Chicago teachers strike reverberates nationwide, in presidential race
Heh. Romney jumped on the opportunity, see below for more. Meanwhile, Obama … well, I already addressed that
.
Teachers in Chicago went on strike for the first time in 25 years on Monday in a bitter dispute with Mayor Rahm Emanuel that is reverberating across the country as the issues at the core of the conflict — teacher evaluations tied to student test scores, a longer school day and other education policy changes — are being hotly debated from Hawaii to Maine.
The fact that the fight revolves around Emanuel, a former chief of staff to President Obama, has pushed the municipal labor fight into prime time and complicated the political calculus. Obama is relying heavily on the support of unions in his reelection bid, and the Chicago strike immediately figured into the landscape of this fall’s political campaigns.
Within hours of its start, the strike migrated into the presidential race, providing a tactical opening for Republican candidate Mitt Romney and a sticky political situation for Obama.
Romney underscored the president’s relationship with unionized teachers and, more broadly, organized labor. In a statement, Romney, who has assailed unionized teachers as an obstacle to education reform, also seemed to be taking a page from the playbook of two Republican governors, Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Chris Christie of New Jersey, who made political gains by taking on public employee unions.
via The Washington Post.
