Strike Day 7 - RYH Press Statement | 9.18.12

Raise Your Hand hopes that the House of Delegates of the Chicago Teacher’s Union votes to end the strike today. We respect, appreciate and value the teachers of the Chicago Public School System as we always have. Many of our parents have expressed increased anxiety and concern in the last two days not knowing when this strike will end. We worry that parents are losing patience with this process.

Nobody wants the strike to destroy relationships that have been built over the years in school communities and we fear that is beginning to happen. We have many issues that plague our schools but not all can be resolved this week. We must be able to separate short-term goals and long-term battles for improving public education. It is our hope that more Chicagoans will have seen not just teachers on the picket line but the desperate need to change the culture of our school district and address some of the serious resource issues that our children have been living with for decades.

It is our goal to enlist all stakeholders to work together on issues such as an elected school board campaign and graduated income tax campaign, so that we can help work on solutions to change the course of public education in Chicago. We agree wholeheartedly that our children have been over-tested, over-measured and the punitive culture of our district must change. The current focus of our district is working to leave important skills – like critical thinking, coping and creativity out of the mix - and more importantly, parent, teacher and community voices in shaping policy. We must work together to end these practices but they cannot all be solved this season. We hope that our children will be back in school Wednesday.