This is not just a problem in Chicago, but it is happening all over the country. Schools are laying off experienced teachers while hiring new ones through private companies like Teach for America and New Teacher Project. While hiring a teacher locally would be free and would put those teachers back to work, hiring from companies like TFA means the district pays them to recruit teachers...$2000 and upwards.
The new union leadership in Chicago speaks out about this.
CTU warns no new teacher hires until laid off hired back.The Chicago Teachers Union called on the Chicago Public School system to rehire laid-off teachers before hiring any new ones. CPS begins its budget talks on Friday.
..."Mrs. Lewis demanded that as the CTU joins CPS for budget talks to begin July 23, 2010, these teachers be the first hired before any new hires, including Teach for America novices, are considered.
UPDATE (7/22): Four hundred teachers and 200 educational support personnel will lose their jobs this week in the first round of CPS layoffs.
Here is much more about this first wave of Chicago teacher layoffs at the Chicago Sun-Times.
400 CPS teachers to get the ax this weekIt has begun. The first round of the long-anticipated, school-based layoffs by Chicago Public Schools to deal with a record $370 million budget deficit will claim 600 staffers by week's end.
Notices began going out Wednesday to 400 classroom teachers and 200 educational support personnel, a CPS official said. The 600 represent staff at about 200 Track E elementary schools that start their year earlier than most schools, on Aug. 10. The notifications -- actually confirmations of the layoff-possibility notices CPS and other districts were required by law to have sent teachers earlier this summer in the face of an Illinois cash crunch -- come as the district and Chicago Teachers Union prepare for budget talks that start Friday.
On the same day the notices went out, CTU President Karen Lewis issued a statement calling on CPS to commit to hiring back before any new teachers 239 "citywide" teachers not formally attached to classrooms who were fired June 30.
Harkening to CPS Chief Ron Huberman's 2010 back-to-school slogan, "Show up! First Day and Every Day," Lewis said: "I hope Mr. Huberman sends the same message to his Human Capital department. ... We demand fully certified, highly qualified teachers in every classroom 'First Day and Every Day,' and we plan to help students and schools get just that."
As is true in other cities, Chicago seems to have deals with Teach for America to pay them to recruit new teachers for the city.
Investigating Teach for AmericaLast summer, Boston Teachers Union President Richard Stutman met with 18 local union presidents, “all of whom said they’d seen teachers laid off to make room for TFA members,” according to an article in USA Today. “I don’t think you’ll find a city that isn’t laying off people to accommodate Teach for America,” Stutman said.
In the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district, for instance, the superintendent laid off hundreds of veteran teachers but spared 100 TFA-ers. TFA, meanwhile, expanded into Dallas this fall, bringing in nearly 100 new teachers, even though the district had laid off 350 teachers in the 2008-09 school year.
In Boston, where the district planned to lay off 20 veteran teachers and replace them with TFA corps members, the union filed a complaint. The state’s Division of Labor Relations determined in early October that “the likelihood existed that the Boston School Committee violated the union contract when signing an agreement” with TFA, according to the Boston Globe.
More recently, in Washington, D.C., former TFA corps member and current Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee laid off 229 teachers in October, but only six of the 170 TFA teachers in the system, according to the Washington Post.
There is also growing tension between schools of education and TFA over jobs for new teachers. The College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, for example, graduates about 300 certified teachers a year. The graduates, especially elementary teachers, are increasingly having difficulty finding jobs in the Chicago schools. “One reason is the number of jobs committed to Teach for America and similar programs, which have arrangements with the Chicago public schools,” notes Victoria Chou, dean of the College of Education.
Glad to see the teachers' union speaking out about this. It was ignored for way too long.
Teach for America has asked congress to give them 50 million dollars this year, and that would be in addition to the $2000 the local districts pay TFA plus the salaries. Pretty cushy deal.
Why pay a private company 50 million of public money to recruit new teachers when so many teachers are being laid off?And why are not more people upset about this new trend?
There is a good old-fashioned way of recruiting and hiring teachers. It's by having principals or school boards interview them in person and decide they are fit for the job. That's how I got my job as a teacher a long time ago. That's how our district has always hired teachers.
But now a private company called Teach for America is now a part of Americorps, and they receive public money to furnish teachers to schools. Now they are about to get 50 million more.
At the
Great Schools for America Website there is a rundown of the letters to Tom Harkin asking for TFA to be given the money, and more about TFA. There is a complete list of the Democrats who signed the letters to Harkin. It's a huge list.
The list is so long it makes me wonder if they even know they are giving this money to a company that is replacing experienced teachers who are laid off?
I have been watching to see if TFA got the 50 million. The only thing I have found indicates they will have to settle for 20 million of taxpayer money this year. This editorial from the Philadelphia Inquirer is upset they did not get more and calls it a worthy program. I disagree. I think hiring teachers locally through interview and resume' is better. Nobody asked me what I think, and nobody cares.
Tardy moneyCongress had been dragging its feet about including the program in the fiscal 2011 budget until last week, when the House Appropriations Committee earmarked $20 million for it. That's an increase from the $18 million noncompetitive grant TFA received this year.
Instead of directly funding Teach for America, President Obama has proposed letting it compete with other applicants for funds from $235 million set aside for initiatives to recruit and prepare teachers to work at some of the nation's worst schools.
Obama's plan has merit, but Teach for America, which also depends on private grants and other donations, argues that it would be difficult for it to do its long-range planning if it had to compete that way for federal funding.
Even with direct funding, Teach for America, which had requested a $50 million federal allocation, will have to scale back its plans for this year. Corporations and foundations that support the program should step up to help fill the budget gap.
One more step on the road to privatizing education. Privatizing the hiring of teachers is a huge push forward in controlling the agenda. It is meant to hire cheaper teachers, get rid of tenure, and to place the less trained teachers in the poorest most poverty stricken schools.
Let me know in a few years how that worked out.
We already knew it was happening when Mayor Bloomberg who has total control of NYC schools got 5 million to hire new recruits while laying off thousands.
Bloomberg calls for no teacher raises, while city gets 5 million to recruit new teachers.NYC recruits through the New Teacher Project.
Of course this $5 million expenditure is going to the New Teacher Project, a "non-profit" founded by Joel Klein crony Michelle Rhee, so really this expenditure is less about hiring new teachers and more about paying off cronies.
The DOE has also hired eight new deputy chancellors, continues to spend millions on new testing programs, and hand out no-bid contracts for busing services and the like (even with gangsters who bring guns to the negotiations.)
The City Council gave 4% raises to its staff, Bloomberg gave raises to his staff, and he gave bonuses to his campaign people (albeit, this money came from his own pocket.)
With all this money going from hand to hand, there IS money to AVERT layoffs even if the state and the feds do not give more money to the city. They just have to reallocate it from other things - like the testing programs, the no-bid contracts, the new deputy chancellor hires, and the payoffs to cronies.
They are hitting education from all sides now. Teachers are finally waking up and realizing what is happening.
Trouble is since the Bush agenda is being accomplished through a Democratic administration, there is no party left to oppose.
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