Chicago teachers strike: Sides far apart

The Chicago teachers strike entered a third day with no letup in rhetoric and no sign of a breakthrough keeping 350,000 students out of school, both sides said. "There has not been as much movement as we would hope. There's been -- let's put it this way -- centimeters and we're still kilometers apart," Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis was quoted by the Chicago Tribune as saying during a late-day break in more than 10 hours of talks. Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, suggested Tuesday only two major issues separated the two sides, but Lewis told the Chicago Sun-Times they had agreed on only six of nearly 50 issues. When talks broke up, Chicago Public Schools Board President David Vitale said the district made a comprehensive revision to the proposal the union rejected Sunday, triggering the strike. "We said to them we would appreciate a written comprehensive response, either to the proposal or a comprehensive proposal of their own," Vitale said. "And when we receive a written response or a written proposal, we will sit down and meet with them." Talks are set to resume at 11 a.m. Wednesday. Thousands of teachers dressed in red T-shirts swarmed peacefully through downtown and marched outside schools across the city Tuesday. Some carried signs that read "Recall Rahm." Others hand-wrote on their T-shirts, "I'd rather be teaching," the Tribune said. The school district is the third largest in the United States with more than 600 schools. The strike is Chicago's first in 25 years and the first in a major city in a half-dozen years.