Union building and professionalism: The chicago teachers union campaign to close the educational "governance gap"

Since at least the mid-1980s critical voices have called for reforming public education. In 1995 the Chicago Public School system was placed under the mayor's control and a labor agreement with nearly 30,000 teachers was stripped of many essential provisions. But in 2001 a leadership change at the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) promised a new representational approach that would not only win back contract rights, but also embrace a more assertive responsibility for teachers in determining how education would be delivered to the city's 400,000 school children. This work focuses on an extensive project by the CTU to have a substantive impact on school "governance" and the impact that effort had in influencing the outcome of a union leadership election.