'via Blog this'
LP: It's a shame Rahm can't just round the teachers up and force them back to the classroom at gunpoint. It would be a good life lesson for the children.
CHICAGO — Chicago teachers uncomfortable with a tentative contract offer decided Sunday to remain on strike, insisting they need more time before deciding whether to end an acrimonious standoff with Mayor Rahm Emanuel that will keep 350,000 students out of class for at least two more days.
Emanuel fired back Sunday night by instructing city attorneys to seek a court order forcing Chicago Teachers Union members back into the classroom. "This was a strike of choice and is now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children," he said in a statement.
Presented with a choice on whether to ask members to vote on a contract that union president Karen Lewis had at one point called "a fight for the very soul of public education," the union's 800-member House of Delegates told their leaders they needed more time to talk to the rank and file before ending the city's first teachers strike in 25 years.
Teachers had only a few hours to review a summary of a proposed settlement worked out over the weekend with officials from the nation's third largest school district. That wasn't enough time, they said, to digest a complicated contract that addresses two issues central to the debate over the future of public education across the United States: teacher evaluations and job security.
The union will meet again Tuesday, after the end of the Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year.
"We felt more comfortable being able to take back what's on the table and let our constituents look at it and digest it," said Dean Refakes, a physical education teacher at Gompers Elementary School. "We can have a much better decision come Tuesday."
That timeline, however, means the soonest classes could resume would be Wednesday. That frustrated both Emanuel and some parents, who learned late at night a week ago Sunday that a flurry of last-minute negotiations had failed to produce a contract agreement and that the strike was on.
"I think a week is a long time to be wasting time. Another week would be murder. I don't think it's right," said Beatriz Fierro, the mother of a fifth grader. "They should be back in school. I don't think teachers should be on strike that long."
Other parents continued to stand with the union. As teachers walked picket lines in the past week and rallied Saturday in a park near downtown, they were joined by parents who have had to scramble to find baby-sitters or a supervised place for children to pass the time.
Original Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/16/chicago-teachers-strike_n_1888804.html
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