A growing consensus finds that children from less-advantaged backgrounds are falling behind academically because remote learning does not work as well for them as for kids from more advantaged families. These students are disproportionally minorities, especially so for Chicago’s student body. Roughly 80 percent of the 355,000 children in Chicago Public Schools qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch, a factor that is often used as a proxy to measure a district’s population of low-income and working-class students. Staying out of the classroom will hurt children who can ill afford falling even further behind.
There is also little reasonable concern for safety. Schools have reopened for younger children across the globe with little evidence that doing so heightens the risk of teachers or students getting covid-19. The Biden administration understands this, which is why it released a statement last week calling for the reopening of K-8 schools within 100 days. Despite this, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) refuses to return to class.
This simply cannot stand. Surely schools should accommodate teachers who are at genuine risk because of their age or co-morbidities. But that does not justify a general refusal to do the jobs teachers are getting paid for.
This is a challenge for Illinois Democrats. They hold every lever of power in the state and Chicago, including the governor’s mansion, mayor’s office and large majorities in the state legislature and Chicago City Council. If they cannot solve this problem quickly, the buck stops with them.
It is a potential problem for national Democrats, too. Teachers unions are among the staunchest backers of the Democratic Party at all levels. That gives them great leverage when Democrats control government, as they do in most large cities and the federal government. If the CTU revolt spreads, Democrats across the country will be forced to choose between their backers and parents. That’s a choice they will want to avoid, which union leaders surely know and will be tempted to use to extract concessions as a price for reopening schools.
That temptation is something both sides should resist. Tens of millions of people are out of work or are finding it difficult to balance work and family with children attending school online. Parents — especially those who must work in difficult circumstances every day — won’t take kindly to leaders who fail to fix this situation based on exaggerated fears. Nor will parents appreciate efforts from unions to effectively extract extra money to fulfill their contracts.
Ronald Reagan had to deal with a similar situation early in his presidency. The air traffic controllers union was one of the few that endorsed his candidacy in 1980. They then tried to use that in bargaining for a new contract, refusing to come to agreement with the hope that Reagan would swoop in and grant them a windfall. When that didn’t happen, they went out on strike, again thinking that Reagan wouldn’t risk the bad publicity should an accident occur on his watch. Instead, Reagan told them to go back to work or be fired for engaging in an illegal strike. They stayed firm, and Reagan’s firing of the air traffic controllers became a defining point in his tenure.
There’s likely no Democrat today who would do something similar, even if courts ruled that the CTU or other unions were acting illegally. But if they don’t place the interest of parents and students first, eager Republicans at all levels will surely use the Reagan example to campaign. Lots of angry parents would probably listen.
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