The outrageous Chicago Public Schools teachers’ strike that held the third-largest school system in the U.S. hostage to unscientific pandemic-mitigation demands should remind us of the disproportionate power that labor unions hold in the Democratic Party. The teachers are returning to work today, but one wishes that President Biden or Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago had threatened to fire them for their illegal action, as Ronald Reagan did with the air traffic controllers in 1981 or, further back, then-Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge did when he backed Boston’s decision to fire its striking police officers in 1919.
While we wish in vain for such leadership, there’s another approach cities should consider: rolling back the power of big-city teachers’ unions by breaking up school districts. It’s common sense that, like any large labor union, big-city teachers’ unions have outsize leverage because they control hundreds of schools. Smaller, independent, competing districts would change this picture. Would Mike Mulgrew, president of New York City’s teachers’ union, be so glib about threatening to shut down Manhattan schools if he knew that Queens or Brooklyn teachers might not go along?
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