Editor’s Note: Eric Schwarz is the co-founder and CEO of Citizen Schools, a nonprofit organization that partners with middle schools to expand the learning day for children in low-income communities across the country. The organization has been recognized as a national example by the White House and the U.S. Department of Education. Schwarz is the author of “Realizing the American Dream: Historical Scorecard, Current Challenges, Future Opportunities,” a widely cited essay examining social change efforts, and co-editor of The Case for Twenty-First Century Learning.

In 1995, in a concept paper for a new nonprofit organization, I wrote that, “…we need to stop bashing schools and stop expecting school teachers to perform miracles.” We know that most teachers across the country are putting in long hours, many of which are off-the-clock, working hard to provide students with a great education.

Sadly, for too many of their students, it’s not enough.

The achievement gap between low-income students and their higher-income peers is almost twice what it was when I grew up in the 1960s and ‘70s. About one in four American students, with much higher rates among minority and low-income youth, do not graduate from high school. In the face of persistent achievement and opportunity gaps, the traditional school day is failing our most vulnerable children.

As a result, schools and school districts across the country are looking to add more quality learning time to the school day in an effort to help those students who are falling behind. According to Mike Sabin, former principal of the EdwardsMiddle School in Boston where more learning time helped the school close the achievement gap, “When you’re letting your kids go at 1:30 in the afternoon and they’re not achieving yet, it’s fairly obvious that using the afternoon is something you have to do.”

Too often, however, in the debate over longer school days, the conversation turns to the logistics of how teachers will staff the extra hours. School districts and teachers unions have gone to battle over the details of how many hours teachers will be required to work and how they will be compensated. The good news is that the burden of a longer school day does not have to fall solely on the backs of traditional teachers.

While districts and unions have debated if and how to lengthen the school day, there are dozens of pioneering schools that have moved forward with innovative approaches to lengthening the day. More than 20 middle schools in eight states are partnering with Citizen Schools, the organization I founded, to add three mandatory hours to the school day with the support of an army of AmeriCorps national service fellows and community volunteers. This “second shift” of educators lead academic practice sessions, help students with homework, connect with parents, and teach apprenticeships where students work on hands-on projects with professionals from the community.

Before ELT, our partner schools made, on average, zero or minimal progress on building student proficiency on standardized tests, well below their districts’ averages. Per a recently released report on year one of Citizen Schools’ national pilot ELT initiative, students in partner schools averaged an annual 8.3-percentage point gain on state standardized exams in math and a 2.3-point gain in English Language Arts. These results significantly exceeded the rates of improvement prior to implementing ELT and the rates of improvement across the host districts. As Citizen Schools continues to gather data on year two of the initiative, we are seeing significant gains in student achievement similar to year one.

It’s not just Citizen Schools that is working on inventive approaches to lengthening the day. Additional schools have partnered with other community organizations like The After-School Corporation (TASC) and Building Educated Leaders for Life (BELL) to provide more learning time for kids and evidence has shown that these partnerships are working. TASC conducted a three-year pilot program in New York City in which students outperformed city and state peers in improving math and English language arts proficiency, and teachers reported that student learning improved. Evaluations have shown that BELL has a significant, positive impact on students’ academic skills.

Providing students with more time to learn critical skills and participate in engaging projects that get them excited about school can help teachers with their day-to-day work. According to Lisa Nelson, principal at Isaac Newton Middle School in New York City, “Now that we are implementing ELT, our teachers are more effective because all their students have completed their homework, have practiced academic skills and have new reasons to care about school and see its relevance to their future.”

In the school’s first year of partnering with Citizen Schools to lengthen the school day, Isaac Newton Middle School was able to increase math proficiency on the state exam by 26 percentage points and increase English language arts by 17 percentage points. These are the kind of results an entire school community can get excited about.

There is no denying that access to excellent teachers is a critical factor in helping students succeed. In some cases, however, even the best teachers need support to help reinforce the good work they are doing. One way to do this is to provide their students with more time to learn and fill that time with quality learning experiences that help drive student achievement.

Through the proven models outlined above, we can do this without burning out teachers who are already working long hours.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Eric Schwarz.

New York (CNN) — A former teacher at a Brooklyn high school who claimed she was sexually harassed and verbally assaulted by her students has agreed to a $450,000 settlement from the city of New York, her attorney and school officials told CNN.

As part of the settlement, Theresa Reel, 52, resigned from the School for Legal Studies in Brooklyn in exchange for having poor ratings on her employment record cleared, her attorney said.

The settlement was reached ahead of a trial that was scheduled to begin earlier this month.

“I think we had a very strong case,” said attorney Joshua Parkhurst, “but this way my client can go on with her life.”

Reel told CNN she was subjected to continuous verbal assaults and sexual harassment by students, who she claimed touched her breasts and wrote insults against her on a desk, shortly after she began working at the school in 2005.

The educator said she reported the students’ behavior to the school multiple times, but the principal’s response was worse than inadequate.

“I was told I wanted to make the school look bad, I was called a troublemaker,” she said. “That was the worst for me: that my employer reacted this way. I felt so worthless.”

Editor’s note: Daphne Koller is Rajeev Motwani Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University and co-founder and co-CEO of Coursera. She is the recipient of awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Koller spoke at the TED Global conference in June in Edinburgh. TED is a nonprofit dedicated to “Ideas worth spreading” which it makes available through talks posted on its website.

(CNN) — Almost exactly a year ago, Stanford University took a bold step. It opened up an online version of three of its most popular Computer Science classes to everyone around the world, for free.

Within weeks, close to 100,000 students or more were enrolled in each of these courses. Cumulatively, tens of thousands of students completed these courses and received a statement of accomplishment from the instructor. This was a real course experience. It started on a given day, and the students would watch videos weekly and do homework assignments. These were real homework assignments for a real grade, with a real deadline.

One of those classes was taught by my co-founder, Andrew Ng. In his on-campus Stanford class, he reaches 400 students a year. It would have taken him 250 years to reach the number of students he reached through that one online course.

The Stanford endeavor showed what is possible. It showed that it is possible to produce a high quality learning experience from some of the top instructors in the world at a very low cost.

(CNN) As schools reopened Wednesday — the day after teachers union representatives voted to suspend their eight-day strike — union leaders, city officials and even students could all claim a few wins and admit a few losses after a bruising battle that had both sides hurling insults like pro wrestlers.

Teachers were happy to secure concessions limiting a school reform program that they said would harm students and cost teachers jobs.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel walked away with a teacher evaluation system and other changes that he says will make educators more accountable.

And there was even an upside for the 350,000 Chicago kids who had to go back to school after an unexpected eight-day holiday.

My View: The Chicago teachers’ strike from an ambivalent union member’s perspective

“It was kind of boring being at home, so I’m kind of glad I’m going back to school so I don’t have to have any more baby sitters,” South Loop Elementary School student Grace Bauer said.

In all, teachers appear to have come out ahead in a strike that gained nationwide attention, said Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and director of its Labor Education Program in Chicago.

Editor’s note:  Calvin Mackie is an author, speaker, former engineering professor and technology entrepreneur. He graduated from high school with low SAT scores that required him to take special remedial classes before he was admitted to Morehouse College. He has since earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, and inspired thousands of students and educators across the country.

As a mechanical engineer with a Ph.D., a motivational STEM speaker and a former college professor, you’d probably be surprised to hear that I think education is useless.

In America, the education system has moved away from developing citizens to serve their fellow man to the unadulterated pursuit of standardized success at any cost. Mixed in with a sea of social change and celebrity obsession, somehow we’ve all lost sight of the goal of education: creating passionate students who are employable, teachable and adaptable in a dynamic world. Students are turned off for a number of reasons right now.

To get back on track, we must recognize that education is useless if students aren’t thirsty for it!

I’ll always remember this lesson that my grandma and grandpa taught me when I was a young kid. I was trying to force a pig to eat the slop I had prepared for him, when my uneducated but wise grandmother stated the truism, “Baby, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink!”

Much like the pig, today’s students don’t want the education we have prepared. They either aren’t hungry or they’ve gotten their fill from somewhere else. In response to my grandma, my grandpa yelled back, “Yeah, you can’t make him drink, but you sure can get him thirsty!”

We can bring students their education and put it on a silver platter right in front of them, but if they don’t want it, they’re not going to eat it. How can we make our students crave it? How can we get them motivated and passionate about learning again? The key is to get back to basics and remember what education is really about.

The primary purpose of education isn’t to teach students how to make money but to provide them with the tools and mechanisms so that they can be FREE. Free to create, free to produce and free to do the things God has ordained and created them to do. As W.E.B. Du Bois stated, “The purpose of education is not to make men and women into doctors, lawyers, and engineers; the purpose of education is to make doctors, lawyers, and engineers into men and women.”

Education affords people the ability to develop and expand their personal and collective capacities. It not only gives them skills, it helps increase their sense of “somebodiness” and purpose. Only when we bring purpose and service back to education, coupled with utility and training, will we win back the hearts and souls of America’s students.

Now, it’s not going to be that easy. “The Silent Epidemic,” a 2006 study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, found that annually, nearly one-third of all public high school students fail to graduate with their class. Nearly one-half of all blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans are flunking out too. In simple terms, the present-day education system is failing the very people it’s supposed to serve: the students.

One of the biggest issues is that our children are growing up in a culture where their passions are advertised and sold to them — there’s no room for them to grow on their own terms. They are more motivated to become the next American Idol, contestant on “Dancing With the Stars” or hip-hop mogul than to become leaders of the free world or create the next Internet. What else can explain the fact that President Barack Obama and Kim Kardashian have the same number of Twitter followers?

What we need to understand is that students have motivation right now, they are just motivated by the wrong things, superficial things that do not require nor promote the education needed to succeed in the 21^st century and only make them “feel good.” And so education is rendered useless. As teachers, parents, motivators and concerned citizens, we must shift our strategy to combat this problem and make our students thirsty!

Rather than starting with lesson plans that attempt to go right to the brain, teachers need to grab student’s attention and win their hearts first.

Show them the amazing lifestyle they can earn by becoming a contributing member of the knowledge economy. Put new role models in front of them — people they should look up to, follow on Twitter and “like” on Facebook.

Help them develop the ability to achieve whatever career they want, whether that is as a doctor, lawyer, engineer or teacher. Remind them every day that when you, “put something in your head, no one can take that from you.”

In the end, it’s up to us to reignite and resuscitate America’s students. Service and self-agency are the essence of motivation in education. When they return, so will our students.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Calvin Mackie.

About 800 union officers and delegates met for just over two hours before there was an overwhelming voice vote to suspend the walkout, according to delegates who attended the meeting.

The contract agreement with the school system still needs to be ratified by the more than 29,000 teachers and support staff who are members of the union.

Editor’s note: Gina Caneva is an eight-year veteran high school English teacher in Chicago Public Schools. Caneva is a Nationally Board Certified teacher at Lindblom Math and Science Academy and was recently awarded a fellowship with Teach Plus. She can be found on Twitter at @GinaCaneva.

(Chicago) — On day one of the Chicago teachers strike, I picketed with my fellow teachers outside of Lindblom Math and Science Academy in the Englewood community. Across the street, an African-American family sat outside a dilapidated black-and-white flat. Three school-aged boys played in the yard while we stood in red T-shirts.

Statistically speaking, if public education does not change these boys won’t make it through college. Only 2% of African-American males graduate on time from a university after graduating from Chicago Public Schools.

Statistically speaking, if public education does not change these boys won’t get into Lindblom Academy, a selective enrollment school now ranked 20th in Illinois, even though they live across the street. Only 11% of Lindblom’s population resides in Englewood.

I couldn’t help but think that the strike was both for them and not for them, that the terms discussed in the media—minor raises in pay, a freeze on healthcare, the percentage of teacher evaluations based on standardized tests—largely ignored them. Reforms for stronger teacher education programs and processes for retaining our strongest teachers not just our most experienced have not been central to this very public debate.

But then we walked to the busy corners of 63rd and Damen and later to 63rd and Ashland, in the most dangerous neighborhood in Chicago, a place where the media often report on violence but quickly disappear until the next shooting occurs. I was expecting to be booed in this area, especially in a recession. But we received the opposite reception.

Police officers, fire fighters and CTA workers honked for us. Truckers strong-armed their horns, parents with kids in their back seats waved in support, and parents taking their kids to charter schools gave us thumbs up. People on the streets of Englewood listened intently when we spoke about some elementary school classrooms having upwards of 40 students with few resources, and they told us to keep up the good fight.

The South Side where I have taught for the past eight years, the South Side where I have attended countless funerals for my students and their families, the South Side where my daughter will attend a CPS elementary school, has embraced me.

As I pumped my fist, I participated in this strike for social justice. The boisterous South Side reminded me of America’s need for a worker’s voice—a voice the baby booming generation once championed, a voice to challenge both political parties.

I remembered that the Chicago Teachers Union was created to fight social justice issues, particularly women’s rights. In a vocation filled with women, it gave female teachers equal pay to their male counterparts while many other American professions did not. It still does, and it also ensures equality in pay against racial lines. In other vocations in this country, there is still a huge wage gap linked implicitly with race and/or gender, but so many of us have stopped fighting to change it.

I thought of my family members who silently watched their pensions turn into 401(k)s and of close friends who pay unimaginably high premiums for health care. They all felt powerless to change these circumstances. Why? Because as individuals, the fight is too big to take on alone.

If I did not have my union, I could have never fought for my salary, benefits and protection against a revolving door of under-qualified and over-burdened principals, let alone a better classroom for my students. I have my union to thank for all of this.

But as an eight-year veteran teacher, I’m also ambivalent because of my students’ rights. I must challenge the traditional step and lane pay scale even though I’ll receive the soon-to-be negotiated raise. At my last school, which served students primarily on free and reduced lunch, I was a department chair at the age of 28, and respected by my colleagues and administrators as one of the school’s best. I made close to $20,000 less than a teacher who had 15 years on the job, who struggled with classroom management, who received repeated unsatisfactory ratings, and who was eventually removed through a process that took more than a year. The low-performing teacher was teaching students who needed more than what she was providing for too long, and she was making more money than she deserved. My union did that, too, and I can’t deny that.

As we look to the future, teachers’ unions must play a role in building a sustainable, dedicated teaching force, rather than a profession built of teachers who will come and go quickly because of low respect and poor working conditions. Workers’ rights are a part of social justice. But fighting for social justice also means fighting for our children’s rights in the terms of ensuring teacher quality. In order to improve public education, unions must fight for teachers’ rights in the form of better working conditions, and for students’ rights by looking critically at teacher performance alongside seniority in hiring practices and pay scales.

As we return to our classrooms, I stand in solidarity for students’ rights, for workers’ rights, and for my rights. I stand with my union. But I hope that in four years when my daughter is old enough to enter her Chicago Public Schools kindergarten classroom, the teacher standing in front is the strongest teacher possible, thanks to a union that upholds workers’ rights and students’ rights. I have the same hopes for the boys in Englewood and for all of the children of Chicago.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Gina Caneva.

Rivera, who started as a special education teacher and coach, said his road to becoming principal started when he had an interest in growing beyond the four walls of his classroom.

He talked about the importance of families in schools.

“We need our families to be engaged in their children’s education,” says Rivera.  “We have a responsibility to build that bridge. We need those families in our schools. We need those families having the right conversation around the dinner table because their involvement is bigger than just signing a signature on a form.”

Rivera believes that educators should be role models for their students.

“In education and in public schools, I don’t believe it’s very hard for educators or for me to be a role model. We got into this business because we care about kids,” says Rivera.  “Every single day, when we walk through those doors, we hold ourselves to that standard – to be a role model, to be a mentor, and when appropriate, to be a friend and a coach.”

Editor’s Note: Bonnie Kenaz-Mara is a Chicago-based writer, photographer and videographer and mother to two children. She blogs daily at http://www.chiilmama.com/.

My 9- and 11-year-old Chicago public school kids are getting schooled in politics, union organizing and grassroots protest in a very visual way this week. The streets of Chicago are running red as teachers wearing crimson shirts take to the streets for the first strike in a quarter of a century. They’re joined by red-wearing parents, kids and supportive community members.

This isn’t an “us vs. them” fight. Our teachers ARE our friends, neighbors and parents with their own kids in public schools right next to our own.  Where is Mr. Mayor?  Maybe he missed out on every one of those 50 prior meetings that Chicago Public Schools and Chicago Teachers Union had because he was so busy chauffeuring his kids to a well-funded, private Lab School.

The teachers have taken it to the streets, and the strike has exploded into the public consciousness.

As closed door negotiations remain at an impasse, eyes nationwide are on Chicago now.  Before Monday, September 10, if the public had heard the acronym CTU at all, they equated the moniker with “Counter Terrorist Unit.” Now, CTU is better known as Chicago Teachers Union all over social media and the news.  Chicago’s real CTU is the teachers, keeping 400,000 kids off the streets and educating them into crime-free futures as productive members of society.

My father was a product of the Chicago public schools in the ‘40s and ‘50s. He went on to an accounting degree at Northwestern and then a master’s degree.   Now, two generations later, his grandchildren are in CPS.

I’ve had two kids in a fabulous Chicago public Montessori school since they were 3 years old, and the teachers are professional, committed and caring, and go above and beyond.   As the daughter of a teacher myself, I have the utmost respect for the invaluable work teachers do.

On the first day of the strike, the mood on the picket lines was festive and playful, despite the seriousness of the issues at hand.  At our school, many parents took the day off work and brought doughnuts and coffee. Children marched and sang alongside their teachers and made signs with markers and poster board on the sidewalks.   Neighbors near our school opened their homes to the teachers for bathroom breaks, and passing cars honked incessantly in solidarity.   There is energy and power in action, and it was exciting to see the overwhelming groundswell of support, when our teachers stood up to the corporate and political bullies and took necessary action.

This strike is not just about fair pay for 20% longer work days. This is about basic necessities for our kids and fixing difficult working conditions that make great teachers want to leave and make learning tough for the kids.

This year, my kids are packed in classrooms with 33 children, up from 28 last year, and if Mayor Rahm Emanuel has his way, high school classes of up to 55 students would be acceptable, according to the CTU.

It’s 2012, and there are still numerous CPS schools without basics such as libraries, nurses and school counselors. Track E students returned to school August 13, when it was 96 degrees, and many classrooms lacked air conditioning. Parents need to provide most of the basics for the schools such as printer paper, paper goods and classroom supplies, in addition to kids’ personal school supplies.

Despite underfunding, my kids have thrived in Chicago public schools, both exceeding standards on tests.

My 11-year-old son scored in the 99^th percentile on the ISAT.  But regurgitating facts isn’t learning, and upping the quantity of tests is stressful and counterproductive.  We’re in a unique position as a “Public Montessori” family.   Under CPS dictates, the kids get standardized tests and grades, but pure Montessori doesn’t do testing or grades. They measure kids’ progress on a continuum with an I for introduced, D for developing and M for mastered.  The guys who invented Google were Montessori educated, and they’re unarguably successful by every standard of our society.  We have the hybrid kids; the best of both worlds.  They have the experience of test taking, so it won’t be so scary later, but teaching to testing is not a huge focus. If CPS has its way, it will have to be.

Our kids have planted classroom gardens and learned public speaking by researching and debating hot-button topics such as gay marriage, child slavery and whether Barbie is detrimental to kids’ self image.

They’ve done community service and volunteerism through the school and learned multiculturalism by participating in Day of the Dead Celebrations, and having guests from around the world come in to teach on their countries.   They’ve taken numerous field trips to see theatrical productions and learn ecology in the woods.

They’ve designed architecture in art, Native American buildings, Chinese ink scrolls, illusions and studied and emulated famous artists.  They’ve sung songs of the week and analyzed the lyrics for figurative language and learned about musicians and musical genres.  These things will never be quantifiable on a standardized test, but these are the types of wonderful, well-rounded educating that keep the kids engaged and excited about learning.  They’re growing their brains, truly learning HOW to think and reason, and experiencing hands-on learning.  This is hugely important to our family and the teachers we know, and it’s a key point in the current walkout.

The teachers we know spend countless hours of their own time developing creative lesson plans, grading students’ work and even buying basic supplies out of their own pockets.   I’m amazed that the Chicago teachers are being vilified by much mainstream media in this conflict.   We don’t feel like our kids have been abandoned.   I’m proud that my kids are able to see their role models taking a stand for themselves and their students’ well being.

Our family emphatically supports the CPS teachers in this strike and hopes for a quick, equitable resolution.  We’ve got their backs, no matter how long it takes to reach a reasonable agreement.  Numerous “strike camps” have sprung up, ranging from free park district child care to a wide range of wonderful, educational camps.  Chicago kids can do camps in indie film immersion at Facets Multimedia, theater at Adventure Stage, Spanish language at Multilingual Chicago, role play in a minicity at Journey World, run by the Girl Scouts but open to all, and more.  The whole city of Chicago has stepped up to make sure our children have fun, enriching places to be while our teachers take the time to take care of business and let their voices be heard on the picket lines.

We fully believe the teachers have our kids’ best interest at heart, and we encourage them to stand their ground as many days as necessary.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bonnie Kenaz-Mara.

(CNN) — The Chicago teachers strike drags into a second week, after a representative group of the Chicago Teachers Union decided over the weekend not to end the walkout even though union leaders and school officials had reached a tentative contract deal.

The strike in the third-largest school system in the country is affecting more than 350,000 children.

A quick primer:

Q. What’s the sticking point?

A. Among the major issues, the teachers are negotiating over the length of the school day, objecting to their evaluations being tied to performance and fretting about potential job losses.

Q. How would the length of school days change?

A. Elementary students would gain 75 minutes to create a seven-hour school day. High school students would gain 30 minutes to create a seven-and-a-half-hour school day. Teachers wants additional money to teach the additional hours.

Chicago (CNN) — Chicago school kids won’t be back in class until at least Wednesday after teachers union representatives decided not to end a week-long walkout — despite a tentative contract deal reached by union leaders and school officials.

The move left Mayor Rahm Emanuel vowing to go to court to force teachers back to work, calling Sunday’s actions by the union “a delay of choice that is wrong for our children.”

The mayor announced in a statement that he’s asked city lawyers to file an injunction in circuit court to “immediately end this strike.”

CNN’s Kyung Lah reported from Chicago; Greg Botelho from Atlanta. CNN’s Ed Payne and Chris Welch also contributed to this report.

We asked him about his family’s daily routine during this time and how he felt about the strike.

Rodriguez says, “We are always doing stuff at home.  You know, keeping them away from the computer, keeping them away from television and movies, which is what they want to run to first.  They must either do writing, reading or something like that.”

He looks forward to his kids being back in class because he feels that they are losing valuable instructional time.

Editor’s note: Collin Hitt is a senior fellow at the Illinois Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research foundation, and a Doctoral Academy Fellow at the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform.

Shortly after President Obama took his historic oath of office, a small group of people back in his home state of Illinois gathered to negotiate a key issue of school reform. Before substantive discussions even began, a representative from the Chicago Teachers Union interjected: “For us,” she said, “this is about jobs.”

It was not about kids. It was not about results. It was not even about the issue at hand, charter schools. She said it was about jobs.

I was part of those negotiations, stunned at such frank selfishness. In the three years since, a national debate over education reform has been renewed. It’s become obvious that this stance was not unique to that moment, to that union or even to Illinois.

The battle over school reform is national, with support from both parties. The president has proposed reforms centered on better accountability for teachers and intense staffing changes at failing schools. Republicans have sought to give parents more school choice and more information.

But teachers unions have attempted to block those reforms at every turn. Exhibit A: this week’s strike by the Chicago Teachers Union.

At that meeting in 2009, we debated whether the number of charter schools in Chicago should be allowed to increase. The call seemed obvious. More than 30,000 kids were enrolled at Chicago charter schools, with another 15,000 or so on waiting lists. The schools were open to everybody but didn’t have enough seats. Research was piling up showing improved test scores and graduation rates for Chicago’s charter school students, who were almost all poor, black or Hispanic. But the unions opposed the expansion because charter schools didn’t have to hire union teachers. It didn’t matter that even Obama supported charter schools.

Soon thereafter, the Obama administration would steward a massive stimulus program called Race to the Top. The federal government offered more than $4 billion to cash-strapped states and school districts. States could receive money based on applications that promised to revamp teacher accountability systems and to intervene in failing schools. But in some states, teachers unions refused the reforms, scuttling the applications. In states that did receive new money, such as California, unions opposed aggressive school turnaround efforts that required the very worst schools to replace most of their staff. The result? Federal turnaround dollars were wasted in most of the California schools where they were spent.

The president’s top education reforms enjoyed bipartisan support. But the president was far more partisan on health care reform, which led to massive Republican victories in the midterm elections of 2010. This was especially pronounced at the state level, with a new wave of GOP governors and legislative majorities being swept into office.

The new Republican majorities had their own ideas for education reform. In Indiana, for example, Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels unveiled a sweeping education reform agenda, emboldened by strengthened majorities in his legislature. He proposed the largest school voucher program in the country’s history. Charter schools were to be expanded to needy communities throughout the state. Schools would receive “A through F” ratings that every parent could understand. Students would be required to pass a reading test before being promoted from the third grade. And 21st-century technology would be used to customize education for the needs of individual children.

Teachers unions went crazy, convincing their small number of remaining Indiana legislative allies to flee the state, denying the legislature its quorum needed to take an official vote. The reforms languished for weeks before the refugee legislators returned home, under massive duress. The Daniels agenda passed, making Indiana – of all places – a national leader in the fight for education reform.

The most prominent new GOP governor was Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Little-noticed at the time of his election, Walker would soon become a national figure. He inherited a massive state deficit, impossible to balance without cuts in aid to local governments. But local school districts had no way of balancing their budgets without control of their labor costs. Walker, a former local government executive, knew that Wisconsin teachers unions would block local cost savings, necessitating tax hikes and cuts to student services. So Walker proposed restrictions on collective bargaining, giving school districts the freedom to make smart budget decisions. He also proposed an expansion of Milwaukee’s popular school voucher program, which had produced promising results and significant financial savings.

The curbs to collective bargaining were anathema to teachers unions. Wisconsin was home to many of the nation’s first government employee unions.

So the teacher unions became manic, nearly shutting down the statehouse in Madison with round-the-clock sit-ins. Walker’s Republican allies passed the reforms anyway. The unions then launched a statewide campaign to recall the new governor. National teacher unions flooded the state with money and staff. Walker survived the election.

Walker’s reforms are working. Districts have cut their fringe benefit costs by more than 15%, according to my colleague Bob Costrell in his forthcoming work for the George W. Bush Institute. Local property taxes have fallen, and the state budget is balanced. More kids in Milwaukee and Racine will enjoy school choice.

Appalled by the bitterness of his recall election, pundits and rival Democrats blamed Walker for the labor conflict in his state. Many blamed Republicans for their apathy toward government unions. But the recent teacher strike in Chicago shows that the battle in Wisconsin had less to do with Walker or his party and more to do with teachers unions and the desperate attempt to block all change.

On Monday, 30,000 Chicago teachers walked off the job, furious with the policies of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democratic hero and Obama’s former chief-of-staff. Emanuel aimed aggressively to extend Chicago’s elementary school day, which barely lasts five hours. He ordered teachers to work more. They asked for more money. He then offered a 16% raise to their average salary of $71,000. That wasn’t enough. So 350,000 students in Chicago are on the streets after a summer of stunning violence.

The Chicago Teachers Union wants the mayor to ignore a state law requiring that test scores be used to rate teacher performance, which ultimately would impact tenure. They want laid-off teachers to be hired back. Also, they’re seeking to end layoffs created if the district consolidates 100 of its half-empty schools across the city. It’s about jobs.

Across the country, there is a growing recognition of the need for change. Reforms of different kinds are all growing in popularity among voters of both parties. But unions are proudly standing in the way. And so it’s no coincidence that unions have seen their approval ratings fall.

For voters, apparently, it’s about the kids.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Collin Hitt.

Sunday night, as Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis announced the first Chicago teachers’ strike in 25 years, I posted a short piece explaining why I felt striking was the right decision.

I understood, especially in these tough economic times, that striking can be an unpopular choice, but I wrote it with some rage at the lack of empathy and understanding I felt as an educator. I wrote it with the hope people would understand that we made this tough choice in the interests of our students.

As I reflect back on the first day of the Chicago Teachers Union strike, I know many are still angry. I hope that those who are angry with us would put aside their party affiliation and personal opinions on unions. Some critics reminded me that this needs to be about the students. They are 100% correct. So I ask you to think of your own son or daughter or sister or brother sitting in a Chicago Public Schools classroom.

You wouldn’t want your kids in 96-degree classrooms. You wouldn’t want them without books or teachers for the first month of the year. You wouldn’t want them tested over and over again instead of taught. You would want their teachers evaluated, but you wouldn’t want their favorite teacher bullied or fired due to an inaccurately measured test.

In my blog post, I was replicating how many of my students feel every day. They are trying their hardest and they are angry at feeling judgment for their learning conditions rather than love and support for the honest effort they are putting in.

The same way that students lash out demanding that love and support with their actions in the classroom, the 10 minutes I spent writing my blog were a call for affirmation — a call of faith into the void hoping to get an affirming response.

And boy, did I ever. By midnight, my friends had reposted it. By 3 a.m. it had gone viral, and by 10 a.m. the next day major media outlets began calling. A day later, more than 20,000 people have read it on my blog and hundreds of thousands more have read its mirrors across the web.

In the meantime, thousands of people across the country have posted solidarity photos of themselves or their schools wearing red, thousands have marched in Chicago or elsewhere in support and more than 600 school communities have come together and marched in Chicago.

More than that, I spent the day with my Gage Park High School community. Our entire CTU staff came out to the picket line, wearing red. At 7:45 a.m., when students were supposed to report to school and be assigned to one of the Chicago Board of Education’s student strike holding sites, they began to join the picket line instead. Dozens of students marched and reached out to the community. I didn’t see any students enter the building or leave for the holding sites. Other students messaged or texted from home, saying that they were following the news. Some wrote their own pieces reflecting on the strike in their own voice that I’ll post on my blog as the week progresses.

As I took media calls, my students also spoke with the media. Whenever education becomes the major news story, too often we silence student voices and we hear adults — and often ones who have very limited interactions with students — speculate how students feel. I think our students need to be seen and heard more. As they took calls, I listened at a distance to make sure they were learning but far enough away that they could speak freely and not be influenced by me. I am very proud of them.

Later in the afternoon, we headed downtown and met with thousands of other teachers, students and parents. It was a festive atmosphere; one that fully acknowledged the gravity of the situation but with pride that we are taking back our education system.

In the evening, I continued to take calls and read the thousands of messages and well wishes I received throughout the day. Some of the comments were still quite critical — anti-union, anti-teacher and even anti-student.

I believe that the first day showed that this is how both the teachers and the parents are thinking about the Chicago strike. All across the city, parents and students voted with their feet. For weeks, we have heard about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s “Children First” centers that he intended as substitutes for our students’ regular classes. For the first time, the mayor’s team has the opportunity to show how they would take care of students without the troublesome teachers butting in. Now they have their chance. But parents and students simply don’t trust the district.

As reports have returned on the centers, we have heard that only dozens of the thousands assigned to each center have showed, and most of them have a ratio of one or more adults for every child who attends. At our school, the 50 students who arrived immediately joined our picket line. These are their teachers and they know which side they are on.

Opinion polls in Chicago show that parents trust their teachers to run their child’s schools, not the district. By striking, we hope to honor that trust by fighting for policies to address the deep problems in our district. Schools need more social workers and other resources for students under stress due to violence, poverty and family problems; reasonably sized classes that will allow teachers to work effectively with our students and provide them with safe learning environments; and air conditioning for over-crowded, stifling classrooms.

One of my students wrote the following: “I have been watching the mayor’s live press conferences and he keeps saying he doesn’t want us to fail, but that’s exactly what he’s causing. He talks about charters and selective schools a lot, but never mentions anything about schools like Gage Park. How can we make him care about our schools?”

By striking, we are trying to get the mayor and our school board to face the problems in our neighborhood schools and provide us with the support we need to help our students.

At the start of day one, I felt angry and alone. On day two, I feel like our city and nation have wrapped themselves around educators, and I am ready for the next day of fighting for the schools Chicago and the nation’s students deserve.

See you on the picket line.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Xian Barrett.

Los Angeles (CNN) — School teachers should be held accountable for the performance of their students, the Conference of Mayors said Tuesday, according to the group’s leader.

“The Conference of Mayors unanimously supports student growth over time as a measurement in teachers,” said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who presides over the conference as president. “That should be at least one of the elements of their evaluation, and if you ask mayors across the country, they will agree.”

The 59-year-old Democrat told reporters that the issues in New York and Los Angeles, the largest and second-largest public school districts in the nation, are similar to those in Chicago, the third-largest, where thousands of teachers have been on strike since Monday.

“These aren’t radical notions, and my hope is the parties will sit down and figure it out. The public wants to see more accountability,” he said.

Chicago teachers strike into its third day

(CNN) The debate over teacher evaluations that’s taken center stage in the Chicago schools strike could have major effects on the issue in the future, an education expert says.

“Chicago absolutely matters,” said Elena Silva, senior associate for public policy engagement at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

“I think what happens here will substantially matter for what we see happen with teacher evaluations nationwide,” she said.

In the last three years, 21 states have passed have legislation or implemented new regulations designed to highlight teacher accountability, according to a report by Bellwether Education Partners, a consulting firm.

The changes came often by way of the kind of standardized testing that one Chicago Teachers Union board member referred to as “data-driven madness.”

My View: A parent’s take on the CPS teachers strike

In many — but not all — cases, the reforms were hotly contested, with teachers unions saying the changes put jobs at risk without enough evidence they would work in the way both sides say reforms should work — helping students learn, said Sara Mead, a Bellwether analyst who tracks teacher effectiveness policy nationwide.

Editor’s Note: Rebecca Labowitz writes about the Chicago Public Schools on her blog CPSObsessed.com which has become a discussion board for parents and teachers in Chicago.  She began the blog in 2008 when her now fourth-grade son was entering kindergarten as a way to share information with other parents navigating school options in Chicago.

Parents of public school kids stayed up late Sunday night, glued to the TV and the Internet, waiting to find out whether they needed to make lunches, arrange backpacks, and get their kids hustled out the door in the morning.  Facebook alerts were flying fast and furious, similar to update I saw during the Olympics and the Oscars.  “She’s coming out now!”  No names needed.

We all collectively were waiting for outcome of the weekend negotiation session between CPS and the Chicago Teachers Union – would our Chicago teachers call a strike?

Karen Lewis’ announcement of the strike was not surprising as most parents who’d been keeping up with the events suspected that the two sides were still fairly far apart in their negotiations.  What was a little more surprising was the anger that started to mount immediately.  Many parents didn’t seem to believe that CTU would actually pull the trigger and bring the school year to a halt.  Some parents feel inconvenienced, feel like the CTU is not working in the kids’ best interest by calling the strike, and feel like both sides should have found a way to work something out.

I’ve heard comments from angry parents who feel that teachers should feel lucky to have their job – a job that many feel is well-paying and secure compared to workers in the private sector.  There is a palpable sense of exasperation that the teachers gave up, wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t even prioritize their list of demands.  Whether or not this was true, it was the impression that many parents had after watching the press interview Sunday evening.

Parents who regularly comment on my blog have spent time talking to teachers, learning more about what it’s like to teach in an inner-city school with limited resources and a revolving door administration.  These parents realize that teachers are feeling disrespected lately both within CPS and as a profession as a whole.  Teachers are being blamed for a lot of the ills of the school system.  They’re being asked to work longer, being asked to do a lot with very little.  Most are spending their own money on school supplies.  They tell stories about their students that will break your heart.  Those of us who have listened have certainly had our eyes opened to the realities of teaching in CPS.  Having summer break doesn’t make it an easy gig.

As the school year drew closer, discussions centered on a few key topics:
• How hard is a teacher’s job?
• Are teachers fairly paid?
• Can teachers really make a difference among the most at-risk kids?
• How can our school system overlook some of the basic materials that teachers need?
• What’s the ideal length of the school day?
• Why can’t parents be more accountable to help their kids succeed in school?
• Should teachers be expected to be nurses, counselors, and parents to students?
• Why isn’t there more money to make our schools better?
• If we do make the improvements that teachers want, where will the money come from?

We found there is often not an easy answer, not one we all agree on.  Like many topics in this country, sentiments about education and unions can be quite polarizing.

The surprise I had after the press announcements was sensing the uptick in anger about the strike.  When push comes to shove and families are inconvenienced, when kids’ schooling is put on hold, when student-athlete schedules are thrown off, people start to get mad.  When they see that the union leaders appear to have a disregard for negotiation, they get mad.  When they don’t know what the situation will be day to day, they get mad.  When they realize that they have conflicting feelings for the wonderful teachers in their schools versus that of the CTU, they get mad.

There was a general expectation that during negotiations, each side would give a little.  Many parents want to see the CTU give a little.  Or at least learn more about what the CTU wants to meet their demands.  Parents I’ve heard from often agree with many of the demands of the CTU.  We DO need better schools.  We DO need smaller class sizes. We DO need teachers to feel respected and to feel motivated.  But some question whether striking is the way to get these changes to happen or whether there can be a more collaborative way to make it work that doesn’t keep kids out of school.  Other parents are standing side-by-side with teachers on the picket lines.  We are a city of mixed opinions, for sure.

Tempers are going to be high for a while.  Teachers are mad and parents (and CPS) need to realize that.  Now parents are mad and are just going to get madder if the strike continues beyond this week.  CPS – well, I’m guessing they’re mad too.  But despite all the challenges of CPS, most parents I know want to stick it out in the city.  And teachers really want to find a way to make CPS succeed.  We’re all in it together, for better or for worse so we’ve got to find some common ground soon.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Rebecca Labowitz.

Editor’s note: Peter Levine is the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs and director of CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, part of Tufts University’s Jonathan Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service. Levine has published eight books, including “The Future of Democracy: Developing the Next Generation of American Citizens.” He blogs daily at www.peterlevine.ws

(CNN) – I can vividly remember September 11, 2001, but today’s fifth-graders were not even born on that day. For them, September 11 is history – and often, a topic in their history class. Most teachers use best-selling civics and American history textbooks that describe the attacks on New York and Washington. And as of last fall, 21 states specifically mentioned 9/11 in their social studies standards.

Those are results from a scan of state laws and textbooks conducted by William & Mary professor Jeremy Stoddard and University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Diana Hess. My organization, CIRCLE, published its study last year.  The authors tell me that not much has changed since then.

When we released the study, many readers expressed dismay that September 11 was mentioned in less than half of the states’ standards — as if that meant that policymakers and educators did not care enough about terrorism. When lawmakers are concerned about any topic, they are often tempted to add it to the state’s social studies standards. The Illinois Legislature, for instance, has passed bills requiring or encouraging social studies teachers to spend time on Leif Erickson, the Irish Potato Famine and the importance of trees and birds. So why not mandate teaching 9/11?

If I could personally pick what to teach in a high school classroom, I would make the civil rights movement a particularly high priority. The Southern Poverty Law Center gives 35 states as grade of “F” because their standards do not mention the civil rights movement (or only barely mention it).  But just because something is important does not mean that states should require all their teachers to cover it. Already, most state social studies standards are immense lists of topics, far too numerous to march through rapidly, let alone discuss in any depth. Specifying topics reduces the discretion of districts, schools and teachers, and may dampen their motivation.

Thus the most important back-to-school question about September 11 is not whether to require it in standards, but how to address it if teachers decide to discuss it at all.

We want our students to understand complex and significant events in context, to make and defend causal arguments, to form reasonable value judgments and to deliberate civilly and responsibly with people who disagree. These are intrinsically valuable aspects of citizenship. They are also activities that boost civic knowledge and engagement.

The attacks of 9/11 represent a serious topic, worthy of study. One reason to consider teaching it is that it happened relatively recently, and its consequences linger. Since American history is usually taught in chronological order, most teachers never reach modern times at all. Meanwhile, courses in government and civics tend to emphasize the original structure of the Constitution rather than current events. In a survey of young adults that we conducted in 2006, 41% recalled studying the Constitution and the U.S. system of government; only 11% remembered discussing current issues.

In our focus groups, young adults recall that their civics education was all about the remote past.  As a result, politics can seem distant and complete, as if there were little for today’s students to do.

September 11 is by no means the only recent episode worthy of attention, but it is a good topic for investigation. If students are going to spend class time on it, I think the following principles should apply.

First, their thinking should be relatively dispassionate and scholarly. The major textbooks have evolved in that direction over the past decade. The first textbook editions rushed to press after the events of 2001 “uniformly presented America as the victim of a uniquely devastating attack and presented rich personal stories of the victims and iconic images of rubble, firefighters, and the American flag. That approach has now shifted to more dispassionate, but very brief, descriptions.”

Even though September 11 remains charged with emotion, students should learn to investigate it in a scholarly way, with concern for evidence and multiple perspectives. That takes time; it is probably better to skip a topic entirely than to mention it superficially.

Second, students should grapple with complex and sometimes contentious issues. For example, the attacks of September 11 are clearly examples of terrorism, but that concept is not so easy to define. If it means a violent attack by civilians against civilians, then the definition excludes roadside bombs aimed at U.S. military convoys and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole (which several textbooks cite as an example of terrorism). If terror includes any mass attack against civilians, then a strategic bombing campaign conducted by an air force is an example. The point is not that students should memorize the correct definition of terrorism, but that they should learn to reason and deliberate by addressing difficult questions, such as “What is terrorism?”

That is a controversial and divisive issue, which brings us to a third principle. Students should have experience addressing truly controversial topics, with guidance from teachers who try to serve as neutral facilitators. As a nation, we must learn to deal with disagreement. As we segregate into politically homogeneous communities and choose media that reinforce our own opinions, the social studies classroom is becoming an increasingly valuable space in which people can actually disagree and learn from their discussions. Even if there is consensus about September 11, many controversial questions arise regarding its aftermath. For example, were the Patriot Act, the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and the Iraq war appropriate responses? These are questions that students should learn to investigate and deliberate.

Concerns about bias and indoctrination come from both right and left. I think conservatives have relatively little to worry about, because most social studies teachers hold moderate or center-right views. According to an American Enterprise Institute survey, 83% of social studies teachers see “the United States as a unique country that stands for something special in the world” and “just 1 percent of teachers want students to learn ‘that the U.S. is a fundamentally flawed country.’ ” Liberals may not disagree with the majority of teachers, but if they do, they should still welcome discussion and inquiry, counting on students to introduce a diversity of perspectives.

If teachers do introduce controversial matters in class, some may present the issues in a biased way. Teachers need curricula, materials and training that help them present issues more neutrally. But I would rather accept a few cases of bias (including bias against my own political views) than make schools into politics-free zones. We need young people to learn to think and talk about difficult issues.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Peter Levine.

The strike, announced Sunday night, left about 350,000 students without schools to attend and parents scrambling to find alternatives. The union that represents nearly 30,000 teachers and support staff in the nation’s third-largest school district called the strike after negotiators failed to reach a contract agreement with school administrators despite 10 months of negotiations.

Below, we break down the key issues that are keeping the teachers out of the classroom, what the teachers are asking for and what the schools are willing to offer.

Compensation and health care benefits

One of the key issues is salaries and benefits for teachers and their families.

What the teachers want: to maintain their existing health benefits, as well as salary increases.

“Recognizing the Board’s fiscal woes, we are not far apart on compensation,”  the Chicago Teachers Union said in a news release. “However, we are apart on benefits.”

Chicago parents: What are you doing to keep your kids busy? Share your story with CNN iReport.

(CNN)– There will be no contract deal Monday night between Chicago public school officials and the city’s teacher’s union, city school board President David Vitale said.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s spokeswoman, Sarah Hamilton, said talks were continuing late Monday, though Vitale said by then that he’d left the negotiating session for the night.

“We said to them again, ‘We should resolve this tomorrow, we are close enough,’” Vitale said. “This is hard work. We want to get this resolved. We want our kids back in school.”

The failure to produce a breakthrough comes a day after the Chicago Teacher’s Union called a strike as school officials said they had nothing more to offer. The union has not stated, as of late Monday night, if the city’s first teachers strike in 25 years will continue into a second day Tuesday in the absence of a deal.

(CNN) — Tens of thousands of teachers and support staff in Chicago are set to go on strike Monday after their union and school officials failed to reach a contract agreement, the union president said.

“Negotiations have been intense but productive, but we have failed to reach an agreement that would prevent a labor strike,” Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis told reporters late Sunday night.

Minutes earlier, the president of Chicago’s school board said officials offered the city’s teachers a contract including pay increases and other measures they’d requested.

“We’ve been as responsive as we know how,” David Vitale told reporters just before 10 p.m. CT (11 p.m. ET) Sunday.

(CNN) — Despite what the head of Chicago’s school board deemed a day of “productive talks,” the nation’s third-largest public school system entered Sunday without a contract with teachers — and with a strike looming.

Teachers and support staff in Chicago set a walkout date Monday, which would mark the first time they have gone on strike in 25 years.

Speaking late Saturday, Chicago Teachers Union chief Karen Lewis said that no action has been taken to alter the teacher’s plans not to work next week.

“We’ve made some progress, but we’ve still got big issues on the items we’ve always had big issues on,” she told reporters, shortly after walking out of union headquarters with a group singing “solidarity forever.”

About 40 minutes earlier, the president of Chicago’s board of education told reporters progress was made in extensive talks Saturday, while noting the pressure posed by the fast approaching deadline.

(CNN) Ten months after a drum major died after being beaten in a hazing ritual and days after a school dance team was suspended amid similar allegations, Florida A&M University said Friday that all students must sign an anti-hazing pledge in order to attend classes.

The school’s announcement — which also heralded the launch of a website, StopHazingatFAMU.com — is its latest attempt to address events that thrust the university into the center of the national discussion about the perils of hazing.

The new requirement, starting in spring 2013, mandates that students sign the anti-hazing pledge in order to register for classes at the Tallahassee school. By signing it, they promise not to participate “in any hazing activities either as a hazer or hazee, on or off campus” and to report any information about hazing to campus authorities within 24 hours.

“Everyone on campus needs to be unified in the fight against hazing,” Larry Robinson, the university’s interim president, said Friday in a press release. “We will continue to enact change, positively empower our students and provide resources going forward to ensure that we provide a safer and healthier environment for learning.”

In his convocation address kicking off the school year Friday, Robinson stressed to students that eliminating hazing is a priority.

“If in fact (hazing incidents) do occur, I just want everyone to know our actions will be swift, and they will be decisive,” he said.