Suburban Naperville students missing the lazy days of summer were hopeful this week: Schools almost closed again due to a teacher strike.
Last week, the Naperville Unit Education Association said they’d walk out on Tuesday, announcing a strike date over contract disagreements with the district. Then on Friday afternoon, the Naperville 203 Board of Education and NUEA announced they’d reached a tentative agreement over contract demands. It appears now that the union’s threat was intended to push district officials into settling. And it worked.
But the strike talk caused a lot of uncertainty. And the costs are yet unknown.
The teachers union argues that competitive pay is necessary to retain quality educators — a fair point — but Naperville educators are already some of the highest-paid teachers in the state, with an average salary of $89,000, compared with the statewide average of $76,000.
Board President Charles Cush warned that even the district’s earlier proposal — which offered raises outpacing inflation — would require budget cuts or staff reductions to balance the books, while the union’s demands would “damage the district’s long-term financial health” and put it “on an unsustainable fiscal path” that could lead to staffing and program cuts or tax increases down the road.
We won’t see all the details of any contract until it’s official. For regular taxpayers, there’s little clarity surrounding costs and benefits until after the fact, when the bill is already tabulated. Then they just have to pay.
In the majority of states, it’s illegal for teachers to strike. Massachusetts, Michigan and Arizona are among the 37 states with laws on the books that prevent teachers from walking out on students.
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And with good reason.
Since 2010, teachers unions in Illinois have threatened to go on strike nearly 200 times. And 63 times, they did, according to an analysis of Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board reports by the Illinois Policy Institute. There were no teachers strikes in Illinois in 2024, a welcome reprieve.
When public-sector unions strike, essential public services are at risk. These government unions negotiate against the people they serve, and in places like Illinois, if government unions go on strike, regular people typically lose out.
If Naperville teachers had chosen to go on strike, the parents and kids would’ve suffered.
Kids would’ve missed teachers, lessons and friends. Parents would once again have been left scrambling to figure out how to juggle work and child care.
You know who wants schools to close? No one. Not the school board. Not administrators. Not most teachers, and certainly not parents. So when things get contentious, the conversation around teacher contracts becomes: How do we avoid teachers walking out? The unions have all the power.
Naperville is not alone. The union representing Tinley Park Elementary District 146 last week declared an impasse with the district, even though school officials offered wage increases of 6% for each of the next two school years and 5% for the 2027-28 school year.
We’re not sure if union leaders have noticed, but the economy isn’t exactly humming right now, and for those of us in the private sector — who ultimately have to pay for these contracts — wage growth isn’t this rosy.
We love our teachers, and our kids do, too, for the most part. We do not, however, like living with the constant threat that education services will be taken away. And we do not like to be threatened that the only way to guarantee schools stay open is to pay more.
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