Scenes from the Chicago Teachers Union rally (and the people that joined them)

[strannik01]

Late last week, after over six months of closed-door negotiations, the Chicago Public Schools district officially announced its contract offer to Chicago Teachers Union. And, reading about it on the news, it didn't seem to be a bad offer.It would've prohibited teacher layoffs for economic reasons. Teachers would get salary increases, some cost-of-

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[strannik01]

It's a long, complicated story. The shortest way I can sum it up is that the city revenue is primarily generated through property taxes, and, since the early 1990s, Mayor Richard M. Daley (who ran the city in 1989-2011) has been reluctant to raise property taxes, but he was also reluctant to cut services, which do tend to get more expensive over time (because salaries need to keep up with costs of living). There is also the fact that the same mayor has been using funds that were supposed to go toward covering pension obligations for anything other than pension obligations without a particularly clear idea as to how he would cover it later. And when pension obligations aren't covered, the amount you have to pay also tends to grow.

Those are the two big reasons. There are other things that haven't helped, either.

Also, it's important to remember that, while Chicago Public Schools district is de facto under the city's control (because the mayor appoints the Board of Education) it is, for legal purposes, a separate taxing body, complete with its own separate tax levy and its is own separate accounts. CPS also had its own financial problems, for its own complicated reasons.