POLITICAL ANALYSIS NO WIGGLE ROOM FOR RAHM
Chicago’s first teachers strike in 25 years has put Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a political trick bag.
He needs to make the walkout a short one or risk permanent damage to Chicago’s reputation as a business center and to the reputation he has carefully crafted as mayor of a city on the come finally confronting its formidable challenges.
But he can’t step in, as Chicago mayors often do during labor strife, because there is so much bad blood between himself and Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis.
He needs to appease a CTU he has alienated by his strong-arm tactics. But he cannot afford to cave after criticizing his predecessor for doing just that, nor does Emanuel have the money to buy labor peace after draining the last penny of CPS reserves with a $1 billion shortfall in next year’s school budget.
That’s the situation that confronts the former White House chief of staff after Day One of a strike that everybody saw coming but nobody could quite figure out how to avoid.
No wonder Chicago’s rookie mayor sounded somewhat exasperated when asked whether the teachers strike was directed at him politically.
“Don’t take it out on the kids of the city of Chicago if you’ve got a problem with me. That’s wrong. Our kids deserve better,” he said.
“Second of all, we’ve worked through a whole host of issues. We’re down to two issues and neither the teacher evaluations or the quote, unquote recall [of teachers laid off from shuttered or turnaround schools] have to do with me. They have to do with the quality of our teachers in the classroom.”
Pressed on whether the strike that led the national news Monday was a test of his leadership, the normally cool Emanuel pounded the podium for emphasis a record number of times.
“The real test that should matter — which is why I want the negotiators to stay at the table — is the test these kids take in third grade on reading and writing and math [and] the test they take at sixth grade on whether they’re at international levels,” Emanuel said, pointing to kids standing behind him at a Gage Park church.
“It’s not my test I’m interested in. ... Don’t worry about the test of my leadership. That gets tested every day. There’s not a day that isn’t a challenge.”
But the union is clearly hoping to test the mayor. Teachers picketed outside the church where Emanuel spoke. And later they staged a noisy demonstration at City Hall.
Emanuel reiterated his late-night claim that Lewis had called an unnecessary “strike of choice” and urged both sides to “stay at the table and finish it for our children.”
But he refused to bend on the issues he described as the two major roadblocks: teacher evaluations and allowing principals to retain the right to choose their teaching team.
“If we’re gonna hold our local principals in the school accountable for getting the results we need, they need to pick the best qualified,” Emanuel said.
“The direction and the dictation should not come out of downtown … That’s just not right. ... I don’t believe I should pick ’em. I don’t believe the CPS leadership should pick ’em. And I don’t believe the CTU leadership should pick ’em.”