I tried my hardest not to write on the Chicago teachers strike. After all, I’m sitting here in Milwaukee, and all I know is what I read in the papers and see on TV. But after Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” I felt compelled to write something.
Duncan was asked who won the Chicago teachers strike. Obviously, Duncan was ready for the question and quickly responded with a straight face that Chicago got to a “really great place.” The teachers won because the new contract respects them, and the community won because it allows for reforms in Chicago’s schools that will improve education.
Duncan was putting the best spin he could on a questionable outcome. After all, teacher unions are an important constituent base for President Obama, and Duncan hardly wanted to offend Democratic Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel.
In the short term, the mayor is the biggest loser. He put pressure on the union, and ultimately he backed down. The union was clever enough to know that, if they went on strike just before the presidential election, Emanuel would be forced to come to a quick resolution for fear that a prolonged teacher strike could negatively impact President Obama’s reelection.
Chicago teachers won the public relations battle as Chicago polls clearly showed. The teachers turned the issue of teacher accountability as a battle over increased student testing with less real education and more teaching to the test, something that parents could understand. Teachers were willing to have a longer school day provided the school system provided more specialists in art, music, and physical education, something parents desperately wanted.
The mayor played into the hand of teachers when he threatened to go to court to stop the strike contending that continuation of the strike was not about wages and economic issues, the only reasons allowed under Illinois state law for public employees to go on strike. Wages were already pretty much settled so Emanuel couldn’t go after teachers as greedy public employees. In fact, the belief that teachers were greedy, that teachers could be bought off simply by giving them raises, became a chief tactical mistake.
But did the teachers win?
Clearly the union came out stronger than when they went into the strike. Teachers in Chicago now see they have an effective union. The teachers wanted more, but they ended the strike after a week and a half knowing that parents would not continue to support the strike if it went on much longer.
The real question is how Chicago is going to pay for all these specialists in a school system already running in the red. More school closings? Cuts in other areas?
Oh yea – those kids. How did they make out from the teacher strike?
I don’t think the loss of six or seven days of schooling should have much long term impact on the students. If their education is truly improved through increased teacher specialists, if teacher quality is improved, if fewer teachers just teach to the test, students will come out as winners. But is any of this going to happen?
And what about cooperation between the teachers, school administrators and the mayor? Will they be able to work together for the betterment of the students?
I’m just sitting here in Milwaukee reading the papers and watching the news reports just like everyone else and wondering if Chicago Public Schools is in a “really great place” like Duncan says.
