by Collin Hitt
Senior Fellow
This post originally appeared at CNN.com
Shortly
after President Obama took his historic oath of office, a small group of people
back in his home state of Illinois gathered to negotiate a key issue of school
reform. Before substantive discussions even began, a representative from the
Chicago Teachers Union interjected: “For us,” she said, “this is about jobs.”
It was
not about kids. It was not about results. It was not even about the issue at
hand, charter schools. She said it was about jobs.
I was
part of those negotiations, stunned at such frank selfishness. In the three
years since, a national debate over education reform has been renewed. It’s
become obvious that this stance was not unique to that moment, to that union or
even to Illinois.
Read the rest of the article at CNN Schools of Thought.
