Mike Klonsky's Blog: Congrats to the victorious CTU CORE Caucus

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Congrats to the victorious CTU CORE Caucus

Congrats to the victorious CTU CORE Caucus

As expected, Chicago Teachers Union Pres. Jesse Sharkey and his CORE caucus easily defeated the opposition Members First slate to retain their control of CTU leadership. Now it's on to the contract negotiations which hopefully can be resolved sooner than later.

Obviously feeling charged from his victory, Sharkey issued a threat to Chicago's mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot.

“We hope that the new mayor makes good on her promises to transform our public schools — if she does, she will find us to be a steadfast ally. If she does not, she will find us to be an implacable foe,” Sharkey said.

Remember, the CTU leadership had backed Lightfoot’s opponent, Cook County Board President and Democratic Party chief, Toni Preckwinkle, who lost to Lightfoot in a landslide. During the campaign, Sharkey claimed that the choice to endorse Preckwinkle was made at least in part because Preckwinkle “gives us better leverage in a contract fight."

Even if that were true (which I doubt), it made the early endorsement that much more problematic. If Preckwinkle would have won, I suspect Sharkey's quote would have been all over the media during the contract negotiations, putting added pressure on the mayor to be "tough" on the unions.Actually, with the exception of Preckwinkle's early support for charter schools, both candidates had pretty much the same stand on ed issues CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: Congrats to the victorious CTU CORE Caucus