Shame on you and your panel....to comment on the Chicago Teachers Strike without legitimate information...The teachers have a viable argument when it comes to evaluation on test scores....Mayor Emmanuel has no knowledge of the challenges teachers have to face on a daily basis..we're living in a city where violence is more prevelant than in any other major city...Mayor Emmanuel should bully the Gangster Disciples, the Vice Lords and the Latin Kings....not the Chicago Teachers Union ....listen and learn Mayor....teachers are the boots on the ground....Alex, you and your panel should talk to Ed Schulz before making more comments about the strike.....

I absolutely agree. The one sided discussion about this on the show today was disgusting. You are blaming the only people who are in the trenches educating ALL children on on a daily basis no matter what the circumstances. The issue is that standardized tests are not an accurate way to assess student OR teacher performance. The teachers are fighting for a fair system and more power to them. We need to expose these politicians who know nothing about education or the issues faced by educators everyday nor anything about how to assess an educators performance. They are just pretending they have all the answers. It makes me sad that there was no one on the show today addressing this point and no one to support our hard working, underpaid teachers.

I was very disappointed in the entire panel today when you talked about the Chicago teachers' strike. None of you seemed informed about CPS or the issues/concerns at the heart of the negotiations.you really demonstrated "facts don't matter". Close to 80-90% of CPS students come from poverty level families. Unemployment is high, gang violence rampant,hunger a grave reality, about 300 social workers for 370,000 students, a shocking paucity of special education services - no comparison to the surrounding suburban school systems.Teachers do need to be evaluated, but other things must be taken into consideration in addition to test scores. I think Mayor Emmanuel would help students more by providing remedies to the above problems and improving the quality of education before focusing on the quantity of education. If you are interested in another perspective on school reform, I would suggest that you invite Dr. Pedro Noguera (NYU) to discuss the issue on your show. Please continue to discuss the issue, but please do so with facts and in a balanced way.

Dear Alex,

I want to preface this letter with the statement that I’m a fan of your show, but I have to say that I was disappointed by your flippant and dismissive coverage of the teacher’s strike in Chicago yesterday morning. I’m increasing frustrated with news coverage predicating the strike encourages American children to run amuck and unsupervised in some sort of chaotic war zone. That, unlike every weekend/holiday/evening/vacation, because the kids are not in school, they are popping pills, peeing on cars, and generally setting fire to the shrubbery. The word “suffer” keeps being thrown around. “Our children are suffering… and it’s the teachers fault.” I have a fundamental problem with this statement, because, however frustrating and inconvenient, kids are not suffering if they have an extra couple of days summer vacation… they’re suffering because they aren’t being given the tools and supplies they need to get a great education and their teachers are overburdened, overworked, and under-appreciated. And that is what this strike is really about. These teachers are striking for pencils, and desks, and textbooks, social workers and air conditioning… they’re striking for the basic fundamentals that would give their students a fighting chance to actually learn something.

I’m also confused about your assumption that if teachers strike, they must not care about their students and your implication that their salaries are already so high - that they should just get over themselves. I can’t imagine what a television news anchor makes, but I’m sure it would be frustrating if you were to ever go on strike because you thought your company was treating you unfairly and the general public reaction from the nice people on TV was “ You really should get over it, because you’re already so rich, and by the way all your makeup/caterers/gaffers/stylists/and interns are suffering, so could you please sit down and stop making the cars honk.”

I think you’ve fallen into the trap that most people unconnected with a struggling public school fall into, where you believe that the same experience you’ve had in school is broadly parallel to what everyone experiences. So I want to talk to you about my friend Chris.

Chris is an art teacher at a public school, he teaches kindergarten through 12^th grade, and he sees every kid, every day. His school is one of the struggling charter schools filled with at-risk kids. 98 percent of the students at his school come from families below the poverty line, and many are semi-homeless and see violence on a regular basis. On his first day of school he passed an abandoned car parked in a yard about a block away from the school. The car was on fire. His classes have been interrupted far too many times because of shootings in the neighborhood and other violent episodes, but he continues to work sixty hours a week and he manages to produce some pretty fantastic projects and actually inspire his kids along the way. Chris is talented and loving, and he pours his energy into his students. He organized a fundraiser to support a student whose mother passed away, and he developed a kickstarter campaign to pay for supplies so he could fund a summer art program where he and his kids permanently installed large mosaics onto some hallway alcoves.

And Chris is lucky; he gets to work part of his day in a room with air conditioning. If you’ve never been in a brick room with no canned air for eight hours on one of those hot Chicago days, you should try it… it will inspire you to never leave your house. And his students are lucky because most of them have desks, and they’ll eventually get the textbooks they need after a few weeks for their other classes, and they’re also lucky that their teacher continues to pull cash out of his own pocket to buy them supplies if they run out. (In fact, on average teachers spend a grand a year on supplementing their own supplies.) His kids are lucky to have art classes at all. Many of these struggling schools have no extra curricular classes. Chris’s school doesn’t have a library or music, but he does have computer access at home to actually plan lessons and record grades. This is another thing they’re fighting for. Computer access for teachers because school records and grading systems are online.

I’m trying to illuminate that this strike is actually way more complicated than you seem to think. There are 350 social workers dealing with the entire public student population in Chicago. They’re swamped, and many schools don’t even have a private room set aside for them to speak to the kids. I’m not being hyperbolic about the pencils or the desks or the textbooks, there are really not enough to go around. The evaluation system that everyone is talking about is important, but if 40 percent of teacher’s performances are based on standardized test scores (because we know how accurate those are and there’s no parachute built into standardized tests to cover kids who see abandoned cars on fire on a regular basis, or who’s only daily guaranteed meal comes from their school lunch.), the projected firing of 6 thousand teachers is going to happen… fast. Which would make it fairly easy for Mayor Emanuel to replace them with non-union (cheaper) new hires. Which seems to be the plan here.

Our Mayor’s desire to weaken the union is at the heart of this problem. Almost immediately after taking office Rahm passed a bill making it impossible for the union to strike without a 75 percent majority, which was initially thought to make striking impossible. He’s been fairly vocal about wanting to shut down many of the struggling schools, and creating more privatized charter schools. But he’s not requiring these private entities to be judged by the same evaluation systems. He also wants to eliminate the current practice of “replacement pools”, which essentially mandate that teachers in good standing who were laid off from school closings have to be hired for new openings before other non-union (cheaper) educators.

I also think that unions broadly have gotten a bad rap lately. Since when did Norma Ray become the bad girl? Teachers have a right to assemble to protest if they feel like they’re being mistreated. I’m sure that the personal stakes involved compound the contentious negotiations, but if your own characterization of Mayor Emanuel is correct, and he is the guy you wouldn’t want to mess with in a dark alley… I doubt he’s especially amenable to compromise, or a fun softie bear to negotiate with. Further, if his opposition sees him as a bully who’s vilifying them in the press – this situation will only get worse.

I’m hoping this entire ordeal will dissipate soon, a great compromise will be made, and we can all go back to obsessing about the election. But until that time I’ll continue to stand with the teachers. Because I come from teachers. My mom was a teacher and school counselor. My dad was a teacher and a high-school coach. I owe my artistic foundation to the art, theatre, music, and creative instructors that I was lucky enough to have in my life. I tell you all this because I hope that if you engage the topic of the strike again with your panel, you’ll consider giving the subject a more thoughtful look. I’d never expect you to agree immediately (or even at all) with what I’m writing here. But I’d like to think you’d approach the discussion with the open-minded élan and easeful grace I’ve come to expect from your moderation of your show.

Until that time, I remain

Bret

Chicago resident and slightly disappointed

but continued fan of

Now with Alex Wagner

Dear Alex,

I want to preface this letter with the statement that I’m a fan of your show, but I have to say that I was disappointed by your flippant and dismissive coverage of the teacher’s strike in Chicago yesterday morning. I’m increasing frustrated with news coverage predicating the strike encourages American children to run amuck and unsupervised in some sort of chaotic war zone. That, unlike every weekend/holiday/evening/vacation, because the kids are not in school, they are popping pills, peeing on cars, and generally setting fire to the shrubbery. The word “suffer” keeps being thrown around. “Our children are suffering… and it’s the teachers fault.” I have a fundamental problem with this statement, because, however frustrating and inconvenient, kids are not suffering if they have an extra couple of days summer vacation… they’re suffering because they aren’t being given the tools and supplies they need to get a great education and their teachers are overburdened, overworked, and under-appreciated. And that is what this strike is really about. These teachers are striking for pencils, and desks, and textbooks, social workers and air conditioning… they’re striking for the basic fundamentals that would give their students a fighting chance to actually learn something.

I’m also confused about your assumption that if teachers strike, they must not care about their students and your implication that their salaries are already so high - that they should just get over themselves. I can’t imagine what a television news anchor makes, but I’m sure it would be frustrating if you were to ever go on strike because you thought your company was treating you unfairly and the general public reaction from the nice people on TV was “ You really should get over it, because you’re already so rich, and by the way all your makeup/caterers/gaffers/stylists/and interns are suffering, so could you please sit down and stop making the cars honk.”

I think you’ve fallen into the trap that most people unconnected with a struggling public school fall into, where you believe that the same experience you’ve had in school is broadly parallel to what everyone experiences. So I want to talk to you about my friend Chris.

Chris is an art teacher at a public school, he teaches kindergarten through 12^th grade, and he sees every kid, every day. His school is one of the struggling charter schools filled with at-risk kids. 98 percent of the students at his school come from families below the poverty line, and many are semi-homeless and see violence on a regular basis. On his first day of school he passed an abandoned car parked in a yard about a block away from the school. The car was on fire. His classes have been interrupted far too many times because of shootings in the neighborhood and other violent episodes, but he continues to work sixty hours a week and he manages to produce some pretty fantastic projects and actually inspire his kids along the way. Chris is talented and loving, and he pours his energy into his students. He organized a fundraiser to support a student whose mother passed away, and he developed a kickstarter campaign to pay for supplies so he could fund a summer art program where he and his kids permanently installed large mosaics onto some hallway alcoves.

And Chris is lucky; he gets to work part of his day in a room with air conditioning. If you’ve never been in a brick room with no canned air for eight hours on one of those hot Chicago days, you should try it… it will inspire you to never leave your house. And his students are lucky because most of them have desks, and they’ll eventually get the textbooks they need after a few weeks for their other classes, and they’re also lucky that their teacher continues to pull cash out of his own pocket to buy them supplies if they run out. (In fact, on average teachers spend a grand a year on supplementing their own supplies.) His kids are lucky to have art classes at all. Many of these struggling schools have no extra curricular classes. Chris’s school doesn’t have a library or music, but he does have computer access at home to actually plan lessons and record grades. This is another thing they’re fighting for. Computer access for teachers because school records and grading systems are online.

I’m trying to illuminate that this strike is actually way more complicated than you seem to think. There are 350 social workers dealing with the entire public student population in Chicago. They’re swamped, and many schools don’t even have a private room set aside for them to speak to the kids. I’m not being hyperbolic about the pencils or the desks or the textbooks, there are really not enough to go around. The evaluation system that everyone is talking about is important, but if 40 percent of teacher’s performances are based on standardized test scores (because we know how accurate those are and there’s no parachute built into standardized tests to cover kids who see abandoned cars on fire on a regular basis, or who’s only daily guaranteed meal comes from their school lunch.), the projected firing of 6 thousand teachers is going to happen… fast. Which would make it fairly easy for Mayor Emanuel to replace them with non-union (cheaper) new hires. Which seems to be the plan here.

Our Mayor’s desire to weaken the union is at the heart of this problem. Almost immediately after taking office Rahm passed a bill making it impossible for the union to strike without a 75 percent majority, which was initially thought to make striking impossible. He’s been fairly vocal about wanting to shut down many of the struggling schools, and creating more privatized charter schools. But he’s not requiring these private entities to be judged by the same evaluation systems. He also wants to eliminate the current practice of “replacement pools”, which essentially mandate that teachers in good standing who were laid off from school closings have to be hired for new openings before other non-union (cheaper) educators.

I also think that unions broadly have gotten a bad rap lately. Since when did Norma Ray become the bad girl? Teachers have a right to assemble to protest if they feel like they’re being mistreated. I’m sure that the personal stakes involved compound the contentious negotiations, but if your own characterization of Mayor Emanuel is correct, and he is the guy you wouldn’t want to mess with in a dark alley… I doubt he’s especially amenable to compromise, or a fun softie bear to negotiate with. Further, if his opposition sees him as a bully who’s vilifying them in the press – this situation will only get worse.

I’m hoping this entire ordeal will dissipate soon, a great compromise will be made, and we can all go back to obsessing about the election. But until that time I’ll continue to stand with the teachers. Because I come from teachers. My mom was a teacher and school counselor. My dad was a teacher and a high-school coach. I owe my artistic foundation to the art, theatre, music, and creative instructors that I was lucky enough to have in my life. I tell you all this because I hope that if you engage the topic of the strike again with your panel, you’ll consider giving the subject a more thoughtful look. I’d never expect you to agree immediately (or even at all) with what I’m writing here. But I’d like to think you’d approach the discussion with the open-minded élan and easeful grace I’ve come to expect from your moderation of your show.

Until that time, I remain

Bret

Chicago resident and slightly disappointed

but continued fan of

Now with Alex Wagner

I was very disappointed with your coverage of the Chicago teacher strike. The level of ignorance that Alex and the panel displayed was shocking and frankly makes me wonder about how trustworthy their analyses are on other issues and events. I have been a fan of this show, but you give me reason for skepticism. I have also had a 40 year career in education. I have been a special education teacher, a teacher educator, researcher and program evaluator.

There is no data that the quality of teaching can adequately account for student achievement. We may wish this were not so but it is. There are many complex issues involved. One issue that has not received enough discussion in this instance is that the quality of the achievement tests are not adequately reliable to be used in high stakes evaluations. They are especially unreliable when the gains of individual students or small groups (class rooms) are under consideration. It is understandable that teacher would bridle at being required to hang their careers on standardized test performances.

Policy initiatives to directly tie the evaluation of teacher performance to student achievement began and gathered steam during the W. Bush administration. It is typical fare for that administration. It appeals to our liking of simple solutions to complex problems. It is also inadequate.

As for the Mayor Emanual, he is a thug. It is sometimes useful to have a thug around, but not such considerations as this. Alex made indirect comments that would indicate she is aware for Mayor Emanual's inclinations. She and the other panelists should more thoughtful. It was truly amazing to see all those bright young people eagerly leap in and speak with such impulse and ignorance. If his evaluation scheme becomes policy, I predict that teacher retention rates will be best predicted by the school's zip codes.

You have options about which events and issues you cover. Please, either inform yourselves or don't cover issues you do not really understand well.

Eric Jones