"Chicago’s nearly weeklong teachers strike appeared headed toward a resolution Friday after negotiators emerged from marathon talks to say they had achieved a ‘‘framework’’ that could end the walkout in time for students to return to class Monday."
The week that was:
"Chicago teachers to strike after talks fail" Associated Press, September 10, 2012
CHICAGO — The Chicago Teachers Union said its members will go on strike Monday for the first time in 25 years.
The union said contract talks with the Chicago Public Schools district failed late Sunday night on issues including benefits and job security.
‘‘We will be on the [picket] line,’’ Karen Lewis, teachers union president, said Sunday night, calling it a difficult decision and one the union had hoped could be avoided.
More than 26,000 teachers and support staff were expected to hit the picket lines Monday morning, while the school district and parents made plans for keeping students safe and occupied during the day....
Teachers also have been concerned about new evaluations, health benefits, and regaining lost jobs....
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"Chicago teachers strike in dispute over contract; Pay, evaluation system among disputed issues" by Monica Davey | New York Times, September 11, 2012
CHICAGO — This city found itself engulfed Monday by a sudden public school strike that left 350,000 children without classes, turned a spotlight on rising tensions nationally over teachers’ circumstances, and placed the powerful teachers’ union and Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a risky, politically fraught standoff with no clear end in sight.
Thousands of teachers dressed in red swarmed through downtown and marched outside of schools across the city in this, the nation’s third-largest school system, as families raced to find alternative child care — an available relative, a city-sponsored alternative program, anything — for classes they had learned were called off only hours before the week began.
The strike, Chicago’s first in 25 years and the first in a major city in a half-dozen years, also revealed a rift between unions and Emanuel, a Democrat and former chief of staff to President Obama, raising the prospect that a lingering strike in the president’s hometown might become an issue in a presidential election year when Democrats depend on the backing of labor....
Labor groups and teachers in other cities voiced support for strikers here, suggesting that the fight in Chicago was one glimpse at a mounting national struggle over unionized teachers’ pay, conditions, benefits, and standing.
“You have a situation where the teachers feel totally and completely disrespected,’’ said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the parent union of the striking teachers....
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CHICAGO — She’s brash and blunt, the tough-talking union leader who has taken on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a bitter contract dispute regarded as a referendum on the future of the nation’s third-largest school district.
Karen Lewis is especially known for her tart tongue and flip one-liners, like telling a crowd of supporters this week that the high-stakes talks are ‘‘the silly part’’ of her day.
But she’s also a whip-smart Ivy League graduate with a long, distinguished record in the classroom and the overwhelming support of her union’s 30,000 members.
Two years after she took the helm of the Chicago Teachers Union, the former chemistry teacher finds herself at the center of a nationally watched confrontation with Emanuel, the equally tough and sharp-tongued former White House chief of staff.
Soon after Emanuel was elected, he suggested that students were getting ‘‘the shaft’’ from teachers because of flat test scores and a graduation rate of just over 50 percent. He rescinded a 4 percent raise, then asked the union to reopen that contract and accept a 2 percent raise in exchange for longer hours.
When union leaders refused, he tried to go around them — until the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board told him to stop....
She recently called the mayor a bully and a liar, and their already strained relationship seems to have deteriorated since the strike began.
Well, he is a Jewish jerk.
Lewis, 59, seems to be winning the public-relations battle in much of Chicago — for now. Many moms and dads have walked the picket lines with their children, and she’s inspired loyalty among teachers in a union long known for infighting. Almost 90 percent of union members voted to authorize a strike.
It all comes down to her credentials and take-no-prisoners personality, supporters say....
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"Chicago teachers union chief hopeful that deal is close; But schools will remain closed at least 1 more day" by Sophia Tareen | Associated Press, September 14, 2012
CHICAGO — The Chicago Teachers Union said Thursday that the city’s public schools will stay closed for at least one more day, but the union president said she was hopeful that both sides were close to completing a settlement to end the nearly weeklong strike.
‘‘We are optimistic, but we are still hammering things out,’’ Karen Lewis said....
Chicago’s walkout canceled class for about 350,000 students and has left parents scrambling to make other arrangements for young children. The district has kept some schools open on a limited basis, primarily to provide meals and supervision. More than 80 percent of Chicago Public Schools students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches....
Related: Boston schools’ breakfast now free for all students
I hope it is a better menu than lunch or dinner.
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Related: Deal to put Chicago teachers back in class elusive
Boston teachers weigh in on Chicago strike
Also see: Boston, teachers agree on contract
"When Madison Park re-opened as an innovation school Sept. 6, the first hard-fought step of its turnaround effort, confusion, frustration, and disappointment had filled the halls....
“It’s falling apart. Morale is nonexistent here.... Someone was asleep at the switch.”
Time for me to take a nap.
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