Two issues being cited as primary stumbling blocks to a Chicago teachers contract are a recall policy for teachers and a teacher evaluation system. Both affect job security for teachers and are part of larger efforts to overhaul schools in the city and nationally.

TEACHER RECALL POLICY

The Chicago Teachers Union is pushing hard for a procedure to recall teachers who have been laid off because of school closings, consolidations and turnarounds. The issue is of critical importance, the union has said, because of rumors that the district plans to close as many as 100 schools in coming years.

Earlier this year, CPS and the union struck a deal over the longer school day that temporarily allowed for such a recall. In exchange for the union agreeing to an extra 30 minutes in high schools and 75 minutes in elementary schools, CPS agreed to rehire nearly 500 teachers in noncore subjects from a pool of teachers who had been laid off.

The district, however, has resisted making such a recall policy the permanent method for filling vacancies in Chicago schools.

“Teachers in this city agreed to a longer day … and what our union got in return for that was a promise there would be a recall procedure for those teachers who are going to be hired,” said Jesse Sharkey, vice president of CTU. “Now we see that offer is being taken away from the table, and there is no sign of respect there. That’s important for our members.”

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has framed the issue as one of accountability, saying he doesn’t want to place the district’s hiring control in the hands of the union through such a recall process.

“I don’t believe I should pick ‘em. I don’t believe CPS should pick ‘em. I don’t believe the CTU leadership should pick ‘em,” Emanuel said Monday of hiring teachers. “If we’re going to hold our local principals in the school accountable for getting the results we need, they need to pick the best qualified.”

In the district’s latest proposal, CPS teachers whose schools are closed would be eligible for vacancies at the school that takes in the transferred students. If there are no vacancies, the teachers would have three options: a three-month lump-sum severance, five months in a “reassigned teacher pool” or a spot in a “quality teacher force pool,” which would entitle those teachers to an interview and an explanation if they are not hired.

The CPS offer also provides options for teachers displaced for other reasons, including turnarounds or phaseouts.

Jeanne Allen, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Education Reform, said recall policies do not encourage improvement or change within school districts but rather a status quo that has never led to improvement in educating children.

But the teachers union has countered that its members deserve as much job security as possible, especially with school closings becoming increasingly common.

“In Chicago, there are many good teachers who work in some of the toughest schools in the city, who saw their schools close through no fault of their own,” Sharkey said.

TEACHER RATINGS

Teacher contract negotiations often come down to money and benefits, so parents might be wondering how employee evaluations became a stumbling block in the Chicago Public Schools teacher strike.

The wrangling has to do with a new teacher rating system pushed by the Obama administration, which has sparked new laws and controversy in Illinois and around the country.

The new evaluations judge teachers in part on how their students perform, with a focus on academic gains. Teachers say that isn’t fair for a lot of reasons and that bad ratings resulting from the new system could threaten teachers’ livelihoods.

CTU President Karen Lewis estimates that almost 6,000 teachers could be discharged in the coming years — nearly 30 percent of union membership. “That is unacceptable and leads to instability for our students,” she said.

But supporters of the new system — created under a 2010 Illinois law — say it’s good for students and a way to ensure that the best teachers are in America’s schools.

“I think there is unbelievably strong momentum not only locally but nationally that the time has come to have more substantive evaluations,” said Robin Steans, executive director of the policy group Advance Illinois, which has been instrumental in pushing education reforms.

Steans said a great deal of effort went into negotiating the 2010 law and that the CTU was at the table — though not Lewis, because she wasn’t union president at the time.

The law required CPS to jump-start the new evaluation system this fall in at least 300 schools, though most suburban school districts were not required to put the program in place until 2016-17.

During the first two years of the new system, at least 25 percent of a teacher’s evaluation must stem from how students perform on various assessments and how much they grow in knowledge and skills during the school year. From the third year on, the figure would be at least 30 percent.

CPS had planned to increase the figure to 40 percent in the coming years, but that could change in negotiations with the union, as could other parts of the new evaluation system.

The union wants to alter the scores that determine a teacher’s rating and the timing of tests used to measure student academic gains, among other changes. CPS officials say they’re open to working with the union and making adjustments as needed.

The new system also has been a point of contention between Illinois and the federal government, which wants Illinois to speed up use of the new evaluations. Illinois has refused, creating a standoff that has affected state education reforms.

At a downtown rally Monday, Rick Sawicki, a seventh- grade teacher at Evergreen Middle School, said it’s unfair to tie a teacher’s evaluation to student performance. He compared it to a coach not being able to pick the members of his team but still being evaluated on how they do on the field.

“There are a lot of factors that go into a child’s education that is not reflected in test scores,” he said. “Children are more to me than their test scores.”

Adding teeth to Michigan’s law preventing teachers from striking won’t be a topic in state House Education Committee meetings despite the walkout by 30,000 Chicago educators, the committee’s chairwoman said.

State Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons, R-Ada, said there is a bill before her committee that would allow the state to suspend certification for teachers who strike.

But Lyons said there are more issues before the committee that she wants to address first, including making sure veterans have more educational opportunities.

“It’s so heartbreaking to see children being hurt because adults cannot find solutions,” she said of the Chicago strike.

She said the Education Committee last year conducted hearings on the bill, sponsored by state Rep. Bill Rogers, R-Brighton. She has now immediate plans to call for a vote.

Lyons said she doesn’t think Michigan teachers will follow the lead of the Chicago teachers, who walked off the job on Monday in part because of objections to a plan to use student test scores in evaluations.

“Michigan teachers are better than that,” she said.

A group of 14 Michigan school districts are piloting four programs that would look at ways to link student achievement to teacher evaluations.

Michigan teachers strikes have been illegal since 1994, though there have been three strikes — two in Detroit and one in Wayne-Westland.

Michigan’s Public Act 112 stipulates striking teachers be fined one day’s pay for each day they refuse to work. But a district must report a strike to the Michigan Employee Relations Commission, which has up to 60 days to verify such an action was taken. The commission must then conduct individual hearings for each employee before approving fines or employee dismissals.

HB 4466, which has been on the House floor for more than a year, would allow districts to consolidate the hearings and establishes $250-a-day fine.

Chicago union leaders said the use of tests “is no way to measure the effectiveness of an educator.”

“Further there are too many factors beyond our control which impact how well some students perform on standardized tests such as poverty, exposure to violence, homelessness, hunger and other social issues beyond our control,” the union said in a release.

The strike brought swift reaction from advocacy groups, union leaders and politicians. Here is a sampling of the comments.

Amy Wilkins, vice president of The Education Trust:

“Overall, the Chicago teachers’ strike is deeply upsetting. But it is especially tragic for the low-income students who don’t have a moment of academic time to waste. In announcing the strike, Karen Lewis, the head of the Chicago Teachers’ Union, argued that children living in poverty or other difficult circumstances cannot be expected to perform well. But reams of evidence and a growing number of high-performing, high-poverty public schools tell us that is just not true. When children—including poor children—are taught to high levels by strong, well-supported teachers, children achieve at high levels. There’s no denying that poverty does matter. But what educators do in the face of poverty matters a lot. And when educators give in to myths of low academic potential for poor students, they not only condemn those students to limited futures but abdicate the enormous power that they have to change their life trajectories. For too long, too many Americans have accepted the myth that poor performance in schools is just a natural byproduct of impoverished neighborhoods. That Lewis would perpetuate that myth strongly suggests that she fails to take seriously the high price the city’s most vulnerable students are paying during this strike—or the costs they will pay for an agreement that fails to create better learning opportunities for them.”

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten:

“For the first time in 25 years, the members of the Chicago Teachers Union are on strike. No one wants to strike, and no one strikes without cause. In this instance, it comes on the heels of numerous steps that left CTU members feeling disrespected, not the least of which was the district’s unilateral decision to strip teachers and paraprofessionals of an agreed-upon 4 percent raise. The strike comes only after long and intense negotiations failed to lead to an agreement that would give CTU members the tools they need to help all their students succeed.

“The American Federation of Teachers and our members across the country stand firmly with the CTU, and we will support its members in their efforts to secure a fair contract that will enable them to give their students the best opportunities.”

The Center for Education Reform:

“The teacher’s union leaders have, for the last few years, worked hard to correct the impression that their focus is on job protection, and that they, too, like the rest of the nation, are frustrated with the slow pace of school improvement. The alleged willingness of the unions to engage in conversations about teacher quality and to call for an end to failing schools has all been interpreted as a sign that they have turned the corner. Some of us have remained unconvinced, recognizing that many often confuse action with rhetoric. The Chicago teacher’s strike of 2012 settles the issue once and for all. Parents and students are left without the education their taxes support. Taxpayers in general are beholden to union demands that are focused on rights and protections, not on kids. Chicago remains among the worst performing school districts in the nation, yet instead of embracing the mayor’s rational, modest proposals to begin instituting limited performance evaluations, union leaders begin acting more like the Chicago thugs of old than the leaders they want to be considered today.”

White House spokesman Jake Carney said President Obama is aware of the strike, but has not offered a reaction. During his Monday press briefing, Carney said:

“I can tell you that as a — more broadly, that our principal concern is for the students, and his principal concern is for the students and families who are affected by the situation. And we hope that both sides are able to come together to settle this quickly and in the best interest of Chicago’s students. But beyond that, I haven’t got a specific reaction from the President.”

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney:

“I am disappointed by the decision of the Chicago Teachers Union to turn its back on not only a city negotiating in good faith but also the hundreds of thousands of children relying on the city’s public schools to provide them a safe place to receive a strong education. Teachers unions have too often made plain that their interests conflict with those of our children, and today we are seeing one of the clearest examples yet. President Obama has chosen his side in this fight, sending his vice president last year to assure the nation’s largest teachers union that ‘you should have no doubt about my affection for you and the president’s commitment to you.’ I choose to side with the parents and students depending on public schools to give them the skills to succeed, and my plan for education reform will do exactly that.”