Lynch ready for another run for teachers union president

by Patrick Thomas

As the primary election season kicks into gear, political storms are brewing—and that includes the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).

Unless they are part of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), many Chicago voters don’t realize that political debate, divisive parties, perennial candidates and escalating campaigns also define the race to lead the union’s 32,000 members for a threeyear term as president.

It’s a political arena few want to enter. But Deborah Lynch, a Mt. Greenwood native, is back time after time. President of the CTU from 2001 to 2004, Lynch is running again.

“I’m just … tenacious,” said Lynch. “I tried three times to get in.”

The election for CTU president takes place next May. Campaigning usually picks up around the beginning of the year after the holidays, but this campaign has been an all-out push since last spring. With such wrangling, the union has become synonymous with discord.

Candidates from four different caucuses are planning to challenge President Marilyn Stewart, including her own treasurer, whose position the union recently voted to eliminate. Many insiders believe the move was politically motivated.

Politics have caused the caucuses to form within the union, much like the infighting of political parties. But the divisiveness is also a result of an election that could prove pivotal. The increase in charter schools has decreased the number of union members, while a difficult economy and a round of lay-offs targeting teaching aides earlier this year have caused further strain. Emerging issues include year-round schools, overcrowded classrooms, healthcare and a two-tiered pension system designed for incoming teachers.

A graduate of Mother McAuley High School, Lynch said she is running to stop major losses in the union’s membership and reserve funds. She pointed to the union’s fall from 36,000 members when she left office to fewer than 32,000 currently. She also raised concerns over CTU reserves, which she said plummeted after she left office.

The reserves showed signs of a rebound last year, but the union has also had to take out millions in loans, Lynch said. She blames large financial losses on perks given to Stewart’s appointees. Besides a six-figure salary and $7,000 yearly pension, Stewart’s 30 staff members and officers receive a $23,000 annuity through AIG, $18,000 pensionable expense account, and a one-week holiday bonus of $2,000.

If elected, Lynch vows to eliminate the perks, but she also wants a stipend for teachers with class sizes of more than 25, a 5-percent pay raise, a freeze on healthcare costs, and a reduction in the annual $1,000 member dues.

The turmoil within the union has her convinced the job is hers to regain.

“There is great discontent out there,” said Lynch, who is slated to run for president on behalf of the ProActive Chicago Teachers and School Employees (PACT) party.

Other challengers have expressed discontent. Among the other CTU presidential candidates is Linda Porter, the former treasurer of Stewart’s team, who split from Stewart’s United Progressive Caucus (UPC) and joined the Coalition for a Strong Democratic Union (CSDU). Marcia Williams, who ran in 2004, is returning to represent the Independent Caucus (IC), and a new group, known as the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE), has selected potential nominees but has yet to announce its candidate.

In a letter posted on the CTU’s Web site, Stewart said it’s time for the bickering to stop. Although she admits the losses, Stewart said the union is moving in the right direction fiscally.

“Over the past two years since I first initiated reform within our union ranks, our fiscal condition has improved dramatically. We have moved from a deficit of more than $600,000 to a surplus of more than $2 million,” Stewart wrote.

“Of course, we need those funds for the battles we must wage with the Board of Education over its policies that hurt our members. It’s time for us to stop fighting with one another and intensify our work to hold the Board accountable.”

On Oct. 23, Lynch, a reading teacher for freshmen at Gage Park High School, kicked off her campaign with a fundraiser for 250 supporters. She lost in a closely contested runoff election in 2004 and lost convincingly three years later in 2007 when Stewart offered more promises in negotiating an upcoming contract.

Lynch said those promises were never fulfilled, and the union has gone backwards in that time.

She said of the 435,000 students who were attending CPS schools when she was in office in 2004, approximately 70,000 students have since left for charter schools under Mayor Richard M. Daley’s controversial Renaissance 2010 program. She said those numbers will only grow, and the union will continue to decrease in size.

“By next year it’s going to be 81,700 kids and thousands and thousands of teaching positions that have gone out the door with those kids,” Lynch said. “To me, I’ve seen the Renaissance 2010 as a total abdication of the Board of Ed’s responsibility.”

Citing a Stanford University study comparing students of similar socioeconomic backgrounds, Lynch said charter schools do not fare better than public schools.

“We’ve got an entire agenda of dismantling 100 schools, turning them into charter schools when the research suggests that maybe 17 percent of the kids would have done better if they never left their neighborhood school,” Lynch said. “The myth that has perpetuated out there is that the charter schools are better, and the union has not been a voice or spoken up for the members, hasn’t spoken up for the people working in traditional regular public schools; it hasn’t fought; it has not launched any campaigns. There’s no vision for the union promoting itself as even interested in improving our schools. There has been a lack of vision, a lack of leadership, and silence.”

Lynch, a critic of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, blames him, the former CPS CEO, for closing schools in impoverished areas of the city. She said shuttering schools has never led to student achievement.

“You’ve got an agenda out there and no one on the union side speaking for the hardworking people in the union who use their own money to buy their students a coat for graduation, tickets to homecoming, give them bus passes or whatever they need,” she said.

Lynch prides herself on delivering the union’s highest four-year raise in 20 years when she negotiated a 4-percent increase each year for four years along with sick day increases.

Stewart’s camp argued that additional healthcare costs prohibited those increases from making an impact. The current contract for teachers expires in 2012.

“We’re pressing for improvements and to make change,” Lynch said. “We ask people to look back at the last five years and see what we lost, remind people what my group and I were able to accomplish in our three short years in office.”

Under a proposed two-tiered pension system for teachers, new teachers would receive a different pension from that of seasoned teachers. Despite public demand for pension reform, Lynch said she will reject the two-tiered system.

“We work hard, and in exchange for the big salaries and benefits one might get in another profession, [the pension] is one of the benefits of being a teacher,” she said.

Lynch said PACT wants to ensure union contracts are enforced and that the union has input on issues like class size or making sure teachers have enough textbooks and desks.

“The motto of our team is good working conditions are good learning conditions. We’re fighting to reduce class sizes because it’s better for kids. We’re fighting for more truancy officers because it’s better for kids,” Lynch said. “That was my passion. I wanted to leave the place better than when I found it. I really believed in unionism, and the union is a vitally important part in improving our schools.”

This is part of the December 2, 2009 online edition of The Beverly Review.

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