Heartland Institute Develops Ingenious New Idea –Strike Vouchers
Teacher strikes are harmful to everyone. Students lose valuable learning time. Parents are forced to lose work time and money when schools close because of a strike. Even teachers who do not agree with union officials often feel they have no choice but to go out on strike even though they do not wish to. They fear the repercussions, and sometimes even violence, if they are courageous enough to cross a picket line. Governments are forced to knuckle under and agree to outrageous demands just to keep teachers off the picket line and reopen schools. Everyone feels helpless. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
It is a well-known fact that teacher union officials will do everything they can to keep charter schools and other school choice options. They use their power and forced-dues dollars to elect politicians who will pay them back by doing their bidding and keep charter schools and other school choice out of the picture.
The Heartland Institute has developed a unique form of school choice that would help student, and their parents, when teacher union officials decide to go on strike. Hayley Sledge has the story at hearland.org.
Chicago teachers unions expressed their opposition to charter schools in 2019 by demanding the continuation of a moratorium on additional charter schools in the city.
Teacher strikes in Chicago and Los Angeles were two of the largest union actions in 2019, among an increasing number of protests by educators in government schools that included demands for restrictions on charter schools.