commentaries

"Will teachers union may turn on Democrats?" ............. Hmmmm. Will Strib may mandate headlines more gramatically?

The teacher's union is NOT a bear. It is just a group of teachers who want to do right by their students while also preserving a decent working environment for themselves. This conflict could have all been avoided if the mayor had taken the time to negotiate and give the teachers a real seat at the table instead of lecturing them from city hall. Most teachers are not opposed to using some student test scores to evaluate teacher performance, but they don't think it should be the only measure and they want performance evaluations to take into account social factors they cannot control--students who are poor, under prepared, under fed and who have no support for doing homework at home. Would you want your job to depend on the test scores of teenagers who are two grade levels below where they need to be and who have no support for doing well in school?

Bear feeding, bear eating. And now the public sector union, aka teachers, face a supposedly friendly ally in a Democratic Mayor unlike what happened in Wisconsin. And with millions of union money pouring into Wisconsin, well...how did that turn out when the public spoke via the voting booth? This is going to be very interesting political theater in Chicago. Very interesting indeed.

In the past, the teacher unions would demand higher wages and benefits and the mayor would say OK, he would raise property taxes to pay for the additional costs, the union would increase union dues, collect them and make huge contributions to the mayor for his election campaign and other political purposes and around and around again in the corrupt circle. No one represented the taxpayers who ended up paying for all of this. There were no negotiations between parties. The whole Chicago situation is puzzling. Why did the mayor stop the fun? Perhaps it just finally got to the point where he knew taxpayers would not take it anymore. Obama encourages and supports this corrupt circle in the public sector unions that serve government all across the nation. We have to see the truth of what is happening here and stop it.

This is a funny piece. It acknowledges the real problem--the schools are forced to handle all the socio-economic problems in our society with only an education budget, and then are blamed for not succeeding in solving problems they cannot possibly solve--but then it dismisses those real issues to focus on the typical privatizing agenda.

For one thing, Michelle Rhee only got "results" by cheating on the standardized tests. That's why there's been so much fallout for whomever hired her, once her Music Man act is exposed and she takes off down the road. Rhee is now openly in the pay of the corporate interests looking to get their hands on the money we spend on education. At long last, no school system will hire such an obvious charlatan.

The article also doesn't mention the skyrocketing cost of health care and health care finance, which is bankrupting school districts every bit as much as it's bankrupting every business and family in America.

The article doesn't mention the skyrocketing cost of higher education, which is the latest financial bubble. As the Finance Industry moves from sector to sector, looting everything, it leaves worthless unpayable debt in its wake. Teachers routinely have to have Masters degrees, which put them into the over-$50,000 college debt category. It's not unreasonable for people who have to have graduate degrees for their jobs to earn more money than the median. But everyone points to the "average" salary for teachers in one of the more expensive places to live in America. What's the starting pay? What's the median salary? That tells a different story, so the privatizers don't mention that.

Those who seek to privatize education have no intention of doing what we ask the public schools to do. They intend to crank out a commodity at the lowest possible price. They will not provide the social services we have put onto the schools, rightly or wrongly. They will not save us any tax money. They will adopt the corporate model of layer upon layer of highly paid, unaccountable executives with lavish pay and perks, pay the teachers and other workers as little as possible, skimp on content, and by the time the system collapses, the shareholders will have cashed out and moved to the next Financial bubble in what's left of America.

Wrong question. The real question is whether the Democrats will turn on the union that steals from the taxpayers. The answer is no - the union will ultimately funnel the big raise it will get back to the Dems. And the cycle continues.

"The teacher's union is NOT a bear." - Why you're right! A group of teachers and union officials cannot possibly be a large furry forest creature. Thanks, I almost fell for this lie.

It is a symbiotic relation that can only be broken temporarily by a strong and knowledgeable leader like Gov Walker. Creeping liberalism will not be defeated anymore because too many bears are being fed...we are probably past the tipping point. More clear evidence will be re-electing Obama. It is no coincidence that his percentage approval numbers mirror those not paying federal income tax. ,

It is just a group of teachers who want to do right by their students....come on. The union leaders are playing a game of chicken with Rahm. This is a power play all the way. If you asked the teachers to go back to their classrooms tomorrow without a deal, 1/2 of them would go back. The other 1/2 are the militant ones, and many maybe should be in front of our children. Spare us the pity party, this is not an attempt to do right by their students. As far as whether it hurts D's, who cares? If Rahm and Gov. Cuomo can't tackle their own Party bosses who control the unions, then we need to know that now...before the Fed pumps another trillion of printed money into our economy, making the value of what I have in my pocket considerably less valuable going forward; or backwards, as it were.

The Teachers don't really have a leg to stand on here. The excuse that I shouldn't be judged on my performance because my job is hard won't fly. But the article implies that the teachers will turn on the democrats. Who will they turn to?