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Teachers Union president Karen Lewis in Chicago on Wednesday. (Reuters)
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Chicago, Sept. 19: The Chicago Teachers Union agreed yesterday to end its strike in the nation’s third-largest school system, allowing 350,000 children to return to classes today and bringing to a close, at least for now, a tense standoff over issues like teacher evaluations and job security that had upended this city for more than a week.
In a private meeting yesterday afternoon, 800 union delegates voted overwhelmingly to suspend the strike after classes had been halted for seven school days, which left parents at loose ends and City Hall taking legal action. The delegates, who had chosen on Sunday to extend their strike rather than accept a deal reached by negotiators for the union and the Chicago Public Schools, this time decided to abandon their picket lines.
Karen Lewis, the union president, described the voice vote as 98 per cent to 2 per cent in favour and a sign that the deal was seen as good, though hardly perfect. “We said that it was time — that we couldn’t solve all the problems of the world with one contract, and that it was time to suspend the strike,” she said.
The contract still requires ratification by the union’s 26,000 members. That process was expected to take several weeks, though Lewis said passage was expected.
The terms, which appeared to provide some victories for both sides, would give annual raises to teachers, lengthen the school day and allow teachers to be evaluated, in part, with student test scores. The school system would also aim to guide laid-off teachers with strong ratings into at least half of any new job openings in the schools.
While a halt to the teachers’ strike, this city’s first in a quarter century, may end the immediate, local contract fight over pay, working conditions and job security, the episode brought to the forefront larger questions, still unanswered, about the philosophical direction of public schools here, a national agenda for educational change and the potency of unions.
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