FOR! I work with children from the CPS system every week, and it is both heartbreaking & shocking how many CPS students, no matter how bright, struggle with just the basics. I just hope that along with longer days, the students will have strong teachers, too. This has to be a decent mix of time, skill, and desire (teachers to teach, students to learn); otherwise, unfortunately, our children will still be at the bottom.

How we spend this time, what and how we teach needs to be addressed first. I believe that for many students the school day needs to be slowed down so teachers can spend more time with individuals.

Adding 30% more time to a teacers day for 2% raise sounds more like a 28% cut in there existing salaries. I believe longer school days would help but lets get real about compensating the teachers.

Students are not achieving their full potential with the current system. The longer days, as CPS has outlined, sounds like it will be targeted within each school to address local deficiencies. This is wonderful for our kids. However, I am quite disappointed by reactions the teacher's union. Their press releases give the impression of being combative and disrespectful to CPS and that they are immune to the tremendous budget pressures facing the schools and the city.

Quality education seems to me it's very important. Imposing 90 more minutes without paying the teachers for that time is insulting .Having crowded classes of 28 to 35 students is not quality education. Having those students in a classroom for such a long time won't help the students.

What is JC talking about when he says that there will be extra art and music programming in some schools? What does that mean? Who will teach that content? Classroom teachers are neither interested nor qualified to teach the arts. You wouldn't ask your music teacher to teach science. I'm afraid that arts and music will be used to cloud the issue and garner public support for this change. JC said himself that the extra time would be used for math in some schools, literacy in some schools etc. I imagine that this will be true for schools that are not meeting certain standardized test benchmarks (which are practically all of them). If people support these changes thinking that kids will have a more well-rounded education and not just more English and Math instruction, I am afraid that they are mistaken.

Who was responsible for doing the math whilst JC outlined his gracious offer to the Elem. teachers? 2% raise for an extra 263 hours of work in front of students - that's less than I earned stocking a cooler in a gas station in 1997. Where is the follow up questioning?? Hello, JC, do you really think that's a fair offer? Would your wife, who you said is a teacher, jump at this opportunity? Does this 90 min increase correlate to a work load DECREASE for the HS teachers, or will you be mentioning that later? If I'm to contribute more to WTTW ever again, I want questions that inspire debate, not placate.

CPS teachers already work 6.25 hours (375 minutes) per day, not the 5 hours stated by the CPS CEO. This does not include the (unpaid) lunch period which, for all teachers, comes at the end of the school day once children have gone home. Adding another 90 minutes is a 24% increase in work in exchange for half of the raise already due but then summarily cut by CPS in the current contract. The new mayor has already called CPS teachers names, adding to the constant disrespect from CPS. Classrooms are crowded with 30+ students, most of whom need a lot of individual attention. Prep periods to do all the non-teaching jobs expected of teachers are few and far between. Materials needed are mostly purchased by teachers. Many schools are cesspools of heat and humidity. If JC thinks that his teachers are happy, he is sadly mistaken.

FOR!! I have 2 children in elementary school, and I cannot believe how many days off they have. How can they learn if they are never there? Adding 90 minutes, as I understand it from one of my kids' principals, will partly taken up by recess. This will leave Approximately 1 hr more education per day. This would be about 40 extra hours per school yr. bravo!

I applaud CEO JC's courage to step forward with a vision for our schools. The CTU's consistent one dimensional response is full of victim language and selfishness. They should be grateful to have employment and the opportunity to make a difference. There are good & dedicated teachers, but I've witnessed excessive apathy, entitlement, and laziness within this collective culture too. We need change and CTU wants status quo. K Lewis is disgraceful and her style enables mediocrity with no accountability.

J. C. Brizard needs to be specific about how this extended time is to be used. A longer day in and of itself does not lead to increased academic skills. Also, are teachers now to receive a lunch period during the school day. Teachers now receive lunch at the end of the school day. They only receive a nutrition break of 15 minutes during the day. When politicians and other city leaders are interviewed on Chicago Tonight they use it as a forum to spout their scripted answers.the It It's insulting to teachers to deprive them of their scheduled 4% raise and then ask them to work 90 minutes for a 2% raise. That still is a loss of pay of 2% and when you consider the additional working time. How can Rahm Emmauel and J. C. Brizard think that there is any good will between them and CPS staff most of whom already work longer than their scheduled time on behalf of students. Would JC Brizard and Mayor Emmanuel accept their salary going back to 2003 wages in a 2011 world? I don't think so.

Too many problems with longer days to just jump in and announce that it is going to start on such and such a date. Longer days mean kids heading home at dusk or evening in winter - is everything in place to insure their safety or do we face even more kids shot or beaten? Longer school year means kids sweltering in non-airconditioned school rooms in weather that the weather service labels dangerous - are the schools all air conditioned now or do we continue to endanger kids in severe summer weather? Teachers already put in longer hours since once the kids leave (or before they arrive) the teachers are doing prep and paperwork. Adding in an additional seven and a half hours of classroom doesn't make the prep and paperwork go away - so since only idiots would expect teachers to do that without significant pay raises, where is the money going to come from to pay them? Settle all these questions before you discuss longer days or hours.

The arm-twisting by Rahm and Brizard to increase school time for students is bullying and entirely missing the point. Teachers are scapegoated because of the systemic failures to meet the needs of students. Students need to come from homes with employed guardians, from neighborhoods with food resources, with communities that are not threatened by street violence, with support systems which create a safe environment that encourages progress in education. Most likely, children are being threatened on the street or face challenging home issues. The teacher cannot be blamed and targeted for the failure to provide a safe environment where the students can prosper when they are not in school.

It is naive to think that keeping the student in school for 90-minutes-a-day will solve the systemic problems children face on the street and at home. A seriously-thought-out solution will not depend on politicking and address the real issues the children of Chicago face which is the need for a safe environment at home, in the neighborhood and in the city.

It certainly does not help with the mayor and other priviledged persons abandon CPS by sending their kids elsewhere, sending the message of no-confidence in CPS. Also, the notion of creating a better environment for the citizens of the city of Chicago by the expansion of gambling is perfectly hypocritical. Persons who can least afford to gamble will be lured by the prospect of quick cash and become victims and worse--they could become addicts. We need to protect the citizens of Chicago from the dangers of gambling, and not feed off the misfortunes of the same citizens whose children become unwitting victims.

It seems the whole topic has gotten muddled, go figure. The simple fact is that CPS teachers are skipping their union sanctioned lunch hour so that school can end an hour earlier at 1:45 pm. Back in early spring, before the legislators signed the bill, before Emanuel took office and Brizard was brought in, Karen Lewis, the CTU President, said that the CTU was going to recommend moving the teachers' lunch hour back to the middle of day, extending the day by an hour and allowing students to take a recess and have more time for lunch. She called it a win-win! http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/4680337-417/new-effort-to-get-recess-....

So each school voted-- and the teachers voted it down at most schools. Now, it seems, Emanuel and Brizard are coming at them with all guns blazing... but I wonder if the teachers could have skirted all this mayhem had they just done what was right by taking their lunches in the middle of the day, giving the kids back their recess and lunch and extended the day that way?

Instead, the recess & lunch time that the children need and deserve, got swept into political fray of contract negotiations and became a bargining tool when the raise issue came into play.

I'm a CPS teacher and it is my passion. I spend nights grading papers, early mornings talking to students, and afternoons pushing myself to my limits to teach my kids. I'll shout, I'll sing, I'll stand on desks, sit under desks, throw toilet paper across the room...literally. I will do whatever it takes to keep my students attention, force feed them their education without them even knowing they're learning.

This is my passion. By the end of my "short" day I'm exhausted. Not figuratively exhausted. Literally exhausted. This is a nonstop barrage I give my children. In September, October, May and June my classroom is over 100 degrees (these are 34 and 35 15 year olds we're talking about) and I'm drenched, my room stinks, and my students have had the ride of their life. I still have my own two children to think about, dinner to cook, and at least an hour or two are needed to grade papers. But it is my passion. I'll read and reread the same essay, each draft, and make comments or send an email to a student letting them know what's what. I'll get students who VISIT MY HOME (I'm only two blocks from the school, mind you) with homework problems or girlfriend/boyfriend problems or family problems.

This is my passion. But lucky for my students CPS wants to turn it into a job. And if that's what they want, that's what they'll get. Add 90 minutes to my day but don't bother paying me for it. Literally suck the spirit out of what I do. I won't be able to maintain the intensity and the energy that I need to for the extended period of time. I'll try, and the students at the end of the day will suffer and I will lose them. But, because I'm even more exhausted than I was previously, I'll spend less time grading the papers, and I'll put less effort or care into it. I won't choose to do this, but that is what will happen. I'm not some 23 year old with boundless energy, I'm a 45 year old father of two.

Take the thing that I love more than any job in the world, demand more from me, offer me less, and you might as well give me the finger, tell me I'm worthless and slam the door in my face...because that's exactly how I'll feel.

The scores in CPS have been in decline for decades, and the hours have been the same for decades. CPS just didn't shorten their hours in the last few years. The hours are not going to make a difference when CPS has already lowered the standards and grading scale. For those of us who went to Catholic School with high standards, grades of 60% are failing, but they are passing in public schools. Then they take the standardized tests and wonder why they place so low.

kids should be in school for 8 hours including lunch. Teachers need to be paid for performance not based on time-served.

The problem with CPS is not the number of hours in the day, but how the Administrators are running the schools, their departments, and the entire district. The principals do nothing but sit in their offices. The children rarely see the principal. Years ago, the children in the school knew who the principal was, now they don't. The principal and superintendents should be paid on performace also. If the school doesn't do well, the principal should not get paid. The same with the superintendent. Why be paid if the schools are not performing. Children do not need an 8 hour school day, but many ghetto Catholic schools have been doing that for years. The problem is that it doesn't translate into higher scores. Apparently Dr. Ridchardson is not up on his research reading.

What are you a doctor of? Children do not have the attention span for an 8 hour school. Even doctor students can't stand the condensed 8 hour classes once a week. Graduate students can't sit for a 4 hour graduate level class without talking and interrupting the professors. How could a 6, 7, or even 10, 14, or 17 year old be held up in a school? Apparently Dr. Ridchardson is not an educator or has an education, medical or psy degree.

As an educator, I would love to know what age group Dr. Ridchardson would put on an 8 hour school day. Early Childhood Grades (3, 4, or 5 year olds), Primary Grades (6, 7, and 8 year olds), Middle Grades (9, 10, and 11 year old), Jr. High (12 and 13 year old), or High School (14, 15, 16, and 17 year olds)? It sounds absurd giving them an 8 hour school day. Even with lunch adults can't stand working an 8 hour workday. The suggestion of an 8 hour school day sounds like some hairbrained Democrat idea that is intended to fix CPS that has been allowed to deteriorate for decades under Mayor Daley. Why not a 12 hour day? If 8 is better, 12 would be even better.

Dr. Ridchardson, where were you living in the 1980s? There is no Private or Public school that had 7.5 hour school days in the 1980s. If you check your information, public and private schools shortened their school days back in the 1970s, not the 1980s. They shortened them from 6.5 to about 6 hours. Check your information. There were no modification to the school hours in suburban districts during the 1980s because they took place in the early to late 1970s. The Catholic schools that are slow to move on anything shortened school hours to their suburban school by the 1977-78 school year.

I went to school during the 1940s and 50s, and we never had 7 and a half hours of school and I went to Catholic school. My mother went to CPS back from 1911 to 1923 and she didn't even go to school for that many hours. Who made up that story? Even school in afluent districts didn't go to school for 7 and a half hours of school at any time. Catholic schools didn't have recess for some grades until the 1960s and 70s, before that only grade 1 had recess for 10 minutes in the morning, the rest of the school didn't. Apparently Ridchardson is not a professor of Ed. Leadership with knowledge of educational history or local educational history.

I went to Catholic Schools and we always had longer hours than the public schools. When I went to school in the 1970s and 80s, the public schools started at of shortly after 9AM and dismissed at 3PM. In Catholic Grammar School before 1977, I started at 8AM and we were dismissed at 2:30. Like Char said above, starting in the 1977-78 School Year my Catholic grammar school changed hours to 8:10AM to 2:15PM. That was a little longer than the 6 hours or less the public schools put in. In Catholic High School during the 1980s, we started at 8AM and dismissed at 2:30PM. Tutoring, clubs and sports went from 2:35PM to 3:30PM or longer depending upon what. When I started my teacher preparation in the late 1980s, hour in public and private schools I worked with for clinical hours were the same as when I went to school. They still are now. Dr. Ridchardson has his information for either faulty sources or made them up. CPS hours have been the same for years. The teachers have complained about student quality for decades. You can't teach uneducable students, some can't be taught Algebra, Cal or Trig. Other can't be taught to count. I would be more concerned with the dropout rate going up during the Daley Administration. The students drop out because they are unable to keep up with other students and the work is too hard. Do we lower the standards to keep students and parents happy? As it is most districts including CPS have lowered program rigor to help the low ability students to make it out with a diploma. Then they go to McDonalds, and McDonalds has to have pictures on their registers because CPS graduates can't read.

If teachers worked in the private sector, as salaried employees, there would be no discussion about putting in the hours needed to get the job done...no matter how many hours that would entail. It is not unusual for middle and upper managers to work 50-60-70 hours some weeks, if that is what is necessary or demanded. In this economy, everyone is working harder to keep their jobs and help the economy. They come in on Saturdays, Sundays, Holidays, whatever. The whining I hear from teachers does not reflect to me any strong commitment to the students. It sounds more like "don't make me work any harder"! They are a privileged lot to begin with, earning good salaries for 9 months or less of work, with unheard of holidays not available in the private sector and short work days (even if they stay late). I believe longer school days would make a big difference in the success rate of students' learning, would help to keep them off the streets and away from gangs, and provide better value for our tax dollars that pay teacher's salaries. Kids might grumble, but I think parents would welcome the longer school day, particularly if it helped establish a more effective learning environment for their kids. It's not guaranteed that longer days equals more success, but school days growing shorter and shorter, as they have been over the decades, certainly is not cutting it in the success column either! Why not give it a try?

I guess what everyone is saying since no one believes my school hours in the 80's is that ALL school teachers are overpaid for the little hours they put into the job. Most proffessional people average about $75K per year woring between 50-60 hours per week. We will use 50 as a base. We will assume they work 250 days a year. That means the average private sector employee makes $30/Hr (75K / (50 weeks x 50 hrs per week) = $30/hr). Based on the crazy hours people are claiming on here the average teacher makes $45.45/Hr (60K / (176 days/year * 7.5 hrs/day) = $45.45/hr). The average teacher makes %15.45 per hour of effort then the average private sector tax paying employee.

If these "people" don't think they should shell out more time to educate our kids of which most don't graduate anyway, then there is a fairness issue. I know Parents have a lot to do with my last statement, but so do cutures created in the schooling environment. I have montored several troubled kids in the CPS system that have gone to some higher education environment and have graduated. All of these kids tell me how poor the teachers they have had are and that the teachers just blame someone else for the issues and do not take accountability. The one thing I teach these kids is taking accountability for everything they do and to set goals and seek out ways to achieve these goals. If our CPS teachers would take accountability for teching, then the CPS environment would be much better and our kids going through the system would have a better chance at winning.

Any teacher will work the extra time if they are paid fairly for it. The reason teachers need to fight back is once the board of ed/mayor get away with this, they will try to take away a lot more. Once they screw over the teachers, they will do the same to the police/fire fighters. In the end, the tax payers will pay more for less/worse service. I'm a pissed off tax payer/home owner and I'm tired of the Daley/Rahm/Obama circus. Arne Duncan is screwing up public education more than Bush did.

Should students be in school from 8-4:30? Rahm is sending his kids to a school where the school day is just as long as a high school in CPS. In fact, his kids have a longer summer break and winter break than any CPS school. Clearly he thinks that short school day/year is good enough for his kids so why isn't it good enough for mine? The suburbs and private schools go a half hour more than CPS schools in most cases and they're doing just fine. The selective schools and top neighborhood schools in Chicago are performing above the state and national average as well with the current 6-7 hour day. One size doesn't fit all in education. Maybe some schools need more time and maybe some do not. More time alone won't change a thing if the parents don't get more involved with their child's education.

As far as the private sector comparisons, teachers need at least a bachelor's degree and many have a master's. My wife, my sister, and several friends work in the private sector and work 40 hours a week (not 50+ as you say). However, they make more than many teachers and do not have a bacherlor's degree (and no student loans to pay back like teachers do). I'm sick of the few in the private sector who claim they have such a long work week. Become a teacher if it seems so easy and pays so well.

The process by which the newly crowned mayor is going about this should raise red flags of concern in every resident of Chicago. The fact that the media is little more than his messenger boy is sounding the death knell to our beloved Constitutional Democracy.

There is a contract in place and a union which is the legal spokesman for the teachers. Rahm has broken the contract and done a complete end around the union coercing frightened little principals with promises of money and influence while threatening teachers with the loss of their jobs. This is not “politics.” This is illegal.

The broader issue is the affront to collective bargaining and unions. This needs to be resisted at every level.

The micro issue is that he is basically attempting to destroy the public school system and replace it with Charter Schools that have no unions, work cheap at long hours. I see some people on this board talking about whining teachers and how good they have it etc. I regret that there is a profanity filter and that the strongest language I can use is go fling yourself.

You are in the process of losing some of your best and most committed teachers to some young kids with certificates (not Master’s Degrees in Childhood Development but certificates from some JuCo.) And when their irrational exuberance wanes at the thought of 12 hour days with the myriad numbers of learning disabilities that poverty, drug addled parents and lack of a proper home life brings, you’ll lose them too.

I wouldn’t babysit some of these “kids” for $70K a year all the holidays and downtime included. I challenge Dr. Ridchardson to step in and do so. Let him leave behind his posh Hinsdale lifestyle with all the advantages that come with growing up there in favor of teaching in the inner city where I venture to say he never even goes.

And while the City is making cuts let them start with the office of the Mayor and then that Haitian dictator JC “babydoc” Brouchard. I suspect there is enough pork right in those two offices to hire back a hundred teachers.

It depends, I don't want my child being bombarded with boring information it will only turn her off. The longer day should also mean new exciting subjects and it should be fun, give them something to look forward to. Music and Science should be in the agenda. Karen Lewis is right it not the quantity but the quality.
Thank You.

The current system is broken. What needs to happen is total reform. New negotiated contracts with teatchers. New slimmed down central education office with all new leadership. New curriculum and defined focus on math and science. Elective choices of music, choir, art, etc..... Social education of proper way of handling issues and how to act in public.

The current system supports poor teachers and makes good teachers look bad in the publics eyes because they get classified with the bad ones. Pay for performace needs to be instituted and no more then 2 years to get your house in order or else you are out. The union needs to lead education, not support bad education and bad teachers. The union has failed CPS in so many ways. CPS has failed CPS as well. Everyone needs reform.

No grade school in our neighborhood; everyone has to be bussed to Ogden. Also, I have been a CPS volunteer and they cancelled all the programs that I was involved in; no it wasn't me! Could go on and on. I have been an Adjunct at Harold Washington College and the students are so ill prepared it is pathetic. I was chastised because I didn't understand that the students went to HWC right after high school so that they should have been treated as special!!!

CPS has had the same hours for decades. The only thing that has changed is the scores are in decline. Ask CPS teachers, they blame it on low student quality.

Teachers get paid for 6 hours and 15 minutes. Not one teacher in the city works that little. Personally I work 10-12 hours a day, because I love my kids. However, if I am required to work 7 hours, I should get paid for 7 hours. It is really that simple. No one would ask a police officer or a fire fighter to work a longer day without any compensation. Think about it. Would you work a longer day without getting paid?

If Christine Bates is correct that teachers only get paid for 6 hours and 15 minutes per day, why do tax payers pay for their benefits? Illinois private sector companies provide benefits for workers that work over 35 hours per week. 6.25 hours per day equates to 31.25 hours per week. A huge savings for us tax payers can be achieved if we cut all teacher benefits. I would support keeping the current short days if this occured. I'm tired of all the "intitalments" public employees receive for no reason. When I go to work all the school parking lots are empty. When I come back from work all the school parking lots are empty. I doubt any teacher works more then 8 to 9 hours per day. I would love to get 12 to 14 weeks of paid vacation also. What's up whith that????