Party's Over, Chicago Schoolchildren! Your Teachers Strike Vacation Ends Tomorrow

With apologies to Chicago's many students (who were undoubtedly having a pretty awesome extended vacation), Chicago's teachers strike will end tomorrow.

The Chicago Teachers Union’s House of Delegates decided this afternoon to end the city’s first teacher strike in 25 years and return more than 350,000 students to the classroom Wednesday. The voice vote was taken after some 800 delegates convened at a union meeting hall near Chinatown to discuss and debate a tentative contract. Union leaders had already signed off on the agreement with Chicago Public Schools.

"We said we couldn't solve all the problems. . .and it was time to suspend the strike," CTU President Karen Lewis said at a news conference after the vote. “The issue is, we cannot get a perfect contract. There’s no such thing as a contract that will make all of us” happy, Lewis said. But “do we stay on strike forever until every little thing we want can be gotten?” she said.