Chicago school officials said they've come up with a plan to pay for the first year of a new teacher contract.

Officials said salary increases will amount to $103 million in the first year of the three-year contract ratified this week by Chicago Teachers Union.

The plan released on Friday doesn't include classroom cuts. Instead, savings and revenue identified to fund the first year of the contract, according to the district, include:

• Operations: Reduce lunchroom costs and general fund subsidy ($11 million); Achieve additional procurement savings ($10 million) 
• Administration: Delay or cancel filling vacant, non-teaching positions ($8 million); Additional administrative reductions, targeting savings from printer consolidation, limiting equipment purchases, subscriptions and professional memberships ($4 million)
• Financial: Capitalize interest on FY12 bond sale ($13 million); Sell surplus properties ($15 million); Debt restructuring ($42 million).

The contract includes a new evaluation system and an agreement that some teachers can keep their jobs if schools close. It also includes an agreement on implementing a longer school day.

Teachers went on strike Sept. 10, idling about 350,000 students for seven days.
 

The rank and file may have ratified the contract, but the president of the Chicago Teachers Union said the issue with school closings is her next fight.

"I've still got my boxing gloves," Karen Lewis told reporters Thursday.

Teachers remain worried that Chicago Public Schools officials are secretly planning to close up to 100 schools in an effort to save money.

There is even a growing number of Chicago aldermen who are calling for hearings before Mayor Rahm Emanuel takes action.

"CPS has been doing school closings for 15 years, and for them to try and say that school closings is a way to pay for the contract is not only ridiculous, it's not true," said Lewis.

District officials haven't laid out specific plans on how to fund the $295 million contract but hinted the negotiations offered a new spirit of cooperation.

"It's a great example for our students that even if you start far apart, if you work hard at it you work hard enough at it you can actually come to common ground," said Chicago Board of Education President David Vitale.

Teachers, paraprofessionals and school clinicians voted Tuesday on the tentative contract that ended Chicago's first teacher strike in 25 years. The results of that vote were released late Wednesday and showed an overwhelming majority of staffers -- 79.1 percent of the ballots cast -- were in favor of the contract.

It still requires approval from the Board of Education, but that doesn't appear to be in jeopardy given Vitale's remarks.

Thousands of teachers in the nation's third-largest school district walked off the job on Sept. 10 after more than a year of slow, contentious negotiations over salary, health benefits and job security.

The deal will give teachers an average pay raise of 17.6 percent over four years if the three-year contract is extended an extra year. The pay increases would cost an extra $74 million a year, the district has said. Chicago teachers make an average of about $76,000 annually, according to the school district.

Students were kept out of classes for seven days before CTU's members voted to end the work stoppage.

Negotiations in the Evergreen Park teacher strike ended early Thursday with no deal in place, forcing a third day off for 1,800 students in suburban District 124.

Teachers left the latest round of talks after midnight, saying they felt disrespected and rudely treated by the district. A statement from the group said the school board rejected their latest proposal despite movement on health insurance issues.

"What the real disadvantage here is the tone it set, the hard feelings it's created, the level of disrespect it's created," said Dave Comerford with the Evergreen Park Federation of Teachers Local 943. "It certainly doesn't help anything."

Comerford claims there was an outburst during the Wednesday night meeting from the district's attorneys and said the teachers will no longer meet with the board face-to-face.

The teachers now want a mediator to handle negotiations by communicating with both parties in separate rooms.

As the strike enters its third day, teachers could lose out on pay for each day they're off the job. The district said students will make up the days, but employees who walk out will not. The board said it will not reward those who harm students, parents and the community.

Negotiations are scheduled to resume around 4:30 p.m. Thursday.

Talks broke down Monday, sparking a teacher strike after more than five months of weekly negotiations.

"The last proposal that they put on the table was unacceptable, so we have to get to a point where we can reach something that's a compromise that can end this strike," Comerford said.

Two of the major issues on the table include compensation and health insurance.

The rank and file of the Chicago Teachers Union have overwhelmingly ratified the new contract put before them on Tuesday.

“This shows overwhelming recognition by our members that this contract represents a victory for students, communities and our profession,” said CTU President Karen Lewis. “Our members are coming are coming out of this with an even greater appreciation for the continued fight for public education.  We thank our parents for standing with their children’s teachers, paraprofessionals and clinicians.”

A statement from the CTU said 20,765 valid ballots were cast, with 79.1 percent of the votes from teachers, paraprofessionals and school clinicians approving the contract.

Members of the Chicago Board of Education must also vote approve the contract before it becomes effective.

That vote is expected Oct. 17, and approval seems likely.

"I am pleased that the members of the CTU have ratified this contract, and we can now demonstrate to our students that even when two sides start far apart, they can find common ground and reach a resolution. It’s an incredibly important message to send," Chicago Board of Education President David Vitale said in a statement.

Thousands of teachers in the nation's third-largest school district walked off the job on Sept. 10 after more than a year of slow, contentious negotiations over salary, health benefits and job security.

Students were kept out of classes for seven days before CTU's members voted to end the work stoppage.

Details of the proposed agreement:
 

Chicago Public Schools students must make up class time they missed during the seven-day teacher strike.

To make up for what felt like an extended summer vacation, most CPS students will have classes on Presidents' Day and see their winter break trimmed back. The school year also ends later than expected in June, according to a proposal the school district released Friday.

"Obviously the days have to be made up somehow," said parent Keith Thomas, after hearing the news. "Most people realize it's going to bite into summer, bite into winter break."

Other parents were not as understanding about the days selected for the make up days.

"It's not right," said parent George Barcenas. "Its not our fault the teachers go on strike and then kids pay that."

Seven make-up days were built into the school year's revised calendar, which brings the total number of days students must be in attendance to 181. Students were in class last year for 170 days.

“Every single day counts," said CPS chief Jean-Claude Brizard in a statement. "These changes to the school calendar ensure our students continue to benefit from more quality time in the classroom in front of our teachers."

Track E make-up days include five days from Fall Intercession from Oct. 15-19, President’s Day and June 19 added to the end of the year.

Track R make-up days include two days from Winter Intercession from Jan. 3-4, President’s Day and four days added to the end of the school year: June 19-21, June 24.

“With this calendar, we're preserving the Full School Day and year and the tools and support our students and teachers need to drive academic achievement," Brizard said.

Former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley seemed to take a subtle swipe at his successor in making his first public comments about the recently-ended teacher strike.

Daley, who is now a fellow at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy, implied Mayor Rahm Emanuel played the blame game with teachers.

"Don't blame the teachers. Let's all work together to make it a better education system for all," said Daley.

Daley brought the school system under the control of the mayor's office in 1995. He avoided a strike during his more than two decades in office.

Chicago teachers walked off the job on Sept. 10 and kept students out of class for seven full days.


 

More than 350,000 Chicago Public School students returned to class Wednesday after seven days off during the city's first teacher strike in 25 years.

As kids were dropped off at schools where teachers picketed last week, spirits were high and parents called the strike's end "one big stress relief."

"I was getting bored," said Jared Smith, a student at Frazier International Magnet School, a Track E school that started the year weeks before the strike. "I'm glad to be back."

"Enough was enough," said science teacher Pannha Sann. "I'm so glad to be here today."

That feeling was held over from the night before when the Chicago Teachers Union's nearly 800-member House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly to suspend the strike.

"We feel very positive about moving forward," CTU president Karen Lewis said Tuesday. "We feel grateful that we have a united union, and that when a union moves together we have amazing things happen."

Delegates voted on the tentative deal article-by-article, and one point received a standing ovation: the freedom for teachers to create their own lesson plans.

Other highlights of the contract include a 7 percent salary increase over three years and 30 percent of teacher evaluations based on test scores. While principals will retain hiring power, one-half of new hires must come from a pool of laid-off teachers.

Jesse Ruiz, vice president of Chicago's board of education, told NBC Chicago the agreement means more time for students and a revised evaluation system that hadn't been reviewed in 40 years.

"We need to continue these discussions," Ruiz said. "There are a lot of issues that came up that weren't specific to this contract that talk about the quality of our education system."

Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the deal "an honest compromise."

"In past negotiations taxpayers paid more but our kids got less," Emanuel said. "This time our taxpayers are paying less and our kids are getting more." 

The deal still must be voted on by the teachers union, which could take a couple of weeks. It's expected to move through with no problem.

The financial ramifications of the teacher strike remain a big question as Chicago Public Schools students and teachers returned to class Wednesday after seven days of picketing over a still-tentative union contract.

Parents called the return a "big stress relief" and a smiling Mayor Rahm Emanuel said taxpayers emerged from the strike as winners, paying less than they did in previous contracts and getting more for their kids.

"This is an exciting day for the city of Chicago," Emanuel said Wednesday at Frederic Chopin Elementary School, "most exciting because our kids are back and you can see it in their eyes."

How much will the new contract cost? Pay raises and hiring nearly 500 new teachers to implement the longer school day has a higher price tag -- as high as $295 million -- that some say could lead to higher property taxes.

The mayor, though, avoided specifics.

"We have other tough things to do," he told reporters. "I never denied that we did have tough things to do, but I can't sit here and say within the first five minutes of this contract being negotiated, that I could tell you exactly what's going to happen four or five months from now."

Chicago Public Schools said "all options are on the table" to make up for new money being spent. Teachers won a 3 percent raise in the first year followed by 2 percent raises in years two and three. The 2015 board must let the union know if it has the money for a fourth year 4 percent raise.

Teachers lost sick day payouts, severance adjustments and reduced layoff benefits. Ten holidays were reduced to eight.

Without pension relief, CPS could be looking at a deficit of up to $1 billion.

Emanuel reportedly is considering increases to the city's 68-cent-a-pack cigarette tax and the 9 percent amusement tax as a way to make up for the budget shortfall. His office has maintained he is not considering property tax hikes.

And now, with the strike done, the mayor's focus will shift to other issues, including talks with police and fire unions whose contracts aren't finished.

"We've been in discussions with the firefighters and other unions in the law enforcement community," he said.

Chicago's first teacher strike in 25 years came to an end Tuesday after more than a week of discussions and rallies that had parents scrambling to find alternative care for their children.

The Chicago Teachers Union's House of Delegates -- nearly 800 members -- voted to end the strike during a meeting at Operating Engineers Hall, at 2260 Grove Street, on the city's south side.

"We feel very positive about moving forward. We feel grateful that we have a united union, and that when a union moves together we have amazing things happen," CTU's president, Karen Lewis, said shortly after the vote.

The action comes after delegates had a chance to review a contract proposal solidified over the weekend and means roughly 350,000 Chicago Public Schools students will head back to class on Wednesday.

It does not mean, however, an automatic approval of that contract. Ratification of the contract requires a separate vote from the union's rank and file.

School board president David Vitale, who was an integral part of talks once the strike began, expressed confidence there would be no issues.

"This is a fair contract that's actually respectful for our teachers," he said after the union vote. "This will transform the way we run the district to the benefit of teachers, not just to our kids."

Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the offer on the table an "honest compromise" and said it means returning Chicago's schools to their primary purpose: educating children.

"It means a new day and a new direction for the Chicago Public Schools, and [with] this contract we gave our children a seat at the table," he said.

CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard said he was "overjoyed" that students would be returning to class Wednesday. He said the contract, coupled with an improved graduation rate and improved SAT scores, were steps in the right direction.

"With this agreement now we have the foundation for transformation," said Brizard. "We know that we can make Chicago the best urban school district in America."

Still, Lewis conceded that trust remains "a big issue" between school bureaucrats and teachers, and said she hopes the mayor -- a man she's previously classified as a bully -- "carries out this contract in good faith."

Thousands of teachers in the nation's third-largest school district walked off the job on Sept. 10 after more than a year of slow, contentious negotiations over salary, health benefits and job security.

Shortly after Emanuel took office in May 2011, the school board unanimously voted to cancel a 4 percent pay increase in the final year of the teachers' existing contract. Months later, Emanuel's administration began coercing teachers at some schools to extend the length of their school day.

The teachers' previous contract expired June 30 and both sides weeks later rejected a report assembled by an independent fact-finder. That set the stage for the work stoppage the mayor said was "unnecessary" and one of "choice."

While leadership on both sides continued the back-and-forth of contract negotiations, thousands of teachers and their supporters for days took to the city streets in a massive show of solidarity.

On Monday, Emanuel and CPS attorneys filed a request for an injunction to force teachers off the picket lines, claiming the outstanding issues, as publicly stated by the CTU -- teacher evaluations and recalls -- weren't legal reasons for a work stoppage.

A provision added to the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act last year prohibits teachers from  striking on issues unrelated to economic matters; those involving pay and benefits.

A Cook County judge declined the mayor's request to hold a same-day hearing on the injunction request. Instead, that hearing would have been held Wednesday. With Tuesday's action by the House of Delegates, that hearing is no longer necessary.

Teachers walked off the job for 19 days in October 1987. Prior to that, there had been nine strikes between 1969 and 1987.

This latest strike forced busy parents to find alternative care for their children. Many said they exhausted available vacation time. Others made use of the nearly 150 "Children First" sites that provided students with alternative programming and meals.

As the strike entered its second week, some frustrated parents became more vocal in their demand that both sides end the stalemate. A small group of parents on Monday marched outside CTU headquarters holding signs that read "If you care about the kids, go back to work" and "350,000 CPS Hostages! Let our children learn" and "Don't say you care, show it!"

Details of the tentative deal:
 

NBC Chicago has an array of reporters and producers covering the Chicago teacher strike. Check our live blog for continuous coverage and updates throughout the strike.

The week-long teachers’ strike in Chicago has drawn national attention because it affects 350,000 children and pits two Democratic forces against each other. But it also represents a broader struggle over education reform and union power, and the results could reverberate elsewhere.

If the Chicago Teachers Union wins enough concessions, then it’s a victory for the labor movement and a potential guide for similar battles underway in other parts of the country.

If Mayor Rahm Emanuel emerges with enough of his demands intact, then it’s another setback for labor and validates the push to impose stricter measures of teacher accountability.

“This is being looked at very carefully by school districts across the country,” said Kathleen Hirsman, who teaches education and labor law at the Loyola University School of Law. “There’s the issue of the diminishing strength of teachers unions and who is going to come out the winner. And how the Chicago Public Schools resolves this will be very instructive to other school districts now looking at implementation of state laws requiring teacher evaluation based on student performance.”

All over America, states and cities are trying to figure out how to respond to federal initiatives aimed at improving the public school system. They come down to a series of carrots and sticks. There’s money for districts that implement the Obama administration’s ideas on teacher evaluations and testing, and there’s the threat of closure or other sanctions for underperforming schools.

That challenge has resulted in elected officials trying to impose new standards for teachers, who resist having to give up control over their work.

“It comes down to who’s going to decide how kids are educated,” said James Wolfinger, an associate professor of history and education at DePaul University. “Who is the expert? Who should have the greatest voice?”

Chicago is just the latest of several big cities - including New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Cleveland - where that tension has come to a head.

Illinois lawmakers have set a schedule to implement new teacher evaluation methods, and Chicago must start making those changes this year. Illinois also happens to be a state that allows teachers to strike.

That makes the four-day-old walkout, which has captivated the country and could impact the presidential election, an ideal opportunity for labor to show that it’s no pushover.

“This is a very important strike for the teachers union,” said Richard Kearney, a political scientist at North Carolina State University. “If they can come out of this thinking they’ve made up some ground, that should give some encouragement to teacher’s unions elsewhere who are facing similar situations.”

Then again, Emanuel could end up on top.

Or: each side will concede, ending the strike in a draw.

What then?

“Then the fight just goes on elsewhere,” Kearney said. “And none of this meant a great deal.”

UPDATE: Judge Holds Off Order to End Teacher Strike

The first Chicago teacher strike in 25 years entered its second week Monday, pushing students' earliest return to class to Wednesday.

Union delegates on Sunday deferred its vote to end the strike and asked for more time to review a proposed teachers' contract drafted last week by school officials and the Chicago Teachers Union. The decision prompted an angry Mayor Rahm Emanuel to file an injunction that could force the teachers back into class.

"I will not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union," Emanuel said in a statement. "This was a strike of choice and now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children."

The mayor instructed the city's top lawyer to work with Chicago Public Schools' general counsel to file an injunction Monday asking a judge to immediately end the strike, now in Day 6.

In a statement, Emanuel called the strike illegal and said there's no reason why teachers can't return to work while the rest of the contract is ironed out.

"This continued action by union leadership is illegal on two grounds," he said. "It is over issues that are deemed by state law to be non-strikable, and it endangers the health and safety of our children."

But union president Karen Lewis said the deal isn't sitting well with many of the teachers.

"Our members are not happy, and they want to have the opportunity to talk to their members," Lewis said. "They want to know is there still anything more they can get." 

The union delegates aren't scheduled to meet again until Tuesday, in part out of respect for for the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah, which began at sundown Sunday.

"If the agreement is not good, if the members reject it and think it won't improve conditions in their schools and classrooms, then we want the board to listen to those concerns before we would go back to school," CTU chief of staff Jackson Potter told NBC Chicago Monday.

School board president David Vitale said Monday the two sides are done negotiating and CPS is waiting on the union.

"We've done as much as we know how to do," Vitale said. "We reached an agreement with their leadership, we think it's a good agreement. It's time for the teachers to get back in school."

Potter said it's worth the wait.

"People have to live for three years under the terms of this agreement, and so it has to be a good agreement, it has to reflect the concerns that we brought to the table all along."

NBC Chicago has an array of reporters and producers covering the Chicago teacher strike. Check our live blog for continuous coverage and updates throughout the strike.

In a mock vote, nearly 90 percent of the teachers at one south side school indicated they'd like to end the strike and get back to class by Wednesday.

Jay Rau, a delegate representing the roughly 150 teachers of Benito Juarez Community Academy, took the information tally Monday.

He and other delegates got the proposed contract Sunday about 45 minutes after they arrived for the 3 p.m. vote. The strike continued, he said, because delegates weren't given enough time to review it.

"We don't trust the board that much. We've been burnt before by the Board of Education and we just wanted to make sure [that] out staff at the schools ... were with us," said Rau.

Rau and other delegates will vote Tuesday to end the strike that kept students out of class for a sixth day Monday.

Another teacher, who declined to be publicly identified and is not among the 150 Rau represents, said she was upset that teachers weren't able to see the complete contract.
 
More than 26,000 teachers and staff walked out last Monday, leaving more than 350,000 students unattended. Each day has brought reported progress, but momentum expressed last Friday stalled over the weekend.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Public Schools attorneys on Monday filed for an emergency injunction to force teachers off picket lines but a judge declined to immediately hear the case.

NBC Chicago has an array of reporters and producers covering the Chicago teacher strike. Check our live blog for continuous coverage and updates throughout the strike.

A week after traffic-stopping marches by teachers and their supporters, a group of parents who say they're "collateral damage" in the now six-day-old strike took to the street urging officials to end the stalemate.

Parents gathered near the Chicago Teachers Union headquarters at the Merchandise Mart with a message: resources are exhausted and kids need to be back in school.

"I'm very tired of having Karen Lewis, the head of the CTU, pretend to speak for parents and students. She does not. She represents her teacher union," said one frustrated parent.

The small group marched and chanted while holding signs that read "If you care about the kids, go back to work" and "350,000 CPS Hostages! Let our children learn" and "Don't say you care, show it!"

A flyer announcing Monday's rally claimed students collectively miss out on roughly 2.6 million hours of learning each day teachers are on strike.

Throughout the strike, one of the few alternatives for parents trying to hold down jobs of their own have been the nearly 150 "Children First" sites. Initially operating for four hours, school officials extended them late last week to six hours to better accommodate parental schedules. 

NBC Chicago has an array of reporters and producers covering the Chicago teacher strike. Check our live blog for continuous coverage and updates throughout the strike.

The "framework" for a deal between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union is there, now the details need to be filled in so kids can get back to school.

Officials for CPS and CTU began their at 9 a.m. Saturday to finish drafting a deal that could end Chicago's first teacher strike in 25 years and allow kids to return to school by Monday.

On Friday, leaders on both sides of Chicago's teacher strike said they have a "framework" in place to end the stalemate that's embroiled the city and kept students out of classes for a full week.

The strike, however, remains in effect and could go into next week, union officials cautioned.

"At this moment, the strike is not suspended," Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis told reporters following an afternoon meeting of the union's House of Delegates. "The framework is one thing. We think it's a framework that can get us to an agreement, but we're not quite there."

Calling it "one of the most difficult labor contracts negotiated in decades," attorney Robert Bloch told reporters the next couple of days would be spent crafting the language and drafting up an official document that will be presented to the union's nearly 800 delegates on Sunday.

"Our delegates were not interested in blindly signing off on something they have not seen," Lewis said. "They are very suspicious. You have to understand we have been a little burned by the [Chicago School] Board in the past."

Neither the union leadership or officials with Chicago Public Schools would go into detail about the pending deal.

"I am pleased to tell you we have in place frameworks around all of the major issues that should allow us to conclude this process and conclude it in time for our kids to be back in school on Monday morning," school board President Dave Vitale said earlier in the afternoon.

In a statement, Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the tentative framework a "principled compromise that is about who we all work for: our students."

Chicago's first teacher strike in 25 years could end Sunday if the union's House of Delegates approves that action. The delegates are not the one who will sign off on the new contract, however, union leadership explained. That responsibility remains with the union rank and file.

The significant progress comes after a late night and early morning of negotiations. Vitale and Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis emerged separately from the Hilton Chicago at around 1 a.m. Friday and said they were very close to a deal.

CPS chief education adviser Barbara Byrd-Bennett said school officials didn't turn in until 3 a.m. after a numbers-crunching session.

"It was a really, really long night,"  she told reporters before 9 a.m. negotiations. "We're pretty beat."

Mayor Rahm Emanuel postponed a non-strike-related news conference, and the mayor's office told NBC Chicago Emanuel is in "contract briefings."

NBC Chicago has an array of reporters and producers covering the Chicago teacher strike. Check our live blog for continuous coverage and updates throughout the strike.

UPDATE: "Tentative" Deal Reached to End Chicago Teacher Strike

As the teacher strike heads into the fifth day, Chicago Public Schools expanded its online classes program to help keep students connected.

Starting Friday, online classes are available for high school sophomores, juniors and seniors in the areas of credit recovery, advanced placement and general elective classes. If the strike continues through the weekend, online courses will become available for grades 3 through 12.

“This is another way we can keep our students engaged while we work with the CTU to achieve a fair contract that gets our kids back in school,” schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard said in a statement.

AP Calculus, AP Computer Science, algebra, biology, American history, Spanish and creative writing are among the classes available.

Students can register at cps.edu/childrenfirst or by calling 311 starting at 3 p.m. Friday.

CPS seniors can take for-credit courses off-site during the strike, according to the district. Students can complete the coursework at school or home once the strike ends. They also can drop the course after school resumes without it showing up on their record.

Both sides of contract negotiations said they hope to resume regular classes by Monday.

UPDATE: "Tentative" Deal Reached to End Chicago Teacher Strike

The Chicago Teachers Union strike will continue to at least Friday, completing a full week that public school students have been kept out of class.

However, there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel to end the city's first strike in 25 years.

Following another marathon day of negotiations, school board President Dave Vitale and Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis emerged separately from the Hilton Chicago at around 1 a.m. Friday and said they were very close to a deal.

"We've got some number-crunching to do overnight and we'll be back here tomorrow to see if we can't finish this up hopefully tomorrow," he said. "I think we've got a general understanding of what we'd like to do if the numbers work."

Lewis said a House of Delegates meeting scheduled for 2 p.m. would go on as scheduled, as the only information those members have is what has been reported in the media.

She said she remained hopeful that students and teachers could return to class on Monday.

Earlier in the day, Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman Becky Carroll said the parties were "at the brink of getting all the key issues addressed.

Carroll said the main sticking points are still the evaluation system and the union's demands that laid-off teachers get top consideration for rehiring.
 
"We've made many modifications over the last several days to our proposal,'' Carroll said. "We feel that we're there. And at this point, it's in the CTU's hands to bring it to a close."

Under an old proposal, the union estimated that 6,000 teachers could lose their jobs within two years. A more recent offer included provisions that would protect tenured teachers from dismissal in the first year of the evaluations. It also altered categories that teachers can be rated on and added an appeals process. Additionally, evaluations could work on a graduated scale throughout the term of the contract, comprising from between 25 to 35 percent of a teacher's total score.

"There's a sense of urgency today,'' said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who stopped by the hotel where the negotiators were working Thursday and spoke to reporters. A day earlier, he said the two sides were talking past each other.

Ahead of morning negotiations, Lewis expressed hope the opposing sides could soon resolve their differences.

"Oh, I'm praying, praying, praying. I'm on my knees for that, please," Lewis said. "Yes, I'm hoping for Monday. That would be good for us."

That optimism followed a full day of negotiations Wednesday that had both Chicago School Board president David Vitale and Lewis leaving the talks with smiles on their faces.

"We had a very productive evening," Vitale said, "[There were] really good discussions and proposals on the most difficult issues that we face." 

Thousands of teachers walked off the job Monday after months of negotiations failed to result in a new contract. It's the city's first teacher strike since October 1987.

As teachers plan for another day on the picket lines, CPS extended the hours at its 147 strike-designated "Children First" sites beginning Thursday.

NBC Chicago has an array of reporters and producers covering the Chicago teacher strike. Check our live blog for continuous coverage and updates throughout the strike.

As Chicago teachers force the Chicago School Board to alter its contract, it appears Mayor Rahm Emanuel has blinked first.

"He’s posing himself as a democratic version of Scott Walker. He doesn’t want to stop collective bargaining, but he certainly wants to limit it," political consultant Don Rose said Thursday.

Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, became the first sitting governor to survive a recall earlier this year. He came under fire for legislation that took away some collective-bargaining rights from teachers.

From all accounts, Emanuel’s school board team has adjusted the demands. On teacher evaluations, for instance, rather than dumping those who don’t make the grade, they will have a chance to improve.

"We have pathways for teachers to get to be better teachers. What could be better? This is really a win-win for the mayor and the teachers union," said Barbara Radner, an education professor at DePaul University.

The big question: why did it have to come to this; the first teacher strike in 25 years? Perhaps the mayor misjudged the union’s solidarity.

"There’s this mantra on the right: we love teachers, but we hate teachers unions," Rose noted.

The very first teachers union was formed right here in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. Chicago is once again in the national spotlight.

"Chicago founded teachers unions and so went the rest of the nation," said Rose.

NBC Chicago has an array of reporters and producers covering the Chicago teacher strike. Check our live blog for continuous coverage and updates throughout the strike.

A rally outside a still-under-construction building on the city's south side on its surface may seem to be an odd location, but teachers and their supporters say the choice was a strategic one.

Those gathered at East 53rd Street and South Lake Park Avenue on Thursday held signs saying "TIFs are for Kids." 

"The mayor [gave] Penny Pritzker $5 million in TIF money to build this hotel," said teacher Daryl Reed. "They're saying that they don't have money but they're giving billionaires five million dollars to build a hotel."

Chicago's Department of Housing and Economic Development in March approved $5,215,162 in Tax Increment Financing for a developer operating under a franchise agreement with Hyatt Hotels, city records show.

Pritzker is on the board of Hyatt Hotels, and the company stands to make hundreds of thousands of dollars annually due to "royalty fees" associated with the franchise agreement.

The protesters' argument against TIFs isn't a new one. A June report by Roosevelt University explains:

"... critics of TIFs note that each district diverts revenues from the public school taxing body, thus depriving them of revenues that would have otherwise gone to them. TIFs capture about $500 million in tax revenues each year, about half of which is diverted from the public school system.  ... "

But others say those projects that are funded by TIFs ultimately benefit school systems. From the same Roosevelt University report:

"Since 1983, 46% of TIF revenues have been allocated for public works projects, with 47% of those revenues going towards Chicago Public Schools construction projects."

And it's not just the use of Tax Increment Financing that teachers and their supporters don't like. Pritzker is also a member of the Chicago Board of Education and a contributor to a group called Stand for Children, which has been criticized for opposing teachers' unions and for promoting standardized testing.

A group calling itself the Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign last month called for her to step down from her post "because she has proven unable to secure funding for CPS due to a conflict of interest."

NBC Chicago has an array of reporters and producers covering the Chicago teacher strike. Check our live blog for continuous coverage and updates throughout the strike.

It might have been business as usual for aldermen at Wednesday's Chicago City Council meeting, but outside City Hall walls, the first teacher's strike in 25 years continued for a third day.

Aldermen said they've heard an earful from constituents, many of whom are parents of Chicago Public Schools students.

"Parents are very concerned," said Ald. Walter Burnett Jr., (27th). "There's a lot of concern about their kids. A lot of parents are leaving their kids at home."

"My guess is that most parents have made some arrangements for a few days," said Ald. William Burns (4th), "but as it drags on and becomes more and more difficult, they take time away from work."

"They feel that the negotiations have been taken to a personal level instead of negotiating on the best interests of our kids in the school," said Ald. Ray Suarez (31st).

What appears to be at the heart of the stalled negotiations is the union's concerns over the teacher evaluation process meant to tie success in the classroom with standardized test scores.

The union also is concerned about job security, especially for teachers who lose their position when a school closes.

"I support the fact that you can get interviewed," Suarez said, "but I don't support the fact that you have to get that job unless you're the best qualified person for that job."

"I would love to see this end as quickly as possible, as everybody would," said Ald. Dick Mell (33rd).

NBC Chicago has an array of reporters and producers covering the Chicago teacher strike. Check our live blog for continuous coverage and updates throughout the strike.

The Chicago Teachers’ Strike has been making international news, because of its implications for the power of unions, the future of public education, and its role in the presidential election. Here is some of the best commentary from around the world.

Owen Harkness, The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Ont.:

This was another school with powerful and angry union leadership, where every time the principal had an idea about how to improve our school, teachers resisted. Their clinging to the specific details of what work looked like in their collective agreement seemed to prevent us from ever changing our practice, despite the clear statistics before us that showed our students failing.

It was a place where teachers operated with a lot of talk about union versus management, and not about students or their futures.

So I found myself…nodding in agreement during New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s anti-union speech at the Republican National Convention.

While I would rather have heard strategies than widespread denouncements, I don’t see how we can fix our schools if the unions don’t budge.
  
Tanveer Ali, The Atlantic Cities blog:

In Chicago, one out of every eight public school students attend charter schools. That means 52,000 public charter school students in Chicago have had class this week, while 350,000 others have been out of the classroom since the city’s first teachers strike in 25 years began Monday.

One major difference between the city's traditional Chicago Public Schools and public charter schools is that CPS teachers are represented by the Chicago Teachers Union. Most of Chicago’s charter teachers are not unionized. That very fact makes charter school officials and proponents see the strike as an opportunity, though most won't use that word. So far, picketing teachers clad in red t-shirts have been met with honks from cars in every corner of the city. But if the strike, which centers on job security and plans to evaluate teachers based on student performance, keeps students out of school for much longer, there's a distinct possibility that sympathy could erode and push more interest into the charter movement.

Michael Paarlberg, The Guardian, Manchester, England:

There was a time when teachers were lauded as local heroes: overworked, underpaid pillars of the community who could – with their credentials – earn more elsewhere, but chose to pursue a career sharing the joys of learning with kids. Politically, they were untouchable, up there with cops and firefighters. Endorsements by their unions were prized by politicians hoping to run as "the education candidate". 

Then, at a certain point, teachers' unions woke up to find their favorability rating hovering somewhere between al-Qaida's and herpes. This didn't happen overnight, but a confluence of state budget crises, urban blight and suburban flight, a well-funded school reform movement and private charter school industry created the need for a scapegoat for bad public schools.

Teachers' unions were slow to realize their scapegoating and its (for them) dangerous consequences. They were slow to defend against some of the more salacious – but fact-challenged – charges against them. And they have not responded effectively by articulating why teachers should have pensions, job security and collective bargaining rights when other workers were either losing theirs or never had them in the first place.

Unfortunately for the Chicago teachers, they are unlikely to see a change in the political weather any time soon. Their union is betting, in no small part, that the embarrassment the strike will cause the Democrats in an election year will push Obama to pressure Emanuel to fix a settlement. Signs point to no such outcome. President Obama sees this as a lose-lose situation – he'll be seen either as betraying his labor allies or as caving to special interests – and has explicitly stated his intention to remain uninvolved.

Instead, the strike presents less conflict-averse Democrats like Emanuel the opportunity to posture and show off his business-friendly bona fides for Independents and Republicans (Paul Ryan has already given him words of encouragement). And nothing has more bipartisan support than blaming teachers for problems mayors and congressional representatives can't solve.

Editorial, The New York Times:

Teachers’ strikes, because they hurt children and their families, are never a good idea. The strike that has roiled the civic climate in Chicago — and left 350,000 children without classes — seems particularly senseless because it is partly a product of a personality clash between the blunt mayor, Rahm Emanuel, and the tough Chicago Teachers Union president, Karen Lewis. Beyond that, the strike is based on union discontent with sensible policy changes — including the teacher evaluation system required by Illinois law — that are increasingly popular across the country and are unlikely to be rolled back, no matter how long the union stays out.

Editorial, Peoria Journal Star:

Chicago teachers went on strike Monday for the first time in 25 years, putting 26,000 educators and some 400,000 students out of a classroom. Why should downstate care? Because gravity works the way it always does, and the issues up north will trickle down south eventually.

Specifically, the hurdles that remain involve a teacher evaluation process that puts unprecedented emphasis on student test scores and job security for employees in underperforming schools.

On the one hand, if you’re livelihood is going to be based primarily on the performance of others, well, understandably you’d want some influence over factors that are largely beyond the control of teachers now.

At a Caterpillar, for example, you can account for the quality of the raw materials going into the final product, but a classroom instructor has no say over what time a student went to bed the night before, or whether he had breakfast the morning of a critical test, or whether mom ever reads to him, or is even around. Again, the role of parents is utterly overlooked in school reform. It’s no small issue.

On the other hand, many public sector employees act as if their situations are uniquely unfair, an astonishing and perhaps willful disconnect with a private sector where wages have been frozen or worse for years, where pensions have all but disappeared, where job security is ... well, what’s that?
   
Valerie Strauss, “The Answer Sheet,” Washington Post

Once, labor unions could rely on Democratic politicians and Democratic politicians could rely on unions. In education reform today, that old equation doesn’t work. Democrats, including President Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, who happens to come from Chicago, have embraced some school reform efforts that are championed by Republicans.

Though the two national teachers unions — the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers — both endorsed Obama, many of their members are furious at the president’s initiatives that teachers believe amount to a potentially deadly assault on their profession. 

Those include teacher evaluation and pay that is linked to student standardized test scores, an assessment method that experts have warned repeatedly is extremely unreliable. But Emanuel — along with other mayors and governors — are implementing (or trying to) anyway. This is one of the big sticking points in the Chicago strike; Emanuel wants test scores to be 50 percent of teachers’ evaluations.

On one side of the divide is Emanuel, who is pushing reforms that the president’s own Education Department has been pushing for several years. Obama, of course, lived in Chicago before becoming president, and Duncan ran the Chicago public school system for more than seven years before joining Obama in Washington.

It would be impossible for Obama to come out against Emanuel.

Yet it would be equally impossible for him to come out against the union.

Saying Obama has chosen a side in the strike misses the point that he can’t.

Obama’s campaign needs the labor movement to help get out the vote in November and to go into the ballot box and pull the lever for the president. Some furious educators are saying they won’t vote for Obama, and though it isn’t likely that these traditional Democrats will switch their vote to Romney in big numbers, they could vote for a minor party or stay home.

NBC Chicago has an array of reporters and producers covering the Chicago teacher strike. Check our live blog for continuous coverage and updates throughout the strike.

On the first day of the well-publicized contract dispute between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teacher's Union, Derrick Rose took to his Twitter account and remarked that he hoped a deal gets done soon.

As the strike moved into its second day Tuesday and local media outlets began televising the thousands of teachers clad in red shirts marching through the city's downtown streets, the images clearly affected Rose. He once again voiced his opinion on the matter via Twitter, only this time it was more than a few words.

"I'm sitting here thinking how sad it is that my city got to go through this. I love my city and everyone in it even my haters," Rose said in his initial tweet, but there was more to come.

"I don't like the fact that OUR kids are not in school and that's the only thing we have to SAVE these kids," an obvious reference to the amount of violence this city has seen over the summer months.

"I pray for US for real. I know I shouldn't be saying this because I hoop and it's not my lane but I feel like ppl should hear this," said Rose before closing with, "Chi town till I die!"

As the strike enters Day 3 and the teacher's union and school system prepare to return to the negotiation table, it's unclear how long this impasse will last. What is clear is that Derrick Rose shares in the frustration that many in this city feel as a result of the strike and, like everyone else, he'd like to see it end soon.

One of the main sticking points in Chicago's teacher strike is the question as to who will ultimately be responsible for hiring teachers.

The union wants new hires to come from within its member rolls. The school board wants the ability to be able to hire any teacher it wants. And in the middle are the school principals, who worry about being held accountable for teachers they didn't choose.

"At the end of the day, this is about the children, and having the opportunity to create a school where everyone is pulling in the same direction," said John N. Smyth Magnet School Principal Ron Whitemore.

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis maintains that any new hires should come from the hundreds who have been laid off due to budget cuts. Hiring any other teachers, it's viewed, would be a form of union busting.

"They keep saying, 'We don't want to be told who to hire,' [but] they have already hired these teachers," Lewis said Tuesday.

In a letter Chicago Public Schools principals sent Tuesday to Lewis, A.N. Pritzker Elementary School Principal Dr. Joenile S. Albert-Reese wrote on behalf of 30 principals saying "it's imperative that principals be given the autonomy they need in the hiring process."

"This autonomy is necessary to ensure that principals can hire the most qualified and best fit candidate for the position and our kids," Albert-Reese wrote. "Without this autonomy, principals may be forced to hire individuals whose skill set and value systems are not conducive to the school’s culture, mission, and vision."

More than 26,000 teachers and support staff hit the picket lines Monday morning after talks broke down a night earlier. The move left more than 350,000 students in nearly 700 schools without classroom instruction.

"If I'm a principal, and you're going to hold me accountable and you're going to fire me, I want to pick my people," said Dr. Mahalia Hines, a former school principal who Mayor Rahm Emanuel appointed to the school board.

NBC Chicago has an array of reporters and producers covering the Chicago teacher strike. Check our live blog for continuous coverage and updates throughout the strike.