Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect writes about the first charter chain strike in the nation:

Meyerson on TAP

Another Teacher Strike Story with a Happy Ending. If you listen to the champions of charter schools, their chief concern is the welfare of their disproportionately poor and minority students, while those dastardly teachers unions are just out for themselves.

Well—at the risk of injecting actual facts into this discussion, please check out the new contract that the roughly 530 members of the Chicago Teachers Union just struck with their employer, the Acero chain of 15 inner-city Chicago charter schools. As a conclusion of their five-day strike—the nation’s first at charter schools—the teachers not only secured raises for themselves but also a groundbreaking provision to protect their students, whom the union’s attorney described as “overwhelmingly low-income Latino,” from the agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (aka ICE). Acero acceded to the teachers’ demand that the schools not collect or share information on the immigration status of students and their families, and not permit ICE agents on campus unless they have a court order.

Of course, Acero could have put such a policy in place all by itself in the years since it opened its schools. It didn’t. It took those self-centered teachers walking out to get the company to agree to protect its students and their families from a federal police agency run amok. Kudos to those selfish teachers for expanding the boundaries of bargaining for the common good—and for common decency, too. ~ HAROLD MEYERSON