On February 20 a scrappy bunch of teachers from the North Lawndale and Urban Prep charter schools took to the streets to announce they were trying to form a union.
As you may recall, charter schools are publicly financed, privately run institutions that in most cases are not unionized. They’re also supported by a lot of rich and powerful business titans who are of the decidedly antiunion persuasion.
As always, the truth is somewhere in the middle, though leaning precariously close to me.
By the way, before he went into education, Smith was a star lineman at Cal-Berkeley. More good news for that gubernatorial football team.
It’s hard to say exactly how much the charters pay, because they don’t routinely post staff salaries, as regular public schools are required to. But veteran teachers at North Lawndale and Urban Prep tell me they started at about $40,000 a year. After up to six years on the job they’re making around $50,000, which is still less than a starting teacher in regular public schools in Chicago.
