Sex Ed Works
Healing to Action—our partner for this series—is a grassroots community group that focuses on worker empowerment and fighting gender- based violence. This session is specifically for members who teach or will teach sexual education. We’ll discuss the status of sex ed in CPS and hear feedback from members doing the work. Any CTU member interested in the topic of sexual education in Chicago Public Schools is encouraged to attend the Sex Ed Works Listening Session on March 10, 2020. The listening session will take place from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the CTU Center.
In Slaying Goliath, Diane Ravitch looks at the ways in which parents, teachers and activists are successfully fighting back to defeat the forces that are privatizing America’s public schools. Ravitch writes about the Disrupters, who believe America’s schools should be run like businesses, with teachers incentivized by threats and bonuses, and school children treated like customers or products.
Ravitch lays out, in extensive detail, the facts showing that the ideas put forth by school privateers have failed; their promises of higher test scores have not come to pass; the "great hope" of Common Core has been a dud.
Arrayed against the forces of disruption, Ravitch writes of the Resisters: parents, teachers, grandparents, students, bloggers, religious leaders, and unions, who are fighting back to successfully keep alive their public schools.
Diane Ravitch is esteemed, acclaimed, and admired for leading a grassroots movement with a following across the country of tens of thousands. Ravitch has advocated for less testing, increased teacher salaries, reduced classroom size, and for addressing poverty and hunger.
Ravitch was born in Houston, Texas, and graduated from Wellesley College and Columbia University. She is a research professor of education at New York University and the author of eleven books. Ravitch is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Don’t Let Black Educators
Become Black History
The CTU Speaks! podcast is recording a special Black History Month panel on the disappearance of Black educators—in Chicago and across the country—and what teachers unions and community allies can do to reverse the trend.
Hosted by Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson and featuring rank-and-file CTU members, Dyett hunger striker Monique Redeax-Smith and writer/activist/organizer Charles Preston, the panel will discuss issues facing Black educators in schools today, and what is lost when Black teachers become Black history. You won’t want to miss this!
CTU Speaks! co-hosts Andrea Parker and Jim Staros will kick off the night! Never miss an episode—subscribe today on your favorite podcasting platform. The event will also be taped and later released in podcast form.
Cocktails will be served from 5-6 p.m.; panel taping is from 6-8 p.m.
Chicago PEACE Brunch
February 29, 2020, 11 am
CTU Center, 1901 W. Carroll
Keynote Speaker: Pastor William Hall, St. James Community Church
Plus special guest speaker and CPS graduate Dr. Clinton Boyd, Jr.
In addition, the CTU choir will perform musical selections, and stay tuned for a guest musical performer. Plus, there’s still time to join the choir, so get in touch if you’re interested by emailing lupecoyle@ctulocal1.org. The rehearsal schedule will be announced soon!
Sex Ed Works
Healing to Action—a grassroots community group that focuses on worker empowerment and fighting gender-based violence—is holding listening sessions with students, parents and caregivers, community and educators, to get input on their campaign for improved sexual education in CPS.
Healing to Action wants to hear from any and all CTU members who have an interest in the CPS sex ed curriculum and training or for whom it has implications (from PE and Health teachers to clinicians and counselors to members of our Women’s Rights and LGBTQIA Committees, and beyond). Join us at this session to help win the sex ed our students deserve.
