Edition: U.S. / Global

U.S.

UPDATED September 18, 2012

How the Chicago Public School District Compares

The Chicago Teachers Union ended its strike on Tuesday after reaching a tentative deal with Chicago Public Schools.
Important issues in Chicago public schools this year
Pay
A first-year teacher with a bachelor’s degree makes about $49,000 in Chicago, the fourth-highest of the 114 districts surveyed by the National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group.
 
A recent proposal, according to school officials, included an average 16 percent raise over the next four years, which included cost-of-living increases.
Length of day
While the length of the school day was only a backdrop for these negotiations, it has been a major public debate in the city. Chicago had one of the shortest school days in the country before it was extended this year. An interim agreement was reached to hire additional teachers to cover the load.
Evaluations
Much of the disagreement in Chicago was in how strongly to weigh test scores in a teacher’s evaluation. A recent Chicago Public Schools proposal would create an appeals process for evaluations and ensure that in the first year of the system, a tenured teacher could not be fired for a bad evaluation.
Recall rights
More than half of the nation’s 50 largest school districts give preference to laid-off teachers when hiring new teachers. The school board has pressed to give principals the right to decide which teachers they hire.

A survey of school districts
Click column headers to sort districts.

Below, how Chicago compares with other school districts in the United States on some of the issues under negotiation, as collected by the National Council on Teacher Quality. Most figures are for the 2011-12 school year.

School district
Annual salary for a
first-year teacher ($)
Master’s degree, highest step of pay scale ($)
Scheduled
workday (hours)
Test scores used in evaluations
Recall rights for
laid-off employees

Note: Some schools reported school day length for both elementary and high school students. In such cases, the high school estimate (usually the longer of the two) was used.

By MIKE BOSTOCK and KEVIN QUEALY

Sources: news reports; National Council on Teacher Quality

An earlier version of this table reproduced an incorrect salary figure from the National Council on Teacher Quality survey. The annual salary for a teacher in the Sacramento Unified school district with a master’s degree on the highest step of the salary schedule in the 2011-12 school year was $56,474, not $46,474.

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