The guy Mitt Romney thinks he’s running against sounds fearsome. On a Sunday night conference call with voters in Iowa, Romney warned that President Obama is hell-bent on “forcing people to join unions that don’t want to.” Not only is this entirely false, but even the less-scary thing it’s based on doesn’t add up.

Dylan Matthews intends to wrap up the Chicago teachers strike with an assessment of what both sides got out of the contract “in one post.” Here’s a list, in one post, of some of the things he left out, culled mostly from what the CTU informed its members was in the contract.

The Chicago Teachers Union has agreed to suspend its seven-day strike and return to work. Classes will resume for more than 350,000 students on Wednesday. This does not mean they have agreed to the contract submitted by the Chicago Public Schools, only that they will complete the strike action while reserving the right to walk out again if the final resolution doesn’t meet with their satisfaction.

Chicago public school students will not return to the classroom on Monday, as the Chicago Teachers Union decided to take more time to mull over a contract proposal. Students will not return to class until Wednesday at the earliest, according to the union.

Chicago public school students will not return to the classroom on Monday, as the Chicago Teachers Union decided to take more time to mull over a contract proposal. Students will not return to class until Wednesday at the earliest, according to the union.

The Chicago Tribune reports that a tentative deal has been reached in the teachers strike that would resume classes as early as Monday for 350,000 students.

The union’s House of Delegates will review the proposal at a meeting this afternoon and is likely to vote to end the five-day-old teachers strike on Sunday after final details have been worked out, officials say.

The Chicago Teachers Union strike could end as early as tomorrow. Both sides reported progress in yesterday’s bargaining session, and hopes are high that today’s session will complete whatever outstanding issues exist. Since strikes are technically confined to bargaining issues like pay and benefits, we only have the barest sketch of the emerging deal.

AFT President Randi Weingarten’s op-ed for USA Today makes the overlooked point that Chicago teachers are striking, not necessarily for better pay as it has been claimed in most of the traditional media (complete with haughty stories about those lucky duckie rich teachers), but for better schools.

To the extent that there are problems, it appears clear that they have to do with resources. The schools in the lowest-income areas have no air conditioning. Roofs leak. The cafeteria is full of roaches. Mold sits in the ventilation systems. Kids don’t get textbooks for weeks. Administrators pack classrooms with 40 and 50 students at a time. These are pretty obvious and solvable problems. Worse, there’s apparently money in the system to make these repairs, in the form of TIFs or Tax Increment Financing, that have been re-routed to pet projects, including a Hyatt Hotel and the Chicago Board of Trade.

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) commenced their first education strike in a generation last ight, with 29,000 teachers and school personnel walking out and taking up picket lines.