In urging suspension of the strike, CTU President Karen Lewis noted that Chicago teachers couldn’t change the world in one contract. She was wrong. While there were important items the union didn’t win, the Chicago strike has electrified teachers around the world. It has by many accounts inspired a reinvigorated labor presence in the Windy City.

The reform leadership of the CTU has shown teachers that for their professional knowledge to be respected, they must fight for it to be so. Try as the media did to cast the strike as being a traditional labor dispute about salary, they couldn’t make a convincing case to Chicago parents. Because of the union’s morally-essential (and strategically-sound) embedding of economic demands in a framework for truly improving the schools, parents  understood that teachers were on the side of their children.

Chicago schools have a unique history, and what occurred there won’t be so readily duplicated in other US cities. Teacher unionism was born in Chicago a century ago, under the leadership of a socialist elementary school teacher, Margaret Haley. Chicago schools also saw serious contestation by parents for voice in running their schools through local school councils. The teachers union too has been different from most big city locals in having reformers win office. In contrast, the same monolithic machine has run the New York City union since teachers won collective bargaining.