Chicago Teachers Rip 'Big Money Interest Groups'

theodp writes "The striking Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is holding a massive 'Wisconsin-style rally' Saturday as ongoing negotiations try to bring an end to the strike that has put education on hold for 350,000 of the city's schoolchildren. 'The 30,000 teachers, school social workers, clerks, vision and hearing testers, school nurses, teaching assistants, counselors, and other school professionals of the Chicago Teachers Union are standing strong to defend public education from test pushers, privatizers, and a national onslaught of big money interest groups trying to push education back to the days before teachers had unions,' explains the CTU web site. 'Around the country and even the world, our fight is recognized as the front line of resistance to the corporate education agenda.' Some are calling the strike — which has by most accounts centered on salary schedules (CPS salary dataset), teacher performance evaluations, grievance procedures, and which teachers get dibs on new jobs — a push-back to education reform that has possible Presidential election implications. The big winners in the school strike, Bloomberg reports, are the city's largely non-union 100+ charter schools, which remained open throughout the strike. Charter school enrollment swelled to 52,000 students this fall as parents worried by strike rumors sought refuge in schools like those run by the Noble Charter Network, which enjoys the deep-pocket support of many wealthy 'investors.'"

Comments

Re:Chicago Teachers Rip 'Big Money Interest Groups

[trout007]

I am an employee of the federal government. Not only do I think I shouldn't be able to be in a union I'm not sure if I should be allowed to vote. I realize my salary come from taxing productive members of society. I do believe that my job is constitutional. But if those people that pay my salary decide they no longer want to fund the agency I work for I shouldn't have a vote in the matter.

Sad

[Charliemopps]

I live in Madison (where the last big teacher protest happened) and am relatively close to Chicago. So I'm getting to hear and see all the news/adds relating to this nonsense. The teachers are getting a HUGE raise, and are only protesting because the schools want to be able to hire "Who they want" when filling positions that were previously made open by a layoff. The union wants them to be forced to hire the teacher they laid off. That's just fucking stupid. We've got charter schools here, and parents are desperate to get their kids into them, but there's not enough room. Every parent I know has their kid on a waiting list for a charter school. Even the democrats. So I'm a bit confused who these teachers think they'll get on their side.

Because they are fundamentally wrong

[Quila]

I think FDR said it best:

"[A] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable."