Chicago Students Back in School After Week-Long Strike
By: Administrator
Updated: September 19, 2012
CNN-
Hundreds of thousands of Chicago students got up and put on their school clothes for the first time in more than a week, preparing to return to class Wednesday after teachers' union representatives voted to suspend their often acrimonious eight-day strike.
The deal, which still must be ratified by the union's overall membership, calls for average raises of 17.6% over four years and strips out a merit pay program that would have been tied to increased emphasis on student test scores.
That emphasis remains in the contract -- it's mandated by state law -- but scores will count for a lower percentage of teacher evaluations.Teachers also managed to protect seniority pay increases and raises for additional education that the school system wanted to limit or eliminate, said Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
"Across the board, on every issue, the teachers got a more favorable outcome than the school system," Bruno said Wednesday.
Hundreds of thousands of Chicago students got up and put on their school clothes for the first time in more than a week, preparing to return to class Wednesday after teachers' union representatives voted to suspend their often acrimonious eight-day strike.
The deal, which still must be ratified by the union's overall membership, calls for average raises of 17.6% over four years and strips out a merit pay program that would have been tied to increased emphasis on student test scores.
That emphasis remains in the contract -- it's mandated by state law -- but scores will count for a lower percentage of teacher evaluations.Teachers also managed to protect seniority pay increases and raises for additional education that the school system wanted to limit or eliminate, said Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
"Across the board, on every issue, the teachers got a more favorable outcome than the school system," Bruno said Wednesday.
