Chicago Teachers Hold Massive One-Day Strike

Chicago teachers staged a one-day strike Friday in a bid to get lawmakers to adequately fund education and other programs in the United States' third-largest school district.

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Approximately 27,000 teachers staged a walkout and nearly 400,00 students, who had the option of spending the day at one of the more than 250 "contingency sites" Chicago Public Schools had opened at churches, libraries and school buildings, missed a normal day of lessons.

Many educators picketed across the district armed with "Fight for Funding" signs bemoaning the lack of funding in the city’s public education system and the lack of a labor agreement for state school teachers.

"There's not enough textbooks," a Spencer Technology Elementary School teacher told the Associated Press. "There's not enough technology that's up to date and that's working."

Tiffany Stockdale, whose two children attend a Chicago Public School, said she agrees with the teachers even if closing the schools is an inconvenience. She said the strike seemed like the only way to get people in power to listen.

"This is what the teachers have to do and I think the parents – whether it's hard, whether it's easy – they should support this," Stockdale told AP. "If they have to be out longer, so be it."

The Chicago Teachers Union's one-day strike comes at a point when educators have worked without a labor agreement since last July. The district, with its US$1.1 billion deficit, also faces the possibilities of state funding cuts and a state takeover pushed by Republican Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner.

Besides Chicago Public Schools' precarious finances, demonstrators intend to rally against what they have described as Rauner’s assault on unions and his unwillingness to fund social-service programs and public universities.

Already facing furloughs, the Chicago’s Teachers Union has hinted at a full-blown teachers’ strike in mid-May over pay increases and the need to protect a retirement perk for teachers where CPS picks up the majority of their pension premiums.