Should teachers be allowed to strike?
Bob Bruno teaches labor studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He says teachers unions are important partners in making schools better. And anything that marginalizes teachers could be harmful to education reform.
Bruno says, "Schools boards in Illinois and around the country are typically not made up of people who have any experience working in educational settings. In the city of Chicago, the CEO of the public school system has been now for the last couple of appointments someone with no education background. It's almost a prerequisite."
The idea that the Chicago Teachers Union could be mulling a strike seems to be gaining some attention.
Not so according to Karen Lewis, the president of that union. She says a strike is off the table as long as the Chicago Board of Education honors its contract.
"It's not worth talking about because it's not going to happen. And second of all, we have a contract," Lewis remarked. "These people want to honor it or not, and if they try not to honor it, we have a lot of options available to us."
Some union leaders say they're watching Stand for Children closely, in part because of the hundreds of thousands of dollars the group has put into political campaigns in Illinois. For his part, Stand for Children leader Jonah Edelman says the time is ripe for Illinois lawmakers to examine strike options and other aspects of teacher employment and quality.
And he hopes legislation around those ideas will emerge soon.
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