The school model that's good enough for President Obama and Mayor Emanuel
The prestigious University of Chicago Lab Schools respect and reward teachers—so why can't the public schools?
By Ben Joravsky
University of Chicago Lab Schools parent Barack Obama, graduate Arne Duncan, and parent Rahm Emanuel
I recently got a call from a teacher at the University of Chicago Lab Schools who wanted to let me know just how many private school teachers detest the educational policies of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
He caught me off guard, because I'd assumed that people at the school would espouse the get-tough-on-teachers mentality of Mayor Emanuel and his predecessor, Mayor Daley, since both mayors sent their kids there. Not to mention Arne Duncan, President Obama's education secretary, who went to Lab. Or, while we're at it, President Obama, whose kids also attended the school.
But no—it turns out that Lab has a progressive and tolerant attitude toward its teaching staff.
Look, I don't blame any of these parents for sending their kids to Lab. It's one of the highest-achieving schools in the country, in part because it attracts and keeps a dedicated band of outstanding teachers.
And one of the ways the school does it? "We have a pretty good contract," the Lab teacher tells me.
As in a contract with a union—local 2063 of the American Federation of Teachers. The AFT is the same national to which the Chicago Teachers Union belongs.
I think we should pause to appreciate the irony that Mayor Emanuel sends his children to a unionized private school while working overtime to break the public school teachers' union in
