Rahm Emanuel defends decision to cancel 4 percent teacher raises

Fran Spielman

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday defended the decision by his handpicked school board to cancel 4 percent pay raises for Chicago teachers, arguing that teachers have gotten two types of pay raises since 2003 while students got "the shaft."

With a $712 million deficit, Emanuel said the Board of Education could not continue to honor a contract that satisfied everybody's concerns but the only group that really matters: Chicago Public School students.

"Teachers got two types of pay raises. People in public life got labor peace. Can anybody explain to me what the children got? I know what everybody else got," Emanuel said.

"Just a little north of 50 percent of our kids graduate. Our [test] scores haven't moved. Yet, in all that time, not one additional minute of instructional time for the children of Chicago where they can be safe and learning. . . . Our future -- which is what this is about, the mission of education -- our children got the shaft. . . . I will not accept our children continuing to get the shaft."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 23, 2011 1:13 AM
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