BREAKING NEWS – Chicago, Illinois – The Chicago Teachers Union is on strike in the nation’s third-largest school district. More than 25,000 teachers and support staff will impact the city from this action and classes will be shut down for more than 350,000 students, with 500 schools being picketed by teachers. Chicago has offered the union a 16 percent raise over the course of a five-year contract, while also saying that teachers’ health care costs will not increase for three years. The union disagrees and is looking for a 15 percent raise over the course of a three-year contract — taking issue with how much its health care costs could go up in the final two years of the city’s contract offer. They also want a new rule that bans more than ten gang members in the same classroom, prohibiting students that are taking metal shop from making guns, and for teachers in high crime neighborhoods, to be allowed to wear full body armor and carry hand grenades.
