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Twenty five thousand teachers in Chicago, Illinois have entered their fourth day of a major strike. Three hundred and fifty thousand students who were less than a week into their new school year in the US’s third largest school district, have had to stop attending classes. Negotiations have been going on since June between the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). But the talks finally broke down this past Monday.

Pay concerns are actually a smaller part of the points of contention, while bigger issues on the table include such things as the increasing number of non-union charter schools and the use of merit pay and teacher evaluations based on students’ standardized test scores. So far, only 6 of 49 issues in the contract have been negotiated. Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, who was formerly President Obama’s Chief of Staff, campaigned on a promise to lengthen the school day and increase the number of non-union charter schools.

Soon after being elected, Emanuel removed 4 percent raises for teachers. Later, he reopened teacher contracts and allowed 2 percent raises in exchange for adding 90 minutes to the school day.

Journalist and author Chris Hedges, has put the Chicago teachers strike in the bigger context of the war against unionized workers and called the strike, “arguably one of the most important labor actions in probably decades.”

Diane Ravitch, one of our guests today says, “If anyone thinks this strike is just another union ‘ploy’ for higher pay or less “working time” they are sorely mistaken.”

GUESTS: Diane Ravitch, Education Historian. She is the author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, Valerie Metar, a union member and teacher at Charles Evan Hughes School in Lawndale, a low income African American community