It's day two of the 26,000 unionized teacher strike in Chicago. More than 400,000 students are still without their classrooms and apparently, without any reading skills. From CNSNews:
Seventy-nine percent of the 8th graders in the Chicago Public Schools are not grade-level proficient in reading, according to the U.S. Department of Education, and 80 percent are not grade-level proficient in math.
Once again, let's revisit why the teachers are on strike. First, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel dared to try and tie teachers to standardized testing scores and proposed evaluating . Second, teachers aren't happy with their median $71,000 salary (not counting benefits) and turned down a 15 percent pay increase because they wanted a 35 percent increase instead.
On top of Chicago students not being capable of reading by the time they reach 8th grade, teachers have been asking students to strike with them on the picket lines.
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