Education Reform

             Chicago’ public schools have experienced several different reforms depending on who is running the city at the time. The guest speaker informed our class that the Chicago Teachers Union want better schools and a better system for their community. Their main goals are to make sure that each child has the opportunity to achieve his or her full potential by establishing smaller class sizes in order to make individual instruction possible, limit standardized tests, safer schools, and stronger contracts for teachers. Before the guest speaker came to our class, I was very spectacle of the Teacher Unions in general. I assumed that the Teacher Unions did not want to decrease standardized testing, which are definitely not the answers to solving the education problems that exist today, and that those who received tenure were not regularly checked on by school officials. However, I found that all of my assumptions were wrong, and by having the speaker come to our class, it definitely has opened not only my eyes but the rest of the class as well.

            Furthermore, the speaker expressed the Union’s position on charter schools, which are a huge part of Rahm Emanuel’s plan on education reform.  The speaker informed us that they are not in favor of charter schools because they are not generally doing any better in educating when compared to public schools. They do, however, support the Charter Schools Union in Chicago, but do not support the charter schools that are not unionized. The speaker also spoke about how firing the entire staff of faculty at a school is not the answer to solving the educational issues that exist. He mentioned how teachers can be trained and become better at their teaching styles and efforts. When he mentioned this, I totally agreed because it is very illogical to fire an entire staff and gather a whole new one because it not only affects the employment of individuals but it also greatly affects students. Students need to have faculty members that understand the environment that they are surrounded by, and just be having a whole new staff does not mean that these new faculty members will understand the type of environment that the students are living in.

            Like Lipman (2006) mentions in her article, “Reform is explicitly designed to attract the middle class to the city. New, academically challenging schools and programs are important to gentrifications.” Even though charter schools may appear to be the answer to restructuring the educational system in cities does not mean that they truly are. Many high officials and the media give the impression that all charter schools are doing extraordinary when compared to regular public schools, but we have to realize that this new obsession with charter schools may be due to political and city officials wanting to make cities more livable for middle-class families.