I'd rather see reasonable contracts than none at all
Chicago Has a Nonunion Plan for Poor Schools
By SAM DILLON
CHICAGO - Last fall, R. Eden Martin, a lawyer from a powerful business group here, wrote a blunt memorandum to Arne Duncan, the chief executive of the Chicago public schools, warning that dozens of failing schools that had resisted improvement after years on an academic watch list would soon face a takeover under federal law.
But there was an alternative - the city could shut them down on its own and create small, new, privately managed schools to replace them. And that, Mr. Martin wrote, would bring a crucial advantage: the new schools could operate outside the Chicago Teachers Union contract.
It seemed a fire-breathing proposal, since in its entire history Chicago had closed just three schools for academic failure, and the union is a powerful force in the school system here, the nation's third largest. But Mr. Duncan was already convinced of the need for direct intervention in many failing schools, and the business group's proposal helped shape a sweeping new plan, which Mayor Richard M. Daley announced in June. By 2010, the city will replace 60 failing schools with 100 new ones, and in the process turn one in 10 of its schools over to private managers, mostly operating without unions. It is one of the nation's most radical school restructuring plans.
"It's time to start over with the schools that are nonperforming," Mr. Daley said in an interview July 19. "We need to shake up the system."
The schools slated for closing include 40 elementary schools and 20 high schools. In all of them, most students perform far below grade level.
