The Chicago Teachers Union and its 'Quest Center' ... Solidarity or Sellout?....
Although she no longer is chief of the Chicago Teachers Union Quest Center, Lynn Cherkasky Davis, above right, is still at the Quest Center and arranging professional development sessions. Above, a year before she was ousted as President of the Chicago Teachers Union, Marilyn Stewart went to breakfast at the Hyatt Hotel in Chicago to listen to a message about corporate school reform featuring Arne Duncan and the leaders of an anti-union group called "Advance Illinois." Upstairs from the breakfast, leaders of CORE, which was to win a union election one year later, were told by Hyatt security officials that they would be arrested if they -- a group of teachers -- "trespassed" by trying to enter an event inside the hotel that was discussing the fate of public education in Chicago featuring the U.S. Secretary of Education. Duncan had been appointed to the Cabinet post by President Barack Obama a few months before the Advance Illinois breakfast and was about to launch his "Chicago Plan" on the rest of the USA. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Judging from what landed in my e-mail on Aug. 25, I have to assume that CTU is tone deaf -- or worse. On the same day that Twitter was booming with messages of solidarity with Dyett, with calls for people to join the hunger strike for one day, I received an e-mail announcement from CTU touting a course awarding participants 14 PD hours. There is ugly irony in the fact that this course offers a "framework for 6 Types of Family/Community Involvement."
Community involvement is getting out to Dyett. As Jeanette Taylor-Ramann points out, "What�s happening in Bronzeville isn�t just about Dyett High School. There�s an agenda to push out black and brown low income and working families in the city of Chicago."
And CTU's answer is business as usual. This is not the first time the Quest Center has exhibited their determination to side with the existing power structure. I haven't forgotten the 2011 CTU Quest Center $600,000 grant from AFT to "create model units of instruction, classroom performance assessments, and materials aligned to the new, higher and more rigorous set of state-adopted Common Core State Standards."
Call me Pollyanna, but I'd hoped that when the money ran out new union leadership would transform Quest into a center for building unionism instead of one promoting propaganda for the 1%.
Many people have commented on how long it took the Chicago Tribune to acknowledge Dyett parents. How long will it take the CTU?
THE CTU EMAIL IS BELOW HERE:
On 8/25/2015 11:28 AM, Lynn Cherkasky-Davis ctulocal1.com wrote: CHICAGO
TEACHERS UNION. Quest. Center Professional Learning
This professional development series, for currently practicing K � 12th grade teachers, examines the research that addresses the importance of family and community involvement in teaching and its impact on student learning. The four sessions focus on the effect family/community/teacher collaboration has on dropout rates, motivation, and students seeking higher education.
Participants will learn about the framework for 6 Types of Family/Community Involvement (Parenting, Communicating, Volunteering, Learning at Home, Decision-Making, and Collaboration) and how to utilize it in their practice. Attendees will learn how and why to involve family members (and guardians and caregivers) as partners with both school and home-based activities (i.e. interactive homework, dialogue journaling, etc.); how to break the barriers that hinder family and community involvement in school; strategies for 2-way communication with families to advance student learning; and why and how to be responsive to families and their cultures and needs. Teachers also learn to effectively engage more community stakeholders in their instruction, how and where to seek community resources, and best make use of them. This series is aligned with the CPS Framework for Teaching Components 4c and 4d. Instructor: Walter Taylor, NBCT
To view full advertisement CLICK HERE.
Dates: Saturdays and Sundays, 9/26, 9/27 and 11/14, 11/15
Time: 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM
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Chicago Teachers Union | 222 Merchandise Mart Plaza | Suite 400 | Chicago | IL | 60654
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