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151-599: The CTU united several teachers' organizations in Chicago in the wake of a teachers' revolt against banks during the Great Depression . It was chartered in 1937 as Local 1 of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), in which it played a founding role. It was the largest and most active AFT Local until the 1960s. The CTU won collective bargaining rights in 1966 and conducted several strikes during

302-634: A deflationary spiral started in 1931. Farmers faced a worse outlook; declining crop prices and a Great Plains drought crippled their economic outlook. At its peak, the Great Depression saw nearly 10% of all Great Plains farms change hands despite federal assistance. At first, the decline in the U.S. economy was the factor that triggered economic downturns in most other countries due to a decline in trade, capital movement, and global business confidence. Then, internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. For example,

453-418: A silver standard , almost avoided the depression entirely. The connection between leaving the gold standard as a strong predictor of that country's severity of its depression and the length of time of its recovery has been shown to be consistent for dozens of countries, including developing countries . This partly explains why the experience and length of the depression differed between regions and states around

604-458: A 5 percent bonus for the top 25 percent of teachers in the state of Florida. A large factor in selection of the top 25 percent of teachers was student score improvement. A similar program was implemented in Houston at the same time, only lacking a limit on the percentage of teachers who could receive the bonus. Teachers in both states rebelled, stating that a year of instruction can't be measured in

755-547: A House of Delegates vote, which would be necessary to end their strike... As a result, it will not be possible to hold classes tomorrow." It was noted that on Tuesday, negotiations appeared to be "at an impasse", and the majority of CTU's 40-person bargaining team was not expected to return to the negotiating table. CTU President Sharkey expressed that the proposed contract did "...not have adequate enforcement mechanisms on staffing." After negotiations had ended Tuesday evening, several issues remained unresolved, such as class-size caps,

906-424: A House of Delegates vote, which would be necessary to end their strike... As a result, it will not be possible to hold classes tomorrow." The next day, Tuesday, October 22, 2019, negotiations continued, and 2020 democratic presidential primary candidate Elizabeth Warren joined the striking teachers. Later, Mayor Lightfoot canceled CPS classes for Wednesday, October 23, stating once again that "...CTU has not scheduled

1057-473: A competitively hired chief executive, who would sign an annual performance agreement with the Secretary and have a share of his or her pay depend on the organization's performance. The British, who have extensive experience with this concept, find that such agencies improve performance and cut administrative costs. Thus began the modern movement towards merit-based pay in U.S. federal civil service. However,

1208-455: A corrupt fashion. By 1939, the CTU had more than doubled in size, to 8,500 members, and organized its members for actions such as mass letter-writing. In 1948, amid small-scale sickouts and walkouts, the CTU authorized a strike when teachers experienced still more 'payless paydays' due to city mismanagement. The strike was averted hours before it was scheduled to begin, when the school board approved

1359-486: A deal done." At the time, Illinois state law required that all school districts in Illinois include at least 176 days in the school year. Lightfoot's decision broke this mandate, as the 2019–2020 school year was exactly 176 days long. Additionally, it was noted that teachers could lose pay if the strike days were not added back to the district calendar. On Thursday, October 17, 2019, teachers took to picket lines early in

1510-455: A district-wide level, the 2010 evaluation showed a substantial increase in mathematics and reading achievement from the immediate time period before ProComp's implementation compared to time period subsequent to the implementation. Additionally, teachers hired after the implementation of ProComp showed higher first-year achievement compared to those hired before the program's implementation. The National Center on Performance Incentives conducted

1661-492: A federal government mired in recession and record debt—assigned his vice president, Al Gore, to form a National Performance Review (NPR) panel to undertake a "Reinventing Government" initiative "to create a government that 'works better, costs less, and gets results Americans care about.'" In 1993, with Executive Order 12862, the President called for a revolution in government's customer service to deliver services equal to

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1812-604: A former privately run bank, bearing no relation to the U.S. government (not to be confused with the Federal Reserve ). Unable to pay out to all of its creditors, the bank failed. Among the 608 American banks that closed in November and December 1930, the Bank of United States accounted for a third of the total $ 550 million deposits lost and, with its closure, bank failures reached a critical mass. In an initial response to

1963-467: A greater reduction in credit. On 5 April 1933, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 making the private ownership of gold certificates , coins and bullion illegal, reducing the pressure on Federal Reserve gold. British economist John Maynard Keynes argued in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money that lower aggregate expenditures in the economy contributed to

2114-612: A leading U.S. domestic news story in 2014, resulting in investigations by the VA Inspector General, Congress, and others. The issue first became a major national topic when a doctor at the VA hospital in Phoenix reported that perhaps more than 40 patients had died due to false and secret waiting-lists that delayed or prevented their care. Subsequent reports found similar allegations at many other VA medical facilities around

2265-544: A major discrediting blow from the Veterans Health Administration controversy of 2014 , which revealed nationwide altering of records by Veterans Health Administration executives, including falsifying patient waiting lists and wait times, and keeping "secret" wait lists to ensure receiving merit pay bonuses. Over 1,000 veterans were reported to have been affected, as of June 2014, with dozens having apparently died waiting for care. The scandal became

2416-516: A massive decline in income and to employment that was well below the average. In such a situation, the economy reached equilibrium at low levels of economic activity and high unemployment. Merit pay Merit pay , merit increase or pay for performance, is performance-related pay , most frequently in the context of educational reform or government civil service reform (government jobs). It provides bonuses for workers who perform their jobs effectively, according to easily measurable criteria. In

2567-609: A merit-based pay system—particularly through a proposed system called the "... Human Capital Performance Fund, which agencies can use to reward their highest performing employees, ..." according to a March, 2004 letter to Congress from the Bush administration's Director of the Office of Management & Budget (OMB), Joshua Bolten. The Bush Budget Director's letter goes on to say: The President's pay proposal provides sufficient pay not only to recruit and retain needed workers, but also to reward

2718-600: A modern industrial city handled shortages of money and resources. Often they updated strategies their mothers used when they were growing up in poor families. Cheap foods were used, such as soups, beans and noodles. They purchased the cheapest cuts of meat—sometimes even horse meat—and recycled the Sunday roast into sandwiches and soups. They sewed and patched clothing, traded with their neighbors for outgrown items, and made do with colder homes. New furniture and appliances were postponed until better days. Many women also worked outside

2869-402: A monetary contraction first-hand were forced to join the deflationary policy since higher interest rates in countries that performed a deflationary policy led to a gold outflow in countries with lower interest rates. Under the gold standard's price–specie flow mechanism , countries that lost gold but nevertheless wanted to maintain the gold standard had to permit their money supply to decrease and

3020-565: A new budget and announced that the checks due to the teachers had been mailed with all possible haste. In addition to perennial requests for salary increases, the CTU began pushing for broader changes to Chicago's public schools. It asked the Chicago Police Department to station an officer in each of Chicago's 43 high schools; CPD refused. The CTU continued to pursue the school violence issues, arguing that teachers were being endangered by violent students. During this period

3171-518: A pass on the deadline and the opportunity to design their own accountability systems to some schools. The provisions that required failing schools to offer after-school tutoring and no-cost bus transportation to better schools were also waived. To qualify for the waivers, however, states must demonstrate an adoption of "college and career ready" academic standards and deliver a sketch of how they plan to transform their lowest performing schools. States that apply for these waivers this fall can be reviewed by

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3322-426: A pay policy that most effectively recruits, retains, and rewards quality employees. Critics, particularly Democrats, especially from districts with high dependence on federal civilian employment (e.g.: around Washington, D.C., in adjoining Maryland and Virginia), expressed objections to the Bush administration's desire to allocate raises differently for civilian federal workers than for military personnel. Inheriting

3473-567: A serious issue in the 1930s. Support for increasing welfare programs during the depression included a focus on women in the family. The Conseil Supérieur de la Natalité campaigned for provisions enacted in the Code de la Famille (1939) that increased state assistance to families with children and required employers to protect the jobs of fathers, even if they were immigrants. In rural and small-town areas, women expanded their operation of vegetable gardens to include as much food production as possible. In

3624-658: A shifting mix of white-collar and blue-collar families. The CTU intensified its campaign for collective bargaining rights in the 1960s, staging huge demonstrations at the Chicago Board of Education. Pressure increased after the New York recognized collective bargaining rights for the UFT in 1961, and the CTU threatened an illegal strike in 1963–1964 if the School Board would not grant it the same status. The city averted

3775-541: A single test, on a single day. These systems showed other imperfections as well. For example, a county in Florida ran out of money before all the teachers received bonuses. Accusations of discrimination also existed, a result of difference in pay between predominantly black and predominantly white schools. President Barack Obama supports merit pay for teachers but believes teachers' pay should be increased based on performance tests, not arbitrary tests. He wishes to work with

3926-480: A small cadre of Labour, but the vast majority of Labour leaders denounced MacDonald as a traitor for leading the new government. Britain went off the gold standard , and suffered relatively less than other major countries in the Great Depression. In the 1931 British election, the Labour Party was virtually destroyed, leaving MacDonald as prime minister for a largely Conservative coalition. In most countries of

4077-657: A standstill agreement froze Germany's foreign liabilities for six months. Germany received emergency funding from private banks in New York as well as the Bank of International Settlements and the Bank of England. The funding only slowed the process. Industrial failures began in Germany, a major bank closed in July and a two-day holiday for all German banks was declared. Business failures were more frequent in July, and spread to Romania and Hungary. The crisis continued to get worse in Germany, bringing political upheaval that finally led to

4228-482: A statement from Chicago Police News Affairs read. Finally, during a House of Delegates vote in October 30, the union agreed to accept a tentative agreement in a 362–242 vote. A press conference later that night reinforced the mayor's stance that the days missed during the strike would not be made up. Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period

4379-633: A strike by agreeing to negotiate, and, after long delays (including litigation from a rival union, the Chicago Education Association), the CTU became the official bargaining agent of Chicago teachers in April 1966. In 2010, the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE), led by President Karen Lewis gained control over the CTU by winning 60% of the vote in a run-off election. CORE ran an aggressive grassroots organizing campaign, and took

4530-447: A strong stance against school privatization. CORE accused the incumbent United Progressive Caucus (UPC) of capitulating to corporate interests, silencing dissent within the union, and collaborating with the city to prevent union outreach at schools. CORE quickly took action to distinguish itself from UPC, reaffirm its grassroots support, and launch a campaign to defend public education. The new leadership cut pay for union officers and used

4681-636: A system that uses merit-pay is the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) created by the Milken Family Foundation in 1999. TAP is currently in place in more than 180 schools all across the United States. In this program, salary raises are based on some aspects of teacher performance, measured by a combination of observations and student test scores. TAP teachers can advance their career in three ways: (1) remain in

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4832-400: A tendency to prefer avoiding losses rather than accruing gains. This notion of people hating to lose, more than they like gaining something, even if the potential amount that could be lost is the same as the amount to be gained, has been tested in many arenas. An experiment conducted by Kahneman et al. 1990 Journal of Political Economy describes testing loss aversion through the concepts of

4983-465: A three-year study in the metropolitan Nashville School System from 2006 through 2009, in which middle school mathematics teachers participated in an experiment to evaluate the effect of financial rewards for teachers whose students showed large gains on standardized tests . As stated in the study's final findings report, "The experiment was intended to test the notion that rewarding teachers for improved scores would cause scores to rise." The results of

5134-658: Is a consensus that the Federal Reserve System should have cut short the process of monetary deflation and banking collapse, by expanding the money supply and acting as lender of last resort . If they had done this, the economic downturn would have been far less severe and much shorter. Modern mainstream economists see the reasons in Insufficient spending, the money supply reduction, and debt on margin led to falling prices and further bankruptcies ( Irving Fisher 's debt deflation). The monetarist explanation

5285-493: Is supported by the contrast in how the crisis progressed in, e.g., Britain, Argentina and Brazil, all of which devalued their currencies early and returned to normal patterns of growth relatively rapidly and countries which stuck to the gold standard , such as France or Belgium. Frantic attempts by individual countries to shore up their economies through protectionist policies – such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries – exacerbated

5436-539: The 1932 election , Hoover was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt , who from 1933 pursued a series of " New Deal " policies and programs to provide relief and create jobs, including the Civilian Conservation Corps , Federal Emergency Relief Administration , Tennessee Valley Authority , and Works Progress Administration . Historians disagree on the effects of the New Deal, with some claiming that

5587-659: The Center for American Progress , an evaluation of programs supported by TIF, such as Denver's ProComp program and the Nashville study (both discussed below), has shown initial evidence that performance-based pay has had a positive effect on student achievement. However, other evaluations, such as a study performed by the Vanderbilt University National Center on Performance Incentives in the metropolitan Nashville School System, have not confirmed

5738-584: The Chicago Civic Opera House , immediately receiving its charter as Local 1 of the AFT. By September 1938, it was the largest teachers union in the US, with over 8,500 members. The CTF, still under the leadership of its longtime head Margaret Haley , remained separate for some years, based on concerns that the CTU would disproportionately represent the interests of males and high school teachers. When

5889-677: The Endowment effect and the Coase Theorem . The endowment effect reveals the notion that people place a higher value on objects they own relative to objects they do not. The Coase theorem focuses on transaction costs and the importance of who owns a particular commodity. They found that randomly assigned owners of a mug required significantly more money to part with their possession (around $ 7) than randomly assigned buyers were willing to pay to acquire it (around $ 3). Kahneman attributed this result to loss aversion: owners were affected more by

6040-582: The New York Bank of United States – which produced panic and widespread runs on local banks, and the Federal Reserve sat idly by while banks collapsed. Friedman and Schwartz argued that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to these key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of

6191-400: The city hall . Lightfoot presented her 2020 city budget plan Wednesday evening, at the end of the fifth school day of the strike. Emails and phone calls were disseminated to students and parents, informing them that classes were canceled for Thursday, October 24, as both the CTU and CPS still did not expect an agreement any time soon. The following day, on Thursday the 24th, teachers returned to

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6342-539: The coming to power of Hitler's Nazi regime in January 1933. The world financial crisis now began to overwhelm Britain; investors around the world started withdrawing their gold from London at the rate of £2.5 million per day. Credits of £25 million each from the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an issue of £15 million fiduciary note slowed, but did not reverse,

6493-493: The hypothesis that rewarding teachers for improved scores will cause scores to rise. Denver 's Professional Compensation System for Teachers was approved by teachers and financially backed by Denver voters in 2004 and 2005, and it later received additional funding from a TIF grant in 2006. In this program, teachers are given nine ways to increase their earnings, such as working in a high-needs schools, exceeding expectations on state exams, meeting professional objectives set at

6644-405: The 1930s, Chicago teachers had formed several other different unions, some of which were still segregated by gender. Unrest in the early 1930s united these groups, which had previously struggled to cooperate. The Chicago Teachers Federation played an active role in the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and retained their status as Local 1. In 1937, Local 1 battled New York's Local 5 over whether

6795-447: The 1937 recession that interrupted it). The common view among most economists is that Roosevelt's New Deal policies either caused or accelerated the recovery, although his policies were never aggressive enough to bring the economy completely out of recession. Some economists have also called attention to the positive effects from expectations of reflation and rising nominal interest rates that Roosevelt's words and actions portended. It

6946-624: The 1970s and 1980s. In September 2012, the union began its first strike in 25 years. The CTU is also affiliated with the Illinois Federation of Teachers, the Chicago Federation of Labor , and the AFL–CIO . It has more than 25,000 members. Current officers come from the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators, elected in 2010 to replace the longstanding United Progressive Caucus. From that point until her 2018 retirement, Karen Lewis

7097-509: The AFT would remain in the American Federation of Labor (AFL) or join the newer and more inclusive Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). (New York's Local 5 was at that time the Teachers' Union, which was soon expelled from the AFT after accusations of communism, and replaced by the more moderate United Federation of Teachers .) Soon after the convention (which decided to stay in the AFL),

7248-813: The British crisis. The financial crisis now caused a major political crisis in Britain in August 1931. With deficits mounting, the bankers demanded a balanced budget; the divided cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government agreed; it proposed to raise taxes, cut spending, and most controversially, to cut unemployment benefits 20%. The attack on welfare was unacceptable to the Labour movement. MacDonald wanted to resign, but King George V insisted he remain and form an all-party coalition " National Government ". The Conservative and Liberals parties signed on, along with

7399-589: The CTU for a second term as its president. In 1950, the CTU governing board approved a constitutional amendment to remove limitations on presidential terms; John Fewkes was thereby allowed to run again, and remained CTU president until 1966. Most of Chicago's public school teachers were white single women. Public school teacher was also the most common occupation for black women in Chicago, who were treated by CPS as second-class job candidates: qualified black high school teachers worked in elementary schools or as substitutes; some could not get jobs at all. Teachers came from

7550-557: The CTU formed, teachers had become disillusioned about their status as a special class of workers. Many teachers believed they faced discrimination because they were female. At the same time, some male teachers felt undervalued. Teachers also resented the constantly increasing bureaucratic control over their classrooms. The CTU sought collective bargaining rights early on, but Superintendent William Johnson refused to grant them. The union also criticized evaluations (for teachers who wanted to become principals) that it said were administered in

7701-623: The Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Association of Charter Teachers and Staff Local 4343 voted to merge, with the charter educators forming a new division within the CTU. On December 4, 2018, CTU members at the Acero charter school network initiated the first strike at a unionized charter school in US history. The strike ended December 9, 2018, in a major victory with the strikers who won sanctuary school protections for their students, enforceable reductions in class size and parity with

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7852-458: The Chicago Teachers Union was officially chartered by the AFT as an amalgamation of Chicago's multiple teacher unions in Chicago. At this point about 3,500 teachers were members of the new Local. The Chicago Teachers Union was formally established as a merger of the Men's Teachers Union, Federation of Women High School Teachers, Elementary Teachers Union, and Playground Teachers Union at a meeting held at

8003-682: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), concluded that federal workers earned substantially more than their counterparts in the private sector. A CBO report said overall average federal compensation was 16% higher than in for corresponding work in the private sector. On December 27, 2012, Obama issued an executive order giving federal employees an across-the-board raise, estimated by Congressional Republicans as costing taxpayers "$ 11 billion over ten years." In response, in February, 2013, House Republicans passed H.R. 273 "Overturning

8154-530: The Depression. Businessmen ignored the mounting national debt and heavy new taxes, redoubling their efforts for greater output to take advantage of generous government contracts. During World War I many countries suspended their gold standard in varying ways. There was high inflation from WWI, and in the 1920s in the Weimar Republic , Austria , and throughout Europe. In the late 1920s there

8305-469: The Dow returning to 294 (pre-depression levels) in April 1930, before steadily declining for years, to a low of 41 in 1932. At the beginning, governments and businesses spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut expenditures by 10%. In addition, beginning in

8456-729: The Education Department early next year. According to Eugene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, likely candidates for early application include Georgia, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Colorado. Wilhoit believes that other states will also apply for the waiver after watching the process unfold for the states that apply early. Still, other states are not likely to apply at all since they are unwilling to disrupt current accountability systems if No Child Left Behind could soon be overhauled by Congress. In early 1993, incoming President Bill Clinton—inheriting

8607-489: The Federal Reserve did not act to limit the decline of the money supply was the gold standard . At that time, the amount of credit the Federal Reserve could issue was limited by the Federal Reserve Act , which required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit that could be backed by the gold in its possession. This credit

8758-442: The Great Depression is right, or the traditional Keynesian explanation that a fall in autonomous spending, particularly investment, is the primary explanation for the onset of the Great Depression. Today there is also significant academic support for the debt deflation theory and the expectations hypothesis that – building on the monetary explanation of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz – add non-monetary explanations. There

8909-642: The Great Depression. According to the U.S. Senate website, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act is among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history. Many economists have argued that the sharp decline in international trade after 1930 helped to worsen the depression, especially for countries significantly dependent on foreign trade. Most historians and economists blame the Act for worsening the depression by seriously reducing international trade and causing retaliatory tariffs in other countries. While foreign trade

9060-469: The House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) claimed, "These increases are driven by automatic, tenure-based pay hikes that are in no way tied to merit or performance." Congressional Democrats and federal employees' unions responded that federal workers were not paid competitively with the private market, and the increases were overdue. Critics, however, and

9211-481: The NPR was clear that not all functions of government were suited to such performance-rewarded incentives: In a PBO, the policy-making and regulatory functions are split from their program operations. The PBO focuses on programmatic operations. Not all government agencies are suited to become PBOs. Operations that do not have clear, measurable results should be excluded. For example, the foreign policy and planning offices in

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9362-544: The National Education Association (NEA) to find a new system to get rid of performance pay. The National Education Association (NEA) adamantly opposes some forms of merit pay. In June 2003, NEA President Reg Weaver said: Teachers understand that politically motivated panaceas such as merit pay and eliminating tenure do nothing to improve teacher quality. Our members are open to alternatives, but we will always oppose quick fixes designed to weaken

9513-481: The New Deal prolonged the Great Depression, as they argue that National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and National Labor Relations Act of 1935 restricted competition and established price fixing. John Maynard Keynes did not think that the New Deal under Roosevelt single-handedly ended the Great Depression: "It is, it seems, politically impossible for a capitalistic democracy to organize expenditure on

9664-548: The New York College Teachers Union and Philadelphia Teachers Union from the AFT. The three expelled Locals were large, representing about one quarter of the AFT's members, but the CTU was larger, and its votes were decisive in accomplishing the expulsion. Fewkes remained CTU President for most of this period. He left the CTU in 1943 to serve as AFT president. In 1944, he took a position with the federal War Production Board . By 1947, he had returned to

9815-535: The President from implementing a planned across the board increase for all federal employees In late 2013, the Brookings Institution , a liberal think tank, published research by analysts Choi and Whitford, who cautioned that—despite a shift of resources to merit-based pay for federal workers, intended to "better align pay and performance"—such efforts often fail, and such incentives "may not work" for "public organizations." However, rather than focus on

9966-572: The President’s Federal Pay Hike," to undo Obama's blanket federal pay hike. However, underscoring their commitment to incentive-based compensation, they took pains to note that merit pay remained. In a "Fact Sheet" on the bill, the committee reported: Federal Workers Still Get Raises H.R. 273 does NOT prevent federal employees from receiving bonuses, merit based pay increases, promotions, or even tenure based pay increases – commonly referred to as “step” increases. It simply prevents

10117-511: The Service Employees International Union Local 1 informed companies that some of their members might go on strike with the teachers. On September 14, 2012, the teachers reached a tentative agreement with the city, which included preferences for teachers who have been laid off due to a school closing to be hired in another school, and student test scores having less of a role in teacher evaluations than

10268-651: The State Department or basic scientific research offices at the National Institutes for Health may be inappropriate candidates. Subsequent efforts of the NPR (by 1999 renamed the " National Partnership for Reinventing Government ") led to additional efforts to identify and apply effective and suitable ways to reward federal employee performance. In 2004, Pres. George W. Bush and other Republicans favored shifting federal civilian employee salary pay raises from across-the-board uniform raises towards

10419-544: The U.K. economy, which experienced an economic downturn throughout most of the late 1920s, was less severely impacted by the shock of the depression than the U.S. By contrast, the German economy saw a similar decline in industrial output as that observed in the U.S. Some economic historians attribute the differences in the rates of recovery and relative severity of the economic decline to whether particular countries had been able to effectively devaluate their currencies or not. This

10570-490: The U.S. unemployment rate down below 10%. World War II had a dramatic effect on many parts of the American economy. Government-financed capital spending accounted for only 5% of the annual U.S. investment in industrial capital in 1940; by 1943, the government accounted for 67% of U.S. capital investment. The massive war spending doubled economic growth rates, either masking the effects of the Depression or essentially ending

10721-622: The United States, agricultural organizations sponsored programs to teach housewives how to optimize their gardens and to raise poultry for meat and eggs. Rural women made feed sack dresses and other items for themselves and their families and homes from feed sacks. In American cities, African American women quiltmakers enlarged their activities, promoted collaboration, and trained neophytes. Quilts were created for practical use from various inexpensive materials and increased social interaction for women and promoted camaraderie and personal fulfillment. Oral history provides evidence for how housewives in

10872-492: The United States, policy makers are divided on whether merit pay should be offered to public school teachers, and other public employees, as is commonly the case in the United Kingdom. Merit pay's roots lie in behavioral psychology and incentive theory. These theories are based in the belief that people are rational and react to incentives and that you can increase performance with the correct catalyst. One example of

11023-543: The United States, remained on the gold standard into 1932 or 1933, while a few countries in the so-called "gold bloc", led by France and including Poland, Belgium and Switzerland, stayed on the standard until 1935–36. According to later analysis, the earliness with which a country left the gold standard reliably predicted its economic recovery. For example, The UK and Scandinavia, which left the gold standard in 1931, recovered much earlier than France and Belgium, which remained on gold much longer. Countries such as China, which had

11174-480: The VA nationwide, with secret waiting lists and related issues being uncovered at numerous other VA medical facilities, including in Chicago , Kansas City , Wichita , El Paso , and elsewhere. On May 30, 2014, President Obama accepted the resignation of Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Gen. Eric Shenseki, noting that: A few minutes ago, Secretary Shinseki and Rob Nabors, who I've temporarily assigned to work with

11325-638: The Wall Street crash, after which the slide continued for three years, which was accompanied by a loss of confidence in the financial system. By 1933, the U.S. unemployment rate had risen to 25 percent, about one-third of farmers had lost their land, and about half of the country's 25,000 banks had gone out of business. Many people, unable to pay mortgages or rent, became homeless and relied on begging or charities to feed themselves. The U.S. federal government initially did little to help. President Herbert Hoover , like many of his fellow Republicans , believed in

11476-447: The analysis of the impact of dismissing ineffective teachers by Eric Hanushek can be interpreted as a special form of performance pay where pay is reduced to zero (or a very low amount) for teachers who do not perform well. Loss aversion was first proposed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1979. They proposed the notion that individuals assign value to gains and losses rather than to final assets. In other words, individuals have

11627-460: The banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did. With significantly less money to go around, businesses could not get new loans and could not even get their old loans renewed, forcing many to stop investing. This interpretation blames the Federal Reserve for inaction, especially the New York branch . One reason why

11778-419: The beginning of the year, receiving a worthy evaluation from a principal, and gaining "distinguished school" status by meeting mixed criteria such as parent satisfaction. In 2010, an evaluation report detailing effects of ProComp was issued. This report highlighted several key findings in both district-wide student achievement trends, as well as in student achievement outcomes relating to teacher hiring effects. On

11929-465: The behavior of housewives. The common view among economic historians is that the Great Depression ended with the advent of World War II . Many economists believe that government spending on the war caused or at least accelerated recovery from the Great Depression, though some consider that it did not play a very large role in the recovery, though it did help in reducing unemployment. The rearmament policies leading up to World War II helped stimulate

12080-714: The best in business. Working with David Osborne (noted co-author of the popular book Reinventing Government ) and leaders in government, business and organizational development, the committee made numerous recommendations, and developed implementation schemes for them. Among those was " III. Reinvent To Get The Job Done With Less - 9. Create Performance-Based Organizations (PBOs). " The NPR's "Blair House Papers" explained that: Performance-Based Organizations (PBOs) are discrete management units that commit to clear objectives, specific measurable goals, customer service standards, and targets for improved performance. Once designated, they would have customized managerial flexibilities and

12231-457: The best teachers, the ones who get the added performance pay, may on average be induced to stay in the classroom longer. These larger impacts through changes in selection would not show up on the evaluations previously conducted but can show up on overall comparisons of countries that do and do not employ performance pay systems. Ludger Woessmann finds evidence that performance pay does improve performance when viewed across countries. Additionally,

12382-434: The city had originally planned. This tentative agreement did not hold, however, and the strike continued, at which point Mayor Emanuel announced his intention to seek a legal injunction, forcing teachers back to work. On September 17, 2012, Mayor Emanuel's efforts to end the strike stalled as the walkout went into the second week. Delegates from the CTU voted to end the strike on September 18, 2012. Students began their return to

12533-478: The city's most underfunded high schools, CTU members voted overwhelmingly (90% of teachers and 98% of those who cast ballots) to authorize a strike. On September 10, 2012, the Chicago Teachers Union began a strike after CTU President Lewis declared that negotiations with the city were not succeeding. This strike was the CTU's first since 1987, and the first strike ever for many of the teachers involved. Regulations required them to make contract negotiations an issue in

12684-517: The classroom and become a mentor to others, (2) leave the classroom and become a master teacher, or (3) advance to administration through traditional means. This program is focused on helping teachers improve performance by learning from others. Teachers are put into small groups that—for a few hours each week—collaborate about what's working in the classroom. The opportunity allows teachers to build skills that will improve classroom learning. Since adopting TAP in 2001, Bell Street Middle School has doubled

12835-462: The collapse in global trade, contributing to the depression. By 1933, the economic decline pushed world trade to one third of its level compared to four years earlier. While the precise causes for the occurrence of the Great depression are disputed and can be traced to both global and national phenomena, its immediate origins are most conveniently examined in the context of the U.S. economy, from which

12986-498: The company that should have gone to schools. At the development, 9 CTU members were arrested when they did a sit-in located in the lobby of the Sterling Bay Headquarters. Chicago police said they were called just before 2 p.m. to a building in the 1300 block of West Fulton "where numerous individuals were inside and refusing to leave." "Police gave the offenders warnings to leave the building, which were refused,"

13137-475: The crash was a mere symptom of more general economic trends of the time, which had already been underway in the late 1920s. A contrasting set of views, which rose to prominence in the later part of the 20th century, ascribes a more prominent role to failures of monetary policy . According to those authors, while general economic trends can explain the emergence of the downtown, they fail to account for its severity and longevity; they argue that these were caused by

13288-625: The crisis, the U.S. Congress passed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act on 17 June 1930. The Act was ostensibly aimed at protecting the American economy from foreign competition by imposing high tariffs on foreign imports. The consensus view among economists and economic historians (including Keynesians , Monetarists and Austrian economists ) is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff had, in fact, achieved an opposite effect to what

13439-633: The decade. The Depression had devastating economic effects on both wealthy and poor countries: all experienced drops in personal income , prices ( deflation ), tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, and unemployment in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities around the world , especially those dependent on heavy industry , were heavily affected. Construction virtually halted in many countries, and farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by up to 60%. Faced with plummeting demand and few job alternatives, areas dependent on primary sector industries suffered

13590-408: The depression. Not all governments enforced the same measures of protectionism. Some countries raised tariffs drastically and enforced severe restrictions on foreign exchange transactions, while other countries reduced "trade and exchange restrictions only marginally": The gold standard was the primary transmission mechanism of the Great Depression. Even countries that did not face bank failures and

13741-435: The domestic price level to decline ( deflation ). There is also consensus that protectionist policies, and primarily the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , helped to exacerbate, or even cause the Great Depression. Some economic studies have indicated that the rigidities of the gold standard not only spread the downturn worldwide, but also suspended gold convertibility (devaluing the currency in gold terms) that did

13892-402: The drop in demand. Monetarists believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but the shrinking of the money supply greatly exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression. Economists and economic historians are almost evenly split as to whether the traditional monetary explanation that monetary forces were the primary cause of

14043-404: The duration of the contract, salaries, and health benefits. At this point, teachers planned to keep the strike going until at least Thursday the 24th, or longer if necessary. On Wednesday, October 23, 2019, negotiations continued at Malcolm X College. Teachers only picketed in front of schools until 8:00 a.m. local time. Then, they proceeded to rally in the downtown Loop and converge in front of

14194-427: The economies of Europe in 1937–1939. By 1937, unemployment in Britain had fallen to 1.5 million. The mobilization of manpower following the outbreak of war in 1939 ended unemployment. The American mobilization for World War II at the end of 1941 moved approximately ten million people out of the civilian labor force and into the war. This finally eliminated the last effects from the Great Depression and brought

14345-576: The end of the month. A large sell-off of stocks began in mid-October. Finally, on 24 October, Black Thursday , the American stock market crashed 11% at the opening bell. Actions to stabilize the market failed, and on 28 October, Black Monday, the market crashed another 12%. The panic peaked the next day on Black Tuesday, when the market saw another 11% drop. Thousands of investors were ruined, and billions of dollars had been lost; many stocks could not be sold at any price. The market recovered 12% on Wednesday but by then significant damage had been done. Though

14496-413: The existing pay scale at district-run schools. Chicago teachers went on strike multiple times in the 1970s and 1980s: Under the leadership of CORE, the CTU pushed hard in negotiations with the city. Early on, the CTU made the decision to decline an offer of pay increases combined with layoffs. When the city would not agree to the CTU's core demands, including an expansion of programs like art and music at

14647-539: The expiration of the CPS contract with CTU in June 2019, a contract dispute emerged. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders spoke at a rally hosted by CTU and SEIU Local 73 in preparation of the strike on September 24. On September 27, 2019, CTU members voted to authorize a potential strike starting on October 17 if a contract deal is not reached. The union's top priorities in contract negotiations are reducing classroom size and increasing

14798-402: The expiration of the contract in June 2015, CPS teachers continued to work without a contract for a year while the union and district negotiated. In September 2016, union members voted overwhelmingly to strike if an agreement could not be reached, setting a deadline of October 11. Minutes before midnight on October 10, the district and union reached a tentative agreement, avoiding a strike. After

14949-500: The explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists. The consensus among demand-driven theories is that a large-scale loss of confidence led to a sudden reduction in consumption and investment spending. Once panic and deflation set in, many people believed they could avoid further losses by keeping clear of the markets. Holding money became profitable as prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought ever more goods, exacerbating

15100-428: The feeling of loss from selling them, even though there was no evidence that by holding onto them, they would rise in value. "Winning investments that investors chose to sell continued in subsequent months to outperform the losing stocks investors kept." Some political figures support the merit-pay system as an effective policy for enhancing educational quality. Jeb Bush , governor of Florida during that time, enacted

15251-503: The few women in the labor force, layoffs were less common in the white-collar jobs and they were typically found in light manufacturing work. However, there was a widespread demand to limit families to one paid job, so that wives might lose employment if their husband was employed. Across Britain, there was a tendency for married women to join the labor force, competing for part-time jobs especially. In France, very slow population growth, especially in comparison to Germany continued to be

15402-505: The first week of June, 540 million in the second, and 150 million in two days, 19–20 June. Collapse was at hand. U.S. President Herbert Hoover called for a moratorium on payment of war reparations . This angered Paris, which depended on a steady flow of German payments, but it slowed the crisis down, and the moratorium was agreed to in July 1931. An International conference in London later in July produced no agreements but on 19 August

15553-513: The five days from October 14–18 (CPS students did not go to school on Monday due to the observance of Columbus Day ). That weekend, CTU and CPS continued negotiating. While both sides noted progress over Saturday, Lightfoot noted that she would be "...very surprised if classes [would] open on Monday." The following day, Sunday, October 20, 2019, CPS canceled school for Monday the 21st. Even though tentative agreements had been made on eight points, CPS canceled school for Monday as CTU had not voted to end

15704-606: The government tried to reshape private household consumption under the Four-Year Plan of 1936 to achieve German economic self-sufficiency. The Nazi women's organizations, other propaganda agencies and the authorities all attempted to shape such consumption as economic self-sufficiency was needed to prepare for and to sustain the coming war. The organizations, propaganda agencies and authorities employed slogans that called up traditional values of thrift and healthy living. However, these efforts were only partly successful in changing

15855-499: The government’s highest performing employees. The Administration is implementing better agency performance appraisal systems that will be able to distinguish superior performance. Such systems will enable agencies to reward employees with funds from the Human Capital Performance Fund. These incentives will produce improved performance and results for the American people. Federal workers should be rewarded with

16006-519: The home, or took boarders, did laundry for trade or cash, and did sewing for neighbors in exchange for something they could offer. Extended families used mutual aid—extra food, spare rooms, repair-work, cash loans—to help cousins and in-laws. In Japan, official government policy was deflationary and the opposite of Keynesian spending. Consequently, the government launched a campaign across the country to induce households to reduce their consumption, focusing attention on spending by housewives. In Germany,

16157-527: The initial crisis spread to the rest of the world. In the aftermath of World War I , the Roaring Twenties brought considerable wealth to the United States and Western Europe. Initially, the year 1929 dawned with good economic prospects: despite a minor crash on 25 March 1929, the market seemed to gradually improve through September. Stock prices began to slump in September, and were volatile at

16308-563: The lack of an adequate response to the crises of liquidity that followed the initial economic shock of 1929 and the subsequent bank failures accompanied by a general collapse of the financial markets. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 , when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped from 381 to 198 over the course of two months, optimism persisted for some time. The stock market rose in early 1930, with

16459-555: The loss of the mug compared to the effect of a buyer purchasing the mug as a gain. Another experiment conducted by Terrance Odean at Berkeley College examined the account of 10,000 investors at a large discount brokerage house. The tendency of investors revealed they held on to losing investments too long and sold winning investments too soon. Their behavior did not appear to be motivated by rational re-balancing of portfolios or to avoid higher trading costs. According to Odean, these investors held on to these losing stocks in order to prolong

16610-521: The market entered a period of recovery from 14 November until 17 April 1930, the general situation had been a prolonged slump. From 17 April 1930 until 8 July 1932, the market continued to lose 89% of its value. Despite the crash, the worst of the crisis did not reverberate around the world until after 1929. The crisis hit panic levels again in December 1930, with a bank run on the Bank of United States ,

16761-614: The merit pay programs instituted by the prior administration—along with two wars and the "Great Recession," and a divided Congress—Pres. Barack Obama , and both parties in Congress, found difficulty in managing federal employee compensation. Despite an official pay freeze, federal employee compensation continued to rise—owing in part to the merit pay ("pay-for-performance" or "employee bonus") system, but also due to promotions and to automatic scheduled increases in "completing waiting periods used in grade- and step-type pay systems." Chairman of

16912-414: The mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U.S. Interest rates dropped to low levels by mid-1930, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment remained low. By May 1930, automobile sales declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices, in general, began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930. Then

17063-423: The monetary base and by not injecting liquidity into the banking system to prevent it from crumbling, the Federal Reserve passively watched the transformation of a normal recession into the Great Depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that the downward turn in the economy, starting with the stock market crash, would merely have been an ordinary recession if the Federal Reserve had taken aggressive action. This view

17214-472: The morning, and the CTU stated that it planned to resume negotiations with the city at Malcolm X College . Later that afternoon, CPS announced that classes had been cancelled for the following day, as even though negotiations seemed to be progressing, there was no foreseeable agreement in the near feature. On Friday, October 18, 2019, teachers continued on the second day of the strike, meaning that students had attended school two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) out of

17365-560: The most prominent leader of "Voluntary Emergency Committee" (VEC), a male-dominated group that formed in 1933 and gained prominence by advocating and coordinating militant action. The VEC had been aggressive but not radical, and explicitly sought to exclude communists. The union, urged on by Fewkes, participated in the AFL's anti-communist purges, and in 1941 voted 5,258 to 892 to expel the New York City Teachers Union ,

17516-502: The most to make recovery possible. Every major currency left the gold standard during the Great Depression. The UK was the first to do so. Facing speculative attacks on the pound and depleting gold reserves , in September 1931 the Bank of England ceased exchanging pound notes for gold and the pound was floated on foreign exchange markets. Japan and the Scandinavian countries followed in 1931. Other countries, such as Italy and

17667-427: The most. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 ended the Depression, as it stimulated factory production, providing jobs for women as militaries absorbed large numbers of young, unemployed men. The precise causes for the Great Depression are disputed. One set of historians, for example, focuses on non-monetary economic causes. Among these, some regard the Wall Street crash itself as the main cause; others consider that

17818-599: The nation. Patient wait times were a metric used to determine executive bonuses, and it is alleged that the delays in care were concealed by wait list abuses in order to ensure that staff received bonuses. Citing records obtained by OpentheBooks.com through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Fox News reported that Employees at the Phoenix VA office were paid "millions in higher-than-average salaries and bonuses," adding that between 2011 and 2013, "over $ 843,000 in bonuses" were paid out to approximately "half

17969-582: The need to balance the national budget and was unwilling to implement expensive welfare spending . In 1930, Hoover signed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , which taxed imports with the intention of encouraging buyers to purchase American products, which worsened the Depression because foreign governments retaliated with tariffs on American exports. In 1932, Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation , which offered loans to businesses and support to local governments. In

18120-426: The number of support staff (such as nurses and social workers). On October 16, 2019, CPS cancelled classes for October 17, 2019, in anticipation of the CTU strike. CTU delegates officially voted to go on strike hours afterwards. Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced that CPS would not add any makeup days for any school days lost during the strike, stating that "There's no plan to make up any days... We want to make sure we get

18271-493: The percent of students with advanced scoring in math and reading. The school has also reduced the number of students scoring "below basic level of math" by 46 percent. Another benefit of the TAP program for the middle school has been a reduction in teacher turnover from 32 percent to 10 percent. One criticism of TAP is that it is expensive for schools, costing from $ 250 to $ 400 per student per year. Many TAP schools use grants to fund

18422-406: The performance pay was offered, and the lack of achievement results implies that the performance pay does not lead to increased effort. On the other hand, an additional feature of performance pay might be improved "selection" of who enters and who stays in teaching. For example, a different group of teachers might be induced to enter the teacher profession if pay was aligned more with performance. And,

18573-483: The physical volume of exports fall, but also the prices fell by about 1 ⁄ 3 as written. Hardest hit were farm commodities such as wheat, cotton, tobacco, and lumber. Governments around the world took various steps into spending less money on foreign goods such as: "imposing tariffs, import quotas, and exchange controls". These restrictions triggered much tension among countries that had large amounts of bilateral trade, causing major export-import reductions during

18724-559: The picket lines at 7:00 a.m., and the president of the Flight Attendant's Union , Sara Nelson , was expected to join the striking teachers to show support. CTU also scheduled civil disobedience training for its members at the CTU headquarters at 3:00 p.m., suggesting a prolonged strike. On October 29, The CTU and SEIU marched to the Sterling Bay headquarters to demand that the development return TIF funds given to

18875-480: The policies prolonged the Depression instead of shortening it. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%; in the U.S., the Depression resulted in a 30% contraction in GDP. Recovery varied greatly around the world. Some economies, such as the U.S., Germany and Japan started to recover by the mid-1930s; others, like France, did not return to pre-shock growth rates until later in

19026-459: The political situation in Europe. In their book, A Monetary History of the United States , Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz also attributed the recovery to monetary factors, and contended that it was much slowed by poor management of money by the Federal Reserve System . Chairman of the Federal Reserve (2006–2014) Ben Bernanke agreed that monetary factors played important roles both in

19177-556: The program cost. An independent study conducted by Vanderbilt University researchers compared TAP schools' test score gains to non-TAP schools. TAP seems to do better at the elementary school level, but in fact does worse than non-TAP schools in grades 6 through 10. In 2006, the United States Congress created a $ 600 million federal grant program called the Teacher Incentive Plan (TIF). In 2009,

19328-512: The program was expanded and supported with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding. According to the U.S. Department of Education , the TIF "supports efforts to develop and implement performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in high-need schools." The program's goals include: A national evaluation of the TIF program has yet to be performed, but preliminary research has provided mixed results. According to an article by

19479-601: The results of merit-based pay in "individual and organizational performance," Choi and Whitford focused, instead, on its effects on "job satisfaction," saying that is "often a good predictor of performance." They studied federal government "findings" that indicated that subjecting federal employees to merit-based pay produces workers who are "consistently less happy" with their pay, their job and their organization, than those federal employees paid in "traditional compensation systems." Their report expresses concern that this could affect long-term outcomes. The idea of merit pay receive

19630-497: The savings to expand outreach. Former CTU member John A. Ostenburg criticized Lewis and CORE in 2011 for inexperience and political recklessness, arguing that they will not successfully be able to combat Mayor Rahm Emanuel 's entrenched power. CORE represented a major bloc of dissent at the 2012 AFT convention, and held signs in protest of Race to the Top during a speech from President, then Vice President, Joe Biden . In spring of 2018,

19781-434: The scale necessary to make the grand experiments which would prove my case—except in war conditions." According to Christina Romer , the money supply growth caused by huge international gold inflows was a crucial source of the recovery of the United States economy, and that the economy showed little sign of self-correction. The gold inflows were partly due to devaluation of the U.S. dollar and partly due to deterioration of

19932-624: The schools on Wednesday, September 19, 2012. The CTU was still required to ratify the contract with the Union's 29,000 teachers. Following the end of the strike, leaders of the Union held town hall meetings in major US cities to underscore the belief that community collaboration is key in creating beneficial changes in education, as opposed to top-down imposition by governors or mayors. The Union planned to hold town hall meetings in Chicago, Cleveland, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, St. Paul, and Tampa. Following

20083-502: The strike yet. On Monday, October 21, 2019, CTU members entered the third school day and second calendar week of the strike. Negotiations between CPS and CTU continued, and Lightfoot sent the union a letter asking them to end the strike while negotiations continued. CTU president Jesse Sharkey noted that "...the letter [from Lightfoot] I received today dashed my hope for a quick settlement." That afternoon, Mayor Lightfoot canceled CPS classes for Tuesday, stating that "...CTU has not scheduled

20234-571: The strike, and the teachers indeed sought better pay, better benefits, and protections for teachers who lose their jobs due to school closures. The striking teachers also wanted to call attention to a number of education issues, particularly what they defined as a broad attack on public schooling by corporate privatizers. In particular they demand a decrease in high-stakes testing for students, and an increase in music, art, and gym programs available at public schools. They also called for smaller class sizes and paid preparation time. On September 11, 2012,

20385-647: The study did not confirm this hypothesis. Students of teachers assigned to the treatment group eligible for bonuses did not outperform students whose teachers were assigned to the control group that was not eligible for bonuses. Most analyses of merit pay, including the Nashville Study, consider whether or not the existing teachers in a school perform better after being offered pay for performance. Scores might go up if teachers work harder or "work better." This situation, often called "increased effort," implies that teachers were not working as hard as they might before

20536-411: The system's 3,170 workers". This averages to approximately $ 530 per rewarded employee, though bonuses varied widely and most employees did not receive any bonus money; Fox News reported that the Phoenix VA's Director, Sharon Helman, got the largest bonus in 2013 of $ 9,345. Subsequent allegations and audits revealed the waiting list issue in Phoenix was not unique, but part of a wider, systemic problem in

20687-404: The union also sought shorter hours for students and teachers. It also called attention to a mounting teacher shortage, citing over a hundred classrooms without regular or substitute teachers. During this period, Fewkes and the CTU consistently opposed merit pay policies, proposals which would vary teachers salaries based on evaluations. The CTU's first president was John Fewkes. Fewkes had been

20838-435: The voice of teachers and effectiveness of education employees in all jobs. In September 2011, Obama took steps to reform certain unpopular and ineffective provisions of No Child Left Behind: "Congress hasn't been able to do it, so I will. The most notable change to the law related to the 2014 deadline for all schools to bring their entire student body to "proficient" levels in reading and math. The Obama administration offered

20989-476: The world, recovery from the Great Depression began in 1933. In the U.S., recovery began in early 1933, but the U.S. did not return to 1929 GNP for over a decade and still had an unemployment rate of about 15% in 1940, albeit down from the high of 25% in 1933. There is no consensus among economists regarding the motive force for the U.S. economic expansion that continued through most of the Roosevelt years (and

21140-673: The world. The financial crisis escalated out of control in mid-1931, starting with the collapse of the Credit Anstalt in Vienna in May. This put heavy pressure on Germany, which was already in political turmoil. With the rise in violence of National Socialist ('Nazi') and Communist movements, as well as investor nervousness at harsh government financial policies, investors withdrew their short-term money from Germany as confidence spiraled downward. The Reichsbank lost 150 million marks in

21291-778: The worldwide economic decline and eventual recovery. Bernanke also saw a strong role for institutional factors, particularly the rebuilding and restructuring of the financial system, and pointed out that the Depression should be examined in an international perspective. Women's primary role was as housewives; without a steady flow of family income, their work became much harder in dealing with food and clothing and medical care. Birthrates fell everywhere, as children were postponed until families could financially support them. The average birthrate for 14 major countries fell 12% from 19.3 births per thousand population in 1930, to 17.0 in 1935. In Canada, half of Roman Catholic women defied Church teachings and used contraception to postpone births. Among

21442-658: Was a scramble to deflate prices to get the gold standard's conversation rates back on track to pre-WWI levels, by causing deflation and high unemployment through monetary policy. In 1933 FDR signed Executive Order 6102 and in 1934 signed the Gold Reserve Act . The two classic competing economic theories of the Great Depression are the Keynesian (demand-driven) and the Monetarist explanation. There are also various heterodox theories that downplay or reject

21593-478: Was a small part of overall economic activity in the U.S. and was concentrated in a few businesses like farming, it was a much larger factor in many other countries. The average ad valorem (value based) rate of duties on dutiable imports for 1921–1925 was 25.9% but under the new tariff it jumped to 50% during 1931–1935. In dollar terms, American exports declined over the next four years from about $ 5.2 billion in 1929 to $ 1.7 billion in 1933; so, not only did

21744-485: Was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty; drastic reductions in liquidity , industrial production, and trade; and widespread bank and business failures around the world. The economic contagion began in 1929 in the United States , the largest economy in the world, with the devastating Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929 often considered the beginning of the Depression. The Depression

21895-474: Was endorsed in 2002 by Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke in a speech honoring Friedman and Schwartz with this statement: Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right. We did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again. The Federal Reserve allowed some large public bank failures – particularly that of

22046-426: Was given by American economists Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz . They argued that the Great Depression was caused by the banking crisis that caused one-third of all banks to vanish, a reduction of bank shareholder wealth and more importantly monetary contraction of 35%, which they called "The Great Contraction ". This caused a price drop of 33% ( deflation ). By not lowering interest rates, by not increasing

22197-500: Was in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes. A "promise of gold" is not as good as "gold in the hand", particularly when they only had enough gold to cover 40% of the Federal Reserve Notes outstanding. During the bank panics, a portion of those demand notes was redeemed for Federal Reserve gold. Since the Federal Reserve had hit its limit on allowable credit, any reduction in gold in its vaults had to be accompanied by

22348-446: Was intended. It exacerbated the Great Depression by preventing economic recovery after domestic production recovered, hampering the volume of trade; still there is disagreement as to the precise extent of the Act's influence. In the popular view, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was one of the leading causes of the depression. In a 1995 survey of American economic historians, two-thirds agreed that the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act at least worsened

22499-523: Was preceded by a period of industrial growth and social development known as the " Roaring Twenties ". Much of the profit generated by the boom was invested in speculation , such as on the stock market , which resulted in growing wealth inequality . Banks were subject to minimal regulation under laissez-faire economic policies, resulting in loose lending and widespread debt. By 1929, declining spending had led to reductions in manufacturing output and rising unemployment . Share values continued to rise until

22650-541: Was president. Through a successors election the new officer slate became: President Jesse Sharkey , Vice President Stacy Davis Gates, Recording Secretary Michael Brunson and Financial Secretary Maria Moreno. Following the departure of Sharkey, Stacy Davis Gates assumed the role of President on July 1, 2022. The CTU was preceded, in part, by the Chicago Teachers Federation (CTF), an organization of women elementary school teachers founded in 1897. By

22801-470: Was the rollback of those same reflationary policies that led to the interruption of a recession beginning in late 1937. One contributing policy that reversed reflation was the Banking Act of 1935 , which effectively raised reserve requirements, causing a monetary contraction that helped to thwart the recovery. GDP returned to its upward trend in 1938. A revisionist view among some economists holds that

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