Longer Chicago School Day: Truce or Surrender?
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) have been trying to unilaterally impose a 90 minute longer school day on teachers in violation of their contract. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) sued to halt the contract violation and the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board ruled that CPS was using unfair labor practices in their attempt to get the longer school day without bargaining and winning an agreement with the teachers.
This, however, is not the end of the story. The Ed Deformers are convinced that a longer school day is just the thing needed to solve the problem of low student achievement—since their other magic bullets, like charter schools, merit pay and high stakes testing have all failed to do this—and they are unwilling to let a selfish and greedy union get in their way. Their goal now is to get