Chicago teachers strike extends into 11th day, second-longest in US history
The Chicago teachers union and the city’s mayor have blasted one another over who was to blame as a strike that caused 300,000 public school students to miss classes extended into an 11th day on Thursday, the second-longest teachers’ strike in recent US history.
The two sides strongly disagree over whether additional days would be added to the school calendar to make up for lost classes and whether the city’s 25,000 teachers would be compensated for pay lost at the third-largest US school district.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has rejected the demand for makeup days and accused the teachers union of reneging on a deal reached Wednesday.
“Our members are tired, frustrated and miss their students ... we want to return to the classroom,” Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said in a statement on Thursday.
“By not restoring days of instruction to our students lost during the strike, the mayor is making it clear that she is more concerned about politics than the well-being of students.”
Lightfoot has said the union’s full demands, if met, would require an annual spending increase of 30% beyond the current school budget of $7.7 billion.
Union leaders called on rank-and-file members to rally on Thursday morning to press for their outstanding demand.
The Chicago walkout follows a wave of teacher strikes across the country over wages and education funding during the past two years, including a week-long work stoppage in Los Angeles in January.
It has been called the “Teachers’ Spring” in the United States, with educators staging an unprecedented wave of protests demanding increases in pay and school budgets.
“It’s like the Arab spring, but it’s a teacher spring,” Toni Henson, a geography teacher, told the Guardian newspaper in May.
According to the National Education Association, a group representing public school teachers in the United States, the average teacher salary in the country decreased by four percent from 2008‒09 to 2017‒18, after inflation adjustment.
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