It’s so obvious that teachers’ strikes hurt kids (not to mention adults) that even the New York Times’ editorialists, even Kevin Drum at Mother Jones, can’t really stomach this one. It’s likely to heighten the contradictions within the Democratic Party, which is simultaneously expected to represent the interests of public employees and of big city dwellers. It will also further questions (raised by my Cato colleague Andrew Coulson) about unions’ role in keeping American education monopolistic. And it’s already evoking the example of earlier officials who vindicated the rights of the public against such unions, including Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan, and Scott Walker. Is Rahm Emanuel made of that kind of stuff?
A couple of videos, one from the Illinois Policy Institute:
And from Reason.tv:
Andrew Grossman: “Chicago parents: Stand in solidarity with your fellow workers and refuse to teach your children. Don’t be a scab!”
3 Comments
“refuse to teach your children”
as an ex-elementary school teacher I can say some parents have been on that bandwagon way before it was chicago cool.
[…] provides a roundup of links on the Chicago teachers’ […]
I just wanted to share an idea that popped into my head recently, one that might make contemporary liberals crazy. The rights most treasured by the left today are the privacy rights the Supreme Court first discovered in the Constitution in the early 20th Century. Those rights, of course, reached their zenith in Roe v. Wade.
The thing I put together recently – from two bits of information I’ve always known, but never connected – is that the fount of all privacy rights is educational choice – Meyer v. Nebraska and Pierce v. Society of Sisters are both all about educational choice!
The charter school movement needs to find a way to exploit this. NAARL and its allies will stroke out.