Teacher, Teachers Strike | featured news

Chicago public school teachers began voting on Tuesday on whether to ratify an agreement with Mayor Rahm Emanuel that suspended a strike in the third-largest U.S. school district.

The strike by public school teachers in Chicago this month drew national attention to a fierce debate over the future of education and exposed the ruptured relationship between teachers’ unions and Democrats like Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Teachers in the nation's third-largest city will pore over the details of a contract settlement Tuesday as the clock ticks down to an afternoon meeting in which they are expected to vote on ending a seven-day strike that has kept 350,000 students out of class.

The confrontation between Chicago teachers and Mayor Rahm Emanuel escalated on Sunday when their union extended a strike and the mayor said he would go to court to block the walkout, risking more friction within President Barack Obama's political coalition as the November 6 election nears.

Thousands of striking Chicago teachers will march again on Saturday to keep the pressure on Mayor Rahm Emanuel to wrap up an agreement with their union so they can end a strike that has closed the nation's third largest school district for a week.

The city'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.

Chicago teachers were resigned to finishing this school week still on strike, but both sides in the labor dispute were pushing hard to reach a deal by Friday afternoon in hopes that more than 350,000 students could return to class on Monday.

Teachers unions argue that doing so ignores too many things that can affect a student’s performance, such as poverty, the ability to speak English or even a school’s lack of air conditioning. Or as said by an incredulous Dean Refakes, a physical education teacher in Chicago, ‘‘You are going to judge me on the results of the tests where there could be some extenuating circumstances that are beyond my control?’’

The public teachers' strike that has halted classwork and upset family routines across Chicago ground into a third day Wednesday with some movement reported by union and school board negotiators but no sign of an imminent deal....

Teachers in Chicago went on strike for the first time in 25 years on Monday in a bitter dispute with Mayor Rahm Emanuel that is reverberating across the country as the issues at the core of the conflict — teacher evaluations tied to student test scores, a longer school day and other education policy changes — are being hotly debated from Hawaii to Maine.