Christmas break off. That's a total of 120 hours they don't work (or approximately an extra half hour of over time a day), so any teacher that argues with me saying they work more than 40 hours a week, please take that into consideration. I'm also taking into consideration that teachers work 1.5 hours on the days they have off for holidays. So, please, on average lets assume that these teachers work 8 hour days.
That means that, if teachers only work 211 days or 1688 man hours, the median hourly rate is $40.27 per hour!!! If you take into account that these teachers used to work 75 minutes per day less, that means they used to get paid - $47.70 / hour... That hourly wage translates to just under a 6 figure salary!!!
All I'm saying is teachers... take the increase in your day and stop arguing.
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