Chicago Teacher Strike

Performance reviews and longer days, oh my! Not performance reviews and 7 or 7 1/2 hour school day, run for your lives, take to the street. Worse yet, performance reviews? We went into this job for tenure, not performance reviews, and seeing as how we are so distraught over these two things and would rather take a two week break to strike than do a job proves it is not the students who are coming first.

Teachers in Chicago happen to be up in arms over the fact that their work day is to be lengthened and they might have performance reviews which may cause job loses. Granted, being a teacher is not easy and anyone who says it is has never had to develop unit plans, teach to a test, deal with parents and students, and much more. Even so, teachers go into this profession knowing it is not easy and it takes work, compassion, and is a career that is suppose to be focused on learning and on the students. However, like all careers, it is not always what it is cracked up to be.

Teachers have to keep in mind, they are going into a thankless career at times. Parents do expect their kids to be taught everything at school, because they are to busy or in some cases lazy (it's true) to teach the kids themselves. Teachers get frustrated because learning does not stop once the child leaves the class and if communities are not supportive than students will not be committed, which creates more tension and stress for the teacher who can only do so much. However, that does not mean teacher's should give up on the students and it does not mean that Unions (who are control hounds) should encourage these strikes (mainly because if there are school closings they loose due money to give to their political parties). Also, as unfortunate as it may be for some teachers, it might better serve the community to close some schools and get rid of incompetent staff.

Unfortunately, school is more of a business than a service in many ways, and that is what Unions continuously encourage it to be. Of course, one area that is understandable in this strike is, health insurance compensation. In this economy, health insurance is crucial and that is probably one of the only areas that it is understandable to strike against.