Free Republic

The Chicago Teachers Union is not just about looking out for its members’ interests. The union wants to fundamentally change America, too. That shift occurred when the radical Karen Lewis was elected as its president two years ago. She’s best known for mocking U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s lisp and for taking on - and defeating - Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in the district’s first teachers’ strike in a generation. CTU leaders have been on a victory lap of sorts since the September strike, with union activists seeing themselves as protectors of union power during a time of membership...

Sound financial management clearly wasn’t a concern to any party involved in the recent contract negotiations in Chicago Public Schools. They were warned that new labor expenses might result in a credit downgrade for the financially-strapped school district, and they chose to ignore it. Now it has comes to pass. The credit rating agency Moody’s has downgraded the school district for the second time in one quarter. Moody’s wrote: “The negative outlook reflects the school district's budgeted depletion of reserves to fund ongoing operations in fiscal 2013; the moderate additional unbudgeted salary costs of labor contract negotiations, which have not...

If Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has spent the last 18 months painting a portrait of public-employee unions as intransigent and selfish, the Chicago Teachers Union this week provided him with confirmation. On Monday, 25,000 Chicago teachers (average salary: $76,000 before benefits) walked out of their classrooms, leaving nearly 350,000 schoolchildren and their parents in the lurch. The teachers are fighting to protect their lavish pay and benefit packages and also trying to stave off a new accountability plan that would evaluate their effectiveness using studentsÂ’ test scores. The Chicago strike serves as a counterpoint to events in Wisconsin after WalkerÂ’s...