Chicago school board, teachers' union decline arbitrator recommendations

Fact finder gives report — school board, teachers say no thanks

Original article in the Chicago Sun-Times by Rosalind Rossi, Lauren Fitzpatrick, and Maudlyne Ihejirika.

The long-awaited fact-finder’s recommendation on how to solve “toxic’’ Chicago teacher contract talks was finally made public Wednesday — but nobody wanted it.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s handpicked school board and hundreds of Chicago Teachers Union delegates both, unanimously, rejected the recommendations of a fact-finder both sides had picked to help resolve their stalemate.

School board president David Vitale said the cash-strapped district just didn’t have the money to pay recommended raises next year of 15 to 18 percent, totaling some $330 million. CPS had offered four years of two percent raises.

Though the fact-finder had recommended a fat pay hike for teachers ordered to work 20 percent more next year, Chicago Teachers Union delegates didn’t like his dismissal of their concerns about job security. They said they fear the district’s growing use of “turnarounds” and school closings that displace good teachers through no fault of their own.

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