(Photo credit: Flickr user MSVG)
Chicago’s teachers aren’t fighting just for their own wages and benefits. They’re on strike for better schools for students, too. One of the Chicago Teachers Union’s (CTU) demands is to install air conditioning in schools, particularly poorer ones that may lack these amenities.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel (whose net worth is estimated at $14 million) downplayed these teacher concerns on behalf of poor children.Ai??”It’sAi??71 degreesAi??outside,” he said. “You don’tAi??go onAi??strikeAi??for air conditioning.”
But lest the mayor forget, seasons change. Earlier, in July, there was a heat wave so severe that school officials decided to cancel classes at 21 schools one Friday that were serving summer school students. The reason why? They lacked air conditioning. The heat wave this summer was so intense that there were actually a number of deaths attributed to it in the city.
CTU is fighting for everyone in the city — teachers, students, parents. Mayor Emanuel may feel comfortable with the fact that some of his city’s schools without air conditioning can get so hot that officials canceled school to protect the health of their students, but the CTU isn’t.
If the strike ends up getting air conditioning installed in these boiling schools, the kids will be the first ones to benefit as a result.
I stand with the teachers who want air conditioning. That is very reasonable. Rahm Emanuel is turning out to be a gift the GOP will love, and Democrats will start to hate. I hope President Obama helps these teachers get air conditioning.
if you want them to have AC, you buy it. stand by the lazies and support them with gifts
Taxpayers should not have to pay for luxury items for teachers. Fans are sufficient. CPS teachers are greedy.
I assume your home and workplace don’t have those “luxury” items, then?
News flash: fans cool, if at all, by evaporating sweat. Sweaty, uncomfortable kids do not concentrate well.
sweating is good for all lazy fat kids, teachers too! look at this way, you want to die from a heart attack? most CPS faculty are obese, look at karen. sweating will help you folks out
You seem to understand nothing at all about health (or anything else, for that matter). Healthy activities can make you sweat — that doesn’t mean sweating itself is healthy. Dehydration is not healthy. Dumbass.
Dehydration? Ever heard of a water fountain? Try it sometime. Fat lazy kids and teachers losing weight by any means possible is better for themselves and my view
You’re still making an idiotic point: sweating isn’t weight loss and isn’t healthy.
The schools were closed during the heat wave. This is just another ploy to redistribute wealth from the people who earned it to people who do nothing but feed of the system.
Had the schools been air-conditioned, doofus, there wouldn’t have been need to close them. (Yes, I know it was during the summer. They were SUMMER classes. Or can’t YOU read?)
close the schools during the SUMMER! that solves the problem. those retards don’t want to be there in the first place! and, use an effing water fountain for god’ sake.
Wow, now you’re showing what an imbecile you are. One of the main reasons American K-12 education lags other countries is the long summer break — we lose up to half a year of momentum every summer. For kids who have challenging home situations, summer school is essential.
some are to dumb to realize students and the teachers who teach them will determine our future
The dumb ones must be a product of the public school system.
if a kid can’t read by 5th grade, kick him out. when do we call it quits? when the kid hits 31 yo? give me a break CPS.
Have any of you commenting ever been in a Chicago Public School? Some don’t have working water fountains either!
ever hear of a canteen or water bottle?
While your at it why not buy all the teachers new desks and leather chairs? Maybe a new Mercedes too! In these economic times the tax payers cannot afford to splurge on unnecessary items. Its not in the budget.
comments like keesha t is proof we need better environments for kids and teachers.
Incredible?!?!
Mike, Steve, Keesha and every other “misinformed” soul out there. I’m not sure if whom I feel more sorry for, the kids that are getting short changed with their whole life ahead of them or you sorry lot?
Here are some facts about how CPS has failed but doesn’t make the news:
160 CPS schools have no library – NONE. A school with no library and 140 are south of North Ave.
There are 350 social workers for the 350000 CPS students. There is a school on the Northside that has 1 part-time social worker for 3500 students.
CPS just agreed to make sure that 2013 will be the 1st year that it is mandatory that ALL CPS students must have a text book on the 1st day of school. Really?!
The educational system in Chicago is broken. There are bad teachers out there, that is a fact. However, it is the system itself and misinformed individuals such as Keesha, Mike and Steve that enable this dysfunctional system to continue.
Who pays for these kids when they grow up undereducated? When their easy way out is crime that turns into prison time? They don’t WE DO!!!!
What you fail to understand is that it behooves us all to ensure these kids are educated correctly so they add to society not detract from it.
…Nope, I’m not a CPS teacher just someone informed and public school educated.