You may have heard: Chicago teachers are on strike.
Some facts you may not have seen (unless, of course, you’ve been reading the Foundry): the average Chicago teacher makes $71,000 a year before benefits. That’s $24,000 more than the average Chicago resident, and second only to New York City in teachers’ salaries.
Yet unions are demanding a hefty raise – though they’ve backed down from their initial demand for a 30 percent pay hike. And this is in a city where only 15 percent of fourth graders are proficient in reading, and only 56 percent actually graduate from high school.
So what is the teachers’ strike about, exactly? In a new Heritage video, we present some statements from the Chicago Teachers Union and other teachers’ unions about what exactly their goals are. Are they on strike for the students? For the schools? For themselves? You might be surprised.
