Jean-Claude Brizard: It's All About the Love--Take It or Leave It
[Editor's Note: The following originally was posted to Gapersblock and is shared with Substance readers here. A further examination of the terms of the Brizard publicity stunt is being developed by the Chicago Teachers Union and will be reported tomorrow at substancenews.net].
Jean-Claude Brizard at the August 24, 2011 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education. The night before he had announced his "two percent pay raise" attack on elementary teachers and the union as a publicity stunt on Chicago Tonight. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.My nine-year-old daughter was excited to get up in the morning and go to school last year, thanks in large part to the energy and efforts of her third-grade CPS teacher.
CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard has now decided to harness even more of that teacher's seemingly boundless energy. In fact, earlier this week he asked her to spend some extra time in the classroom during the 2011-12 school year.
Why? The reason should be obvious. As Brizard told WTTW's Phil Ponce on Tuesday night: "We want to celebrate our teachers...We love our teachers."
Brizard was even willing to put a price tag on that love.
He said he'd break out his checkbook and sweeten this particular teacher's $52,400 salary with a 2% kicker. And all she needs to do is spend an extra 90 minutes in the classroom on each of the school's 170 instructional days.
You read that right. Just for her putting in a paltry 255 additional hours (a little over 6 extra weeks for those of you who remember the old 40-hour work week), Brizard will show his love to the tune of $1048. That, my friends, represents a pre-tax hourly wage of nearly $4.11. Not too shabby in the age of 9% unemployment.
Sure, it's a bit below the $4.25/hour minimum wage that a lot of fast food workers enjoyed back in 1991, but how many Burger King managers actually celebrated and loved their employees back then? (Before you answer, let's remember that President Clinton was not yet in the Oval Office.)
Yes, the extra 90 minutes a day in the classroom sounds like well-paid fun, but won't that teacher also shoulder additional preparation time, grading time, and (possibly) commuting time as a result of the longer school day? And isn't that teacher going to end up shelling out more of her own cash for the supplies that students will use during those extra 255 hours? All good questions, but no one ever said love was easy, folks.
Just look at what love's done to our Romeo Brizard. The guy went out on a limb Tuesday by promising a 2% salary increase, even though he's flat broke. But make no mistake -- he will get the money.
He told Ponce that he will order his team to find the money and tell them to "cut bone" if they have to. (Note: The expression "cut bone" has long been rumored to be City Hall slang for "tap into the mayor's TIF slush fund.")
And he is going to do all of this for love.
Love can move mountains. Love can obviously get the Tribune and the Sun-Times to print CPS press releases on a near-daily basis. And love can certainly dig under the sofa cushions on Clark Street to find an extra $4.11/hour for my daughter's old teacher.
And that's why Chicago taxpayers were so eager to get into an imaginary bidding war with imaginary school districts for Brizard's services. That's why we ultimately agreed to pay his $250,000 salary, which is about 9% more than we paid Ron Huberman, who merely liked teachers.
Imagine the void those poor public school teachers back in Rochester must now feel. Even when 95% of them gave their old superintendent a vote of "no-confidence" last February, Brizard continued to love them unconditionally.
Well, he's ours now, Rochester. At least for the next year or so.
Matt Farmer is a Chicago lawyer and musician. He currently serves as a member of the Local School Council at Philip Rogers Elementary School.
Comments:
By: John Kugler
Union Busting #32 - Creating an Illusion of Progress
Creating an Illusion of Progress - Tactic #32
After questioning the usefulness and motives of the union, the second imperative of a union avoidance campaign is to humanize the executives in the eyes of workers.[40] The goal is to portray the company as benevolent, compassionate, and caring.[40] According to former union buster Martin Jay Levitt, managers might learn at seminars ways to market themselves through the alteration of perceptions, such as appearing more open and caring by relaxing certain rules.[40]
Management temporarily submits to the guidance of consultants concerning all communications with employees. Examples of management's changes in procedures are publicized to all employees. Through surveys and interviews, the union buster develops an insight into who in management the union likes and trusts. These members of management become the new face of the company during the union organizing campaign while the others are coached on masking or overcoming their dislikeable characteristics. Absent such transformation, their visible role is diminished.
"Give the workers just enough rope so that they believe they are off the leash, just enough to fool them into scorning the union. The golden rule of management control, as I taught it, was: incorporate dissent, institutionalize it. They would find, I promised my disciples, that dissension won't be half as attractive to the masses once the rebels are sitting down with the bosses...the cunning manager should embrace his workplace rebels. Be grateful for them, I offered, for they are your most effective shield against the union. If you can convince the activists that they'll accomplish more, perhaps have more power, without a union, why, you've won the war.[40]
Managers or owners may be asked to visit worksites and exchange jokes, gossip, and laughter with workers. The theme of company-as-family prevails, with the union portrayed as an upstart outsider. Only after a union organizing drive is defeated, might company executives revert to their previous conduct.[41]
References
[40] a b c d Confessions of a Union Buster, Martin Jay Levitt, 1993, page 136. Emphasis added, and in one case re-interpreted.
[41] Confessions of a Union Buster, Martin Jay Levitt, 1993, pages 1, 26-28, 107, and 188-189. Specifically, after one campaign the executives "became even more tyrannical than before."
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_busting
By: Anna G
Jean-Claude Brizard's version of 'Love'... Thanks for this fabulous article
EXCELLENT article on our dear old friend Jean-Claude.
I am a junior instrumental major at School of the Arts (i play saxophone) back in Rochester, and I just absolutley felt the love last year when Brizzard laid off over 600 teachers and cut the music program at my school by 35%. I'm sure that this display of unyielding affection was for our own good. We just can't see it yet.
I understand that he just couldn't stay in little old Rochster, though he must have wanted to SO much, he had to move on, because it would have never worked out between us. He loves us so much that his decisions continue to affect us long after he is gone: I am starting the school year without any music lessons, musicals, or band trip for a program that has won the Grammy signature award twice, and has won gold medals every year on our band trip competitions.
The success of the arts at our school has been the main reason for our 98% graduation rate in district that has a 54% graduation rate (for REAL 54%) district-wide. However, I admire him not only deciding that 98% was too expensive to have, but declaring that the district-wide graduation rate was higher than it actually was. His outstanding optimism shows just GREAT leadership skills.
It is from this that i have realized that Jean-Claude Brizzard is like wikipedia:
always changing up facts, always needing money, and 95% of teachers think he's unreliable.
Have fun, Chicago.
By: Kathy Jacobs
Beware the Jabberwock, My Son!
“I’ll go back to my team and order them to find the cuts to pay elementary teachers for the 90 minutes,” Brizard said. “Two percent pay [raises] to elementary school teachers for 90 minutes, September to June, would cost about $30 million. ... I would be willing to do that for this school year.”
After reading Brizard’s Jabberwocky, some questions remain: If there is $30 million laying around just waiting to be cut, why hasn’t it been cut already? And if the CTU turns down the 2% raise, which is half of the legally-contracted 4% raise the BOE was obligated to pay, does CPS just keep the $30 million in the red out of spite?
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.