Thousands of Chicago teachers walked off the job on Friday amid stalled contract negotiations, a one-day strike that school system officials decried as illegal and that union leaders described as a means to draw attention to the dire financial outlook of the city’s public schools and colleges.
On a day when students would normally be in class, teachers marched, chanted and waved signs at each of the city’s hundreds of public schools, accompanied in some cases by parents and children who wanted to show support.
Karen Lewis, president of the 27,000-member Chicago Teachers Union, said she hopes the disruption puts pressure on Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, whose standoff with the Democratic legislature has left the state without a budget for nine months, squeezing public schools and universities and low-income students who depend on state-funded scholarships.
The union – recognising that a financially crippled school system is limited in its ability to hire more teachers or boost compensation – also is calling for lawmakers to reform the state’s education funding formula.
“The fact is that we need to do something major,” Lewis said in an interview on Thursday. “When people are inconvenienced, they have to have some place to focus, and they need to focus on him.”
Daisy Mata brought her children, ages 4 and 11, to walk the picket line at Joseph E. Gary Elementary, in a predominantly Latino and black neighbourhood on Chicago’s southwest side. “It’s because of teachers that my kids can grow and learn,” she said in Spanish. “They need to pay them for their work.”