In a city with double-digit unemployment, teachers who can’t be fired and who make more than double what their students’ parents make, have gone on strike. Anyone for school choice?
Public sector unions reared their burdensome and inefficient head Monday when some 25,000 unionized Chicago Public School teachers went on strike, unhappy with a salary the parents of their students can only envy, leaving 350,000 students and their overtaxed parents struggling in the educational lurch.
The Chicago Teachers Union walked away from a contract offer that amounted to a 16% raise over four years for the average teacher when factoring other increases, an offer made despite the fact that the system faces a $700 million dollar deficit at the end of the school year.
John Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute notes Chicago’s unemployment rate is just under 11% and that the average Chicagoan makes just $30,203 compared with the average teacher’s salary of $71,000, even before benefits are included. And unlike parents who go to work each day to be judged on their productivity and who fear each day might be their last, dismissing a bad teacher is harder than spinning straw into gold.
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