Why has President Obama been so hushed about this week’s Chicago teachers’ strike? Clearly he has been distracted, what with the unspeakable tragedy of the murder of four Americans in Libya — Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, technology officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods — and the ensuing deadly chaos across the Middle East. Obama also had to jet off the day after the carnage in Benghazi for a fundraiser . . . in Las Vegas. Further campaigning followed.
All of that aside, Obama has had very good reasons for pretending that children in the Windy City are learning as much (or as little) as usual right now.
Obama is pinned between a boulder and a sword. If he sides with the teachers’ union, he will alienate regular Americans in the private sector, 93.1 percent of whom are non-union members. Many of them stay busy every morning taking their children to school. They have little sympathy for a union that is making life very inconvenient for parents who suddenly don’t know where to drop off their kids as they go to work, not to mention that their sons and daughters are learning nothing while the strike grinds on.
The teachers’ union’s demands are absurd and offensive. They were offered 4 percent raises for each of the next four years, but this was not good enough. Which employee anywhere can boast such a pay hike, when some 23 million Americans would love to get off of their sofas and earn any paychecks at all? The teachers union is thoroughly out of touch, especially in a town with a 9.1 percent unemployment rate, a full 1 percentage point above the national figure. Lots of college graduates who have moved back in with their parents would love to
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