Art, music and bilingual CPS teachers — how many have been cut?

Just how many different kinds of teacher positions (art, special education, English, etc.) have been cut from Chicago Public Schools? So far this summer, about 3,200 teachers and school-based staff have been cut, including nearly 1,500 teachers. On Friday, CPS cut another 200 cafeteria workers.

CPS’ communications office and the parent group Raise Your Hand have put out different numbers.

Raise Your Hand recently detailed the position losses by job type, based on a review of CPS’ data. These numbers do not include charter schools:

• 92 schools lost an art teacher
• 58 lost a gym teacher
• 54 lost a music position
• 40 lost a librarian

In response, CPS’ communications office put out its own numbers, stressing that about 60 percent of laid off teachers typically get re-hired elsewhere in the school system. It says the following are positions closed — not a net including positions gained — and does not include charters school jobs:

• 61 art positions
• 44 physical education
• 44 music
• 33 library
• 47 language arts
• 125 special ed
• 72 bilingual (CPS lost state bilingual money this year)
• 43 counselors

CPS also says it lost 69 longer school day positions, not the 100 figure claimed by the Chicago Teachers Union.

I’m still trying to figure out why these two sets of numbers are different…Any ideas out there?