Chicago teachers demand 29% pay raise, vote to strike

Chicago teachers earn an average of $65,000 per year for about 180 days of actual teaching plus ten days of pre-year "planning" each year. (If you work 50 weeks a year--2 weeks vacation--you'd work 250 days, or 31% more than Chicago teachers.)

Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked them to increase their teaching day from roughly six hours to 6:40 or so, and to teach ten more days each year. The union responded by demanding a 29 percent pay raise--24% the first year and 5% the next. The mayor offered two percent.

The teachers' response? They voted to strike.

Warning, link is to the communist cesspool Daily Kos, but it's worth going to see how goofy both the original post is AND the comments. For example, I love this one:

Where i'm from an educaton [sic] degree is a 5 year degree. It is literally harder to get than an engineering, mathematics or physics degree.

Uh, really? Guess than explains why so many more people get degrees in engineering and physics than in education, eh? Because, you know, it's easier than a teaching degree. /sarc

This to me just shows how clueless and delusionally self-important these people are. What rational, reasonably experienced person really believes a teaching degree is harder than engineering, physics or math? Either the commenter is lying, or just utterly deluded.

Oh, yeah, he or she is also teaching your kids to think just like he/she does.

I know there are many dedicated, good teachers out there. Unfortunately the ones who squawk the loudest are just like the commenter above. And the union reps are the worst.

One more thing: Can anyone tell me how much teachers'-union dues are per month in Chicago? Wonder if any teachers have calculated how much their take-home pay would increase if they quit the union?

Not that any of 'em would, of course.