There will be no classes in Chicago public
schools for a sixth day on Monday, and probably Tuesday, affecting 350,000
kindergarten, elementary and high school students.
The showdown also left in doubt a deal on
wages, benefits and education reforms for 29,000 unionized teachers that
negotiators had hoped would end the biggest labor dispute in the United States
in a year.
Union President Karen Lewis said some 800
union delegates met on Sunday and decided to go back to consult with
rank-and-file members before voting whether to end the walk out.
"There's no trust (of the school
district and mayor)," Lewis told a news conference. "So you have a
population of people who are frightened of never being able to work for no
fault of their own."
Union delegates will reconvene on Tuesday
to discuss the feedback from rank-and-file members, Lewis said. Parents should
plan for their children to be out of school until at least Wednesday, she said.
No formal vote of delegates was taken, but
they were asked to stand up so that the union leadership could get a sense of
how many were for and against ending the strike, delegates said.
"A clear majority wanted to stay out.
That's why we are staying out," Lewis told a news conference after a
three-hour meeting of the delegates.
Emanuel called the strike
"illegal" and said he would go to court to seek an injunction to
block the strike.
"I will not stand by while the
children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a
union," Emanuel said, adding that the union walked out over issues that
are not subject to a strike under Illinois state law.
Teachers revolted last week against
sweeping education reforms sought by Emanuel, especially evaluating teachers
based on the standardized test scores of their students. They also fear a wave
of neighborhood school closings that could result in mass teacher layoffs. They
want a guarantee that laid-off teachers will be "recalled" for other
jobs in the district.
"They're still not happy with the
evaluations. They're not happy with the recall (provision)," Lewis said of
the union delegates.
Before the meeting of delegates on Sunday,
Lewis had called the agreement a "good contract." But after the
decision to extend the strike she backtracked, saying: "This is not a good
deal. This is the deal we got."
Emanuel's chief negotiator, School Board
President David Vitale, said the union should allow children to go back to
school while the two sides go through the process of approval of the agreement.
"We are extremely disappointed that
after 10 months of discussion reaching an honest and fair compromise that (the
union) decided to continue their strike of choice and keep our children out of
the classroom," Vitale said.
During the first week of the strike,
parents and Chicago voters appeared to back the union, with some parents and
students joining boisterous rallies and opinion polls showing support. A key
question is whether the extension of the strike will anger some parents and
raise support for Emanuel's efforts to end it.
Both sides appeared to win some
concessions, according to details of the tentative agreement released by the
parties.
Emanuel compromised on the design of the
first update of the evaluation system for Chicago teachers in 40 years. He
agreed to phase in the new plan over several years and reduced the weighting of
standardized test results in reviewing teachers.
Teachers won some job-security protections
and prevented the introduction of merit pay in their contract.
The Chicago strike has shone a bright light
on a fierce national debate over how to reform failing inner-city schools. The
union believes that more money and resources should be given to neighborhood
public schools to help them improve.
Emanuel and a legion of financiers and
philanthropists believe that failing schools should be closed and reopened with
new staff and principals to give the students the best chance of improving
academically.
In Chicago, more than 80 neighborhood
schools have been closed in the last decade as the enrollment has declined by
about 20 percent. The Chicago Tribune reported last week that another 120 of
about 600 city public schools could be closed.
At the same time, 96 so-called charter
schools have been opened. Charters are controversial because they are publicly
funded but non-union and not subject to some public school rules and
regulations. Their record of improving student academic performance is mixed,
studies show.
Lewis and the union argue that charters are
undermining public education.
The agreement calls for a 3 percent pay
raise for teachers this year and 2 percent in each of the next two years. If
the agreement is extended for an optional fourth year, teachers get a 3 percent
increase. The increases will result in an average 17.6 increase over four
years, the district said.
The deal could worsen the Chicago Public
Schools financial crisis. Emanuel said the contract will cost $295 million over
four years, or $74 million per year.
Debt rating agencies had previously warned
that the new agreement with teachers could bust the school district budget and
lead to a downgrade of its credit rating.
The district has drained all its financial
reserves to cover an expected budget deficit over the next year and has levied
the maximum property tax allowed by law.
Lewis said teachers also fear that when the
strike ends, Emanuel will soon announce the closing of scores of schools to
save money to pay for the new contract with teachers and to make room for
opening more charter schools.
Teachers won a concession from Emanuel that
half of all teachers hired by the district must be union members laid off from
school closings.
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