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A Cauldron of Opposition in Duncan’s Hometown • Rank-and-File Teachers Score Huge Victory

An Interview with Karen Lewis and Jackson Potter

In a stunning victory, a group of rank-and-file teachers won election to leadership of the powerful Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) this past June. Karen Lewis, a high school chemistry teacher, defeated the two-time incumbent president, winning 60 percent of the vote. Lewis led a slate of candidates from the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE), all of whom were swept into office.

For the past two years, CORE has led a growing grassroots movement against the school closings, charter schools, and “turnarounds” that are Arne Duncan’s Chicago legacy. They now face the daunting task of leading the CTU, which represents more than 30,000 educators—including teachers, clerks, substitutes,and teaching assistants—serving more than 400,000 students.

Rethinking Schools editors Bob Peterson and Jody Sokolower interviewed Karen Lewis and Jackson Potter, who is a co-founder of CORE, high school social studies teacher, and newly elected trustee of CTU.

Rethinking Schools: How did CORE start?

Jackson Potter:   It all started in 2007 when another teacher, Al Ramirez, and I started documenting Renaissance 2010 [the school privatization and gentrification plan promoted by Arne Duncan] with video cameras. My school, Englewood High School, was one of those being closed. Arne Duncan labeled our school a “culture of failure.”

There was lots of anger by teachers and parents because we were being targeted as the problem and the proposed school closings and reconstitutions weren’t going to help. We were frustrated because the union refused to get involved in this issue.

Eventually, a group of us decided to explore the possibility of creating our own organization that would try to engage rank-and-file teachers in activist work that the union wasn’t doing.

Karen Lewis: At first, CORE was a study group. We were concerned about the massive effort to close schools, to turn them into charters, basically giving away public institutions to private organizations. So we got together, teachers and a couple of paraprofessionals, to try to figure out what was going on. We started reading articles, anything we could get our hands on. The big book that we read was The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein; it put so much in perspective.

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