Teaching Time Comes Up Short

Teachers in Chicago public high schools spend 200 minutes a day -3 hours and 20 minutes - actually teaching.

That is far less teaching time than the 295 minutes - just ashade under five hours - required of teachers in New York, whencecame new Chicago schools Supt. Argie K. Johnson.

It is also substantially less actual teaching time than isrequired of teachers in, for example, the high schools ofPhiladelphia (273), Los Angeles (310), Houston (330), Miami (300),Milwaukee (330), Cleveland (270), Detroit (275), Indianapolis (280)and Columbus, Ohio (330).

And it is nearly an hour less than the 253 minutes of dailyteaching time required of teachers in Chicago's own elementaryschools.

So, in its pursuit of a balanced budget, the Board of Educationis now proposing, in contract negotiations with the Chicago TeachersUnion, to require high school teachers to teach 280 minutes - 4 hoursand 40 minutes - per day.

Teachers Union President Jacqueline B. Vaughn basically saidthis week that this (and several other proposals) was unacceptable.

Is it? And as time runs down on prospects for opening theschools on schedule Sept. 8, are parents and taxpayers going to buythe idea that asking teachers to spend more time teaching is unfairor unreasonable?

Let's look at the mathematics involved here and you tell me if,given the standards in other big cities across the country, the boardis asking too much.

Chicago teachers earn an average of $39,966 for a 39-weekworking year. The average tends to be higher, maybe $45,000 a year,for high school teachers because they tend to have more seniority andprofessional qualifications.

The high school schoolday totals 406 minutes, which includes astate-required 300 minutes of actual instruction time for students,and is basically divided into 40-minute periods.

An individual teacher's time typically includes 200 minutes ofactual teaching, a 40-minute period for preparation, a 40-minuteperiod on "building duty" (e.g. hall monitor), 40 minutes for lunch,10 minutes "unassigned" and 76 minutes for unspecified "other."

What this adds up to, of course, is that the teachers arespending less than half the schoolday actually teaching.

"What we are asking them to do," says Pamela Lenane, the boardmember representative to the union negotiations, "is to give up"either a "self-directed prep (preparation) period" and one "duty"period, or two "prep" periods, and spend the time teaching instead.

The Board of Education figures the added teaching time wouldenable it to reduce the number of high school teachers by about1,000, through attrition, and thereby save about $35.7 million.

The numbers get a little foggy, depending on which expert you'retalking to. Vaughn says the added teaching load would mean a loss of900 to 1,200 jobs. But the budget-saving would, by anyone'scount, be substantial.

Teachers contend that they need "prep" time to prepare forclasses. No one argues that. But how much time? How much havealgebra, say, or the rules of grammar, changed since "prep" time lastyear or last week?

Teachers who call and write to me also talk about how tough,stressful, even dangerous, it is to work in Chicago high schools. Iwon't argue that.

But tougher, more stressful, more dangerous than in New York,where they teach 295 minutes a day, or Los Angeles, where they teach310 minutes a day?

Doing more work for the same pay is not, of course, something aunion is easily persuaded to go along with. Neither is the idea ofaccepting a loss in the number of union jobs. I understand that, andI understand why Vaughn might feel obliged to take the unyieldingstance she took the other day.

But in the past the parents of schoolchildren have beengenerally supportive of the teachers union. Will they be this time,on this issue?

I don't know. But asking teachers here to do at least closer towhat teachers elsewhere are asked to do doesn't seem all thatunreasonable to me.