Chicago is a union town. Public schools and charter schools prepare for a shut down.
“The Chicago Teachers Union is the most democratic union in the country,” President Karen Lewis told the crowd at The Girl Talk with Erika Wozniak and Jen Sabella last week.
It wasn’t boasting. And it really wasn’t a criticism of anyone else.
She was responding to the Chicago Tribune’s laughable editorial attacking the second time Chicago union teachers voted strike authorization. The Tribune compared the CTU to North Korea.
Whatever.
The clock is ticking on the strike deadline of Tuesday.
As a result of a law that the state teacher unions, the IFT and the IEA, supported, the CTU and CPS can only bargain and the CTU can only legally strike over salary and benefits.
It was the same law that requires the CTU to get no less than 75% of their members to authorize a strike.
It was the same law that links teacher evaluation to individual student test scores.
And it undermined teacher seniority and tenure rights.
And that was the law the IFT and the IEA supported as, in the words of IEA Executive Chicago is a union town. Public schools and charter schools prepare for a shut down. | Fred Klonsky: