By Striking, Chicago Teachers Put Children First - Education - GOOD

By Striking, Chicago Teachers Put Children First - Education - GOOD:

By Striking, Chicago Teachers Put Children First

by Liz Dwyer

Is it Groundhog Day for the Chicago Public Schools? Back in 1987, the city's teachers went on a 19-day strikeover pay and class size. Sunday night, ongoing contract talks between Mayor Rahm Emanuel's team—Chicago schools are under mayoral control—and the Chicago Teacher's Union fell apart, seemingly over the same issues. Emanuel says the strike is the "wrong choice for children," but the biggest strike in a generation isn't just about a fatter paycheck and more benefits.
Sure, Chicago's 26,000 teachers are angry over Emanuel and his school CEO, Jean Claude Brizard, putting the brakes on a promised 4 percent raise, being told they needed to work a longer school day without adequate compensation, and standardized test scores becoming 25 percent of teacher evaluations, but Phil Cantor, a science teacher and strike captain at North-Grand High School told Democracy Now that the contract