Education Follow up

I received an e-mail from Rev Jan Resseger today about the Chicago Teachers Strike.  It is unfortunate that teachers had to strike to make their point.  It leaves many parents and students searching for what to do.  Especially in a large urban area like Chicago the students should not lose a day of school  The schools opened for half the day in order to house and feed the students.  Students in urban district get a lot of their nutrition from school.

 But the teachers point it is not just about finance but working conditions.  Class size is important.  Any teacher will tell you that the smaller the class size the better the learning and teaching.  I found this out when I was working as a Statewide Representative for the Improvement of the Teaching of Math and Science. 

I have attached Rev Resseger's e-mail about the subject:

 

Jeannette Brown

UCC Representative

Today school teachers in Chicago went out on strike, because months’ of negotiations have broken down.  Here is a piece, featured on the website of the National Education Policy Center, by a Chicago teacher.  He explains what’s at stake from his point of view as a teacher.  http://nepc.colorado.edu/blog/whats-stake .  It is important to remember that union contracts are not merely about salaries but also about things like class size and working conditions.  All these affect the school climate that children experience each day.

 

And here, related in a deep kind of way, is a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:  New School Year Brings More Cuts in State Funding for Schools. http://www.cbpp.org/files/9-4-12sfp.pdf  The numbers are pretty shocking. This is a 14 page report, and while you may not want to get into the details, I urge you at least to read the beginning pages and look through the graphs. 

 

--Jan 

 

 

Ms. Jan Resseger
Minister for Public Education and Witness
Justice and Witness Ministries
700 Prospect, Cleveland, Ohio 44115
216-736-3711
http://www.ucc.org/justice/public-education

"That all citizens will be given an equal start through a sound education is one of the most basic, promised rights of our democracy.  Our chronic refusal as a nation to guarantee that right for all children.... is rooted in a kind of moral blindness, or at least a failure of moral imagination....  It is a failure which threatens our future as a nation of citizens called to a common purpose... tied to one another by a common bond."   —Senator Paul Wellstone, March 31, 2000