Lillian Mongeau / The Hechinger Report

Amy Youngman, center, and Danny Shapiro, left, check student work during a middle school grammar lesson at ERES Academy in Oakland, Calif. Shaprio is a resident teacher-in-training and Youngman is his mentor.

OAKLAND, Calif. – Amy Youngman’s seventh- and eighth-grade humanities students had left for the day. Other than some shouts from the after-school program in the courtyard, all was quiet in her second-floor classroom here.

Youngman’s day of teaching at ERES Academy – part of the Aspire charter school network – wasn’t over, though.

Nor was Danny Shapiro’s day of learning. Shapiro, not 13 but 30, is learning to be a teacher. Youngman, three years younger than Shapiro but with six years of teaching already under her belt, is his mentor.

“Highs and lows?” Youngman asked Shapiro across the wide table that served as her desk.

Shapiro sighed deeply as he considered the ups and downs of his second week in the classroom. He is one of 34 new teachers in Aspire’s three-year-old intensive residency program, aimed at training incoming teachers like him for positions in one of the network’s nearly three dozen schools. Founded in California in 1998, Aspire currently serves 12,000 mostly low-income students in grades K-12 and will expand out of state for the first time next year with two new schools in Memphis, Tenn.

Many of these teachers-in-training are career-changers like Shapiro, who was working at a policy foundation in San Francisco focused on climate change this time last year. Now, he’s spending four days a week in a classroom in one of the state’s toughest neighborhoods.

Shapiro started preparing for his year of teacher training with three months of summer courses that will count toward a master’s degree. He continues working on that degree on his one weekday without teaching duties. A discount on tuition and a small stipend – about one third of what a first-year teacher earns – help make this program possible for Shapiro, who also took out student loans to cover his costs. By the time 12 months are up, Shapiro should have a teaching credential, a master’s in education and a job at an Aspire school.

“So, last Thursday was the low, because that was the day the stress and the [classroom] management [were] like a wave that came over me,” Shapiro said. “Friday was a high because I was so well planned.”

Youngman nodded as she wrote this down. After sharing her own high (two students scored 100 percent on their reading tests) and her own low (meetings went long on Friday, leaving her less prepared than usual for Monday), Youngman printed out the notes she’d taken while Shapiro was leading a history lesson earlier that day. Now, she asked him to highlight parts of the lesson that had gone well and underline those that hadn’t. Pulling out a highlighter and pen, he started reading.

The number of career-changers who are entering the teaching force has doubled over the last 20 years. Shapiro, who majored in politics at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., is not among the much sought-after math and science career-changers, but feels his experience in international climate change policy can help him make real-world connections for his students.

Harnessing that practical work experience is a goal of programs like Aspire’s that cater to career-changers who want an alternate route to certification. Thirty-five percent of U.S. teachers report having first had careers outside of education, and more than two in five entered the classroom through an alternative preparation program, according to a 2010 survey by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation in Princeton, N.J.

Problems with first-year teachers
Now charter networks and school districts, including High Tech High in San Diego, Calif., are beginning to pioneer their own training programs. In addition to the desire to bring in new teachers from other fields, Aspire leaders report being dissatisfied with the training their first-year teachers have received. This problem – first-year teachers lacking sufficient content knowledge and classroom-management skills – has been echoed at the national level by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Study after study has shown that the single most important in-school factor influencing student achievement is the quality of the teacher. But figuring out new ways to train and evaluate teachers remains one of the most contentious issues in education today.

In California, nearly 40 percent of teachers are over 50, and the number of new credentials awarded to new teachers each year is shrinking. The state is near the bottom for student performance nationally, and the teaching profession is facing numerous challenges, according to a recent survey by the California Department of Education.

Teacher education in the Golden State is “uneven in duration and quality,” the report found, while “mentoring for beginners is decreasing.” The authors note that evaluation is “frequently spotty” and teacher salaries are often below market value.

The youngest and least-prepared teachers tend to be clustered in the highest-need areas, they found. But critics charge that alternative certification programs are partly to blame for this disparity. A lack of supervised teaching and minimum academic coursework in many programs lead to underprepared teachers who don’t stay in the profession, they say.

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Richard Sterling, director of the teacher preparation programs in U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, says many of the most strident critics come from the ranks of traditional teacher education programs like his. Sterling worries that alternatively certified teachers don’t get enough of an intellectual grounding in the profession, but says each program should be judged on its own merits.

“My attitude is, ‘Let’s just take a look and not dismiss alternative programs out of hand,’ ” Sterling says.

The residency models, for example, offer more supervised teaching than many traditional programs and more academic content than many alternative programs. This makes for an intense schedule for residents. Aspire residents often work 10-hour days and some weekends to fulfill their teaching duties and complete their coursework. It’s hoped that the exacting residency year will provide a solid foundation in classroom management, lesson planning and grading, ultimately yielding first-year teachers who are well prepared.

Focus on classroom time
Aspire hasn’t entirely eschewed traditional teacher education. The network partners with the University of the Pacific to provide residents with master’s-level courses. The focus of the program, though, is on what happens in the classroom.

A recent study by the Washington, D.C.-based National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) found the length of time spent in the classroom and the quality of mentoring are key elements in strong teacher preparation programs. However, few of the 134 programs studied had those elements. For example, 43 percent of programs had no criteria for choosing mentor teachers other than that they have some teaching experience.

“Student-teacher programs tend to be luck of the draw,” said Sandi Jacobs, vice president of the NCTQ. “They tend to be based on who volunteers, not on any evidence of effectiveness.”

In Arizona desert, a charter school computes

Not so at Aspire, where mentors are carefully selected and trained. Take Youngman, one of several mentor-teachers at ERES Academy. She was tapped as a mentor because of strong student performance data and positive peer reviews of her teaching based on classroom observations, along with her principal’s recommendation.

Youngman receives additional training, a formal title change and a $3,000 stipend as part of her agreement to mentor a resident teacher. This is her second year as a mentor.

Shapiro said he finds her insights invaluable.

“There’s a reason why she’s a mentor,” Shapiro said. “She’s able to see a hundred things at once and not seem like she’s doing anything.”

Looking for 'lifers'
Heather Kirkpatrick, Aspire’s vice president of education, hopes that using strong teachers to train newcomers will result in everyone staying in the classroom longer.

“I’m looking for ‘lifers,’ I really am,” Kirkpatrick said. Her goal is to keep the expert teachers interested and engaged at a time when about half of all U.S. teachers leave the profession in their first five years. Up to 10 percent of those leave in the first year, according to a 2011 study of beginning teachers by the U.S. Department of Education.

The study, which followed nearly 2,000 new teachers starting in 2007, found that well-chosen mentors can have a real effect on improving teacher retention. Among public-school teachers with an assigned mentor, 92 percent were still teaching the following year. Of those not assigned a mentor, only 84 percent were still teaching in their second year, the study found.

Once they’re through those critical first years, positions such as mentor teacher, lead teacher and model teacher offer alternative paths to promotion besides the traditional move into administration.

Want to read more on this topic? Go to EducationNation.com

At ERES Academy, Shapiro combs through Youngman’s notes on his lesson. The notes read like a script, with Shapiro’s statements in one column and the students’ statements and actions in a second column.

Shapiro highlighted something he’d said at the beginning of the lesson: “Thank you, Cristian, for showing me you are ready.”

Offering positive reinforcement for good behaviors was something he’d been working on this week. Youngman agreed he’d gotten better at it.

In the second column, Shapiro had underlined a statement by a student that made him think he’d bumbled a teachable moment. He’d called on a girl who didn’t know the answer to his question.

He had several questions for Youngman: How long should he wait for a hesitant student to answer? Should he just supply the answer himself? Should he ask another student? Or was it better to push the first student to come up with something?

Youngman advised him to write down answers he needed students to know in advance of a lesson. If he didn’t get those answers, he’d know he’d found a hole in his teaching. He could then remedy it in a follow-up lesson.

Lillian Mongeau / The Hechinger Report

Amy Youngman, left, helps Danny Shapiro plan for his next week of teaching in the seventh- and eighth-grade classroom they share at ERES Academy in Oakland, California. Shaprio is a resident teacher-in-training and Youngman is his mentor.

That kind of detailed feedback is what Youngman said she wishes she’d received in her first year as a Teach For America teacher in San Jose, Calif. Instead, she said she felt mostly on her own, a common complaint of new teachers no matter how they are trained.

It’s too soon to have enough data to make a call about Aspire’s success, but Kirkpatrick said 18 of the first 20 residents completed their first full year of teaching. One Aspire principal, she said, called a current resident-cum-teacher “more like a third- or fourth-year teacher than a first-year teacher.”

Kirkpatrick said the goal is to prove that such anecdotes can be replicable – and to back up that claim with student performance data.

If the Aspire model does succeed at better training a new crop of teachers, it will be a notable win. A recent study by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington and Mathematica, a nonpartisan research group, identified Aspire as one of the nation’s high-performing charter networks. And the Aspire Public Schools ranked first in California among large districts with two-thirds or more low-income students, based on 2010-11 standardized test results, with 100 percent of graduating seniors accepted to four-year colleges or universities.

For now, the residency program at Aspire is funded by grants from foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (Disclosure: the Gates Foundation is among the many supporters of The Hechinger Report, which produced this story.) Most public districts don’t have access to such funds, but Kirkpatrick thinks they might not need extra money to create their own residency programs. Aspire operates almost entirely within the constraints of public funding, and the long-term plan is to fund the mentoring program by shifting funds currently earmarked for teacher recruitment and support.

“We are not doing rocket science,” Kirkpatrick said. “There’s not one thing [other schools] couldn’t do.”

This story, "In search of high-quality teachers, charter network trains its own," was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Who says teachers can't make a million bucks? Deanna Jump is a first-grade teacher in Georgia who made $1 million by selling her upbeat lesson plans -- to other teachers.

She’s now among 15,000 teachers nationwide to cash in on their creativity by promoting original materials through TeachersPayTeachers (TpT), an online marketplace to help educators share and sell resource materials, site founder Paul Edelman says.

Edelman characterizes his site "sort of like an eBay or an Etsy for lesson plans, units, activities, projects, exams, PowerPoints, smartboard activities."

He started the site in 2006 as a way for teachers to help teachers -- and earn some extra cash. "Even if a teacher is just making an extra $50 a month, it's a significant boost to their meager salaries," Edelman said in an email to NBC News, adding "our sellers find great pride in the fact that other teachers are using their ideas in classrooms around the country and world."

Today, the site has about 1.1 million registered members and has earned about $14 million so far,  Edelman told NBC News.

"It’s a place where teachers who love curriculum development can open up shop and sell their materials to teachers who thrive on delivery more than creation. It’s symbiotic and elegant," said Edelman, a former New York middle school English teacher who now lives in Fontainebleau, France.

In August, the company grossed $2.5 million in sales, up from $305,000 the year before. Teachers pay $59.95 for an annual premium membership fee to sell materials on the site, with the agency taking a 15 percent cut of most sales, according to Businessweek.

Similar sites are popping up on the Internet: WeAreTeachers, another online community for teachers allows educators to chat and exchange ideas and win cash and prize and Udemy, a site for online classes, recently announced 10 of its teachers had earned a combined $1.6 million over the last year, according to TechCrunch.

Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com

Jump never dreamed of raking in the cash, she told Businessweek last month. For years, the 43-year-old educator and her husband, also a teacher, struggled financially, barely making enough to pay the bills in their town of Macon, Ga. She teaches at Central Fellowship Christian Academy, where she earns about $55,000 a year.

Attempts by NBC News to reach Jump were unsuccessful Tuesday.

She decided to use TeachersPayTeachers about three years ago after much urging from a fellow colleague.

“My units usually cover about two weeks’ worth of material,” Jump told Businessweek. “So if you want to teach about dinosaurs, you’d buy my dinosaur unit, and it has everything you need from language arts, math, science experiments, and a list of books you can use as resources. So once you print out the unit, you just have to add a few books to read aloud to your class, and everything else is there, ready to go for you.”

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Within two years, Jump earned her first million by creating 93 separate lesson plans and selling 161,000 copies for $8 each.

While she's made a hefty amount, two teachers have sales over $300,000 and 23 others have sales over $100,000, and most of that money was earned over the past 18 months, Edelman said.

Jump told Businessweek in September her new wealth hasn't changed her, or her lifestyle, but has given her a source of financial relief. She has paid for her daughter's college tuition and purchased a special van for her quadriplegic brother, she told Businessweek.

“When I realized that we could buy that van and it wouldn’t be a financial hardship for my family, that was really something,” she told Businessweek. “But we really haven’t changed our lifestyle. I drive a Kia, okay? I’m just trying to keep it real.”

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More than 350,000 Chicago Public School students returned to class Wednesday after seven days off during the city's first teacher strike in 25 years.

"We feel very positive about moving forward," Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis said Tuesday after the union's nearly 800-member House of Delegates voted to end the strike. "We feel grateful that we have a united union, and that when a union moves together we have amazing things happen."

Teachers said they're excited to get back to work after voting on the tentative deal article-by-article. One point even received a standing ovation: the freedom for teachers to create their own lesson plans.

For more on the strike, visit NBCChicago.com

Other highlights of the contract include a 7 percent salary increase over three years and 30 percent of teacher evaluations based on test scores. While principals will retain hiring power, one-half of new hires must come from a pool of laid-off teachers.

M. Spencer Green / AP

Students gather outside Benjamin E. Mays Academy for the first day of school after Chicago teachers voted to suspend their first strike in 25 years.

Jesse Ruiz, vice president of Chicago's board of education, told NBC Chicago the agreement means more time for students in school and a revised evaluation system that hadn't been reviewed in 40 years.

"We need to continue these discussions," Ruiz said. "There are a lot of issues that came up that weren't specific to this contract that talk about the quality of our education system."

Education Nation: Get involved in our 2012 summit, Sept. 23-25

Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the deal "an honest compromise."

"In past negotiations, taxpayers paid more but our kids got less," Emanuel said. "This time our taxpayers are paying less and our kids are getting more." 

The deal still must be voted on by the  union rank-and-file, which could take a couple of weeks. It's expected to move through with no problem.

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Updated at 7:08 p.m. ET: CHICAGO -- Union officials agreed to end the Chicago teachers strike, and classes will resume on Wednesday in the nation's third-largest school district.

The Chicago Teachers Union's House of Delegates -- nearly 800 members -- voted to end the strike during a meeting at Operating Engineers Hall, on the city's south side. After the vote, the delegates came out of the hall singing "Solidarity Forever," the Chicago Tribune reported.

The voice vote -- 98 percent in favor -- comes after delegates had a chance to review a contract proposal solidified over the weekend and means roughly 350,000 Chicago Public Schools students will be back in class after seven days off.

The action, however, does not mean an automatic approval of that contract. Ratification of the contract requires a separate vote from the union's rank and file.

"We feel very positive about moving forward. We feel grateful that we have a united union, and that when a union moves together we have amazing things happen," Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis said shortly after the vote.

"We said that it was time, that we couldn’t solve all the problems of the world with one contract. And it was time to suspend the strike,” she said.

NBCChicago.com's Live Blog coverage of Chicago's historic strike

Union delegate Mike Bochner said “an overwhelming majority” of delegates voted for the strike’s end on a voice vote. “I’m really excited, I’m really relieved,”  Bochner, an elementary school teacher, told The Chicago Sun Times.

Ahead of the vote, hundreds of parents had gathered outside the Chicago Board of Education to stand with teachers.

"Whatever decision they make today on the proposed contract, we're behind them," Erica Clark, a Chicago schools parent told reporters. "Parents are asking for the same things teachers are asking for."

Chicago Public Schools teachers walked off the job on Sept. 10 after more than a year of slow, contentious negotiations over salary, health benefits and job security. The teachers' previous contract expired June 30 and both sides weeks later rejected a report assembled by an independent fact-finder.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the work stoppage "unnecessary" and one of "choice."

While leadership on both sides continued the back-and-forth of contract negotiations, thousands of teachers and their supporters for days took to the city streets in a massive show of solidarity.

Education Nation: Get involved in our 2012 summit, Sept. 23-25

On Monday, Emanuel and CPS attorneys filed a request for an injunction to force teachers off the picket lines, claiming the outstanding issues, as publicly stated by the CTU -- teacher evaluations and recalls -- weren't legal reasons for a work stoppage.

A provision added to the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act last year prohibits teachers from strike on issues unrelated to economic matters; those involving pay and benefits.

A Cook County judge declined the mayor's request to hold a same-day hearing on the injunction request. Instead, that hearing would have been held Wednesday. With Tuesday's action by the House of Delegates, that hearing is no longer necessary.

The proposed contract includes the following:

• The CTU wants a three year contract, which guarantees a 3 percent increase the first year and a 2 percent increase for both the second and third year. It also includes the option to extend the contract for a fourth year with a 3 percent raise;
• CPS will move away from merit pay;
• The board will hire more than 600 additional "special" teachers in art, music, physical education, world languages and other classes;
• One half of all CPS hires must be displaced members;
• CPS will evaluate teachers based on 70 percent "teacher practice" and 30 percent "student growth." Additionally, the first year of implementation will not harm tenured teachers and there is a right to appeal the evaluations.

The strike forced parents to find alternative care for their children. Many said they exhausted available vacation time. Others made use of the nearly 150 "Children First" sites that provided students with alternative programming and meals.

As the strike entered its second week, some frustrated parents became more vocal in their demand that both sides end the stalemate. A small group of parents on Monday marched outside CTU headquarters holding signs that read "If you care about the kids, go back to work" and "350,000 CPS Hostages! Let our children learn" and "Don't say you care, show it!"

NBCChicago.com's BJ Lutz and Lisa Balde contributed to this report, as did NBC's Sevil Omer.

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Updated at 10:25 a.m. ET: Delegates from the Chicago Teachers Union told their bargaining team Sunday that they want to meet with the schools they represent before making a decision about whether to end their strike.

"They’re not happy with the agreement and would like it to be a lot better for us than it is," Union President Karen Lewis said in a news briefing Sunday evening, adding that they are returning to their schools with the proposal because they do not want to feel rushed to make a decision.

That means Chicago public schools will remained closed Monday and likely Tuesday, affecting 350,000 kindergarten, elementary and high school students. Parents should plan for their children to be out of school until at least Wednesday, Lewis said.  

Following the announcement, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, calling the strike "illegal," said he would file an injunction to force an end to the walkout.

"I will not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union," Emanuel said, adding that the union walked out over issues that are not subject to a strike under Illinois state law. 

The union delegates aren't scheduled to meet again until Tuesday, in part out of respect for for the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah, which began at sundown Sunday.

A union bargaining team and city officials had hammered out a proposed contract that would move away from merit pay and allow teachers to appeal their evaluations. 

Sitthixay Ditthavong / AP

Chicago Teachers Union delegates arrive for a meeting Sunday in which they are expected to review a proposed contract and vote whether to suspend the week-long strike.

A faction of the union sees it as a "back room deal" that does not have unified support. A source close to the union told NBC Chicago that Lewis' caucus shouted obscenities at her and other leaders late Saturday night, saying, "You sold out" and, "Rahm's getting everything they wanted, what the hell did we get?"   

Lewis, exhausted from a tense week, indicated that she's done negotiating and asked "Will my own caucus defy me?"

At the heart of those who oppose this new deal - they feel the negotiating team did not fight for paraprofessionals and special education teachers and students.

Read full coverage at NBCChicago.com

Some delegates shouted at Lewis there is "no way to vote on something we haven't seen."

Teachers revolted last week against sweeping education reforms sought by Emanuel, especially evaluating teachers based on the standardized test scores of their students. They also fear a wave of neighborhood school closings that could result in mass teacher layoffs. They want a guarantee that laid-off teachers will be recalled for other jobs in the district.

"They're still not happy with the evaluations. They're not happy with the recall (provision)," Lewis said of delegates. 

Still, Lewis seemed energized in a statement Saturday night, buoyed by the agreement, which came after a weeklong strike that began on Sept. 10.

"This union has proven the Chicago labor movement is neither dormant nor dead," Lewis said in a statement on the union’s blog late on Saturday. "We have solidified our political power and captured the imagination of the nation. No one will ever look upon a teacher and think of him or her as a passive, person to be bullied and walked on ever again."

Emanuel's chief negotiator, School Board President David Vitale, said the union should allow children to go back to school while the two sides complete the process.

"We are extremely disappointed that after 10 months of discussion reaching an honest and fair compromise that (the union) decided to continue their strike of choice and keep our children out of the classroom," Vitale said.

The contract includes what Lewis called victories for the 29,000 union members, which she outlined on the union’s website:  

PAY: The teachers union wants a three-year contract that guarantees a 3-percent increase the first year and 2-percent increases for the second and third years. The contract also includes the possibility of being extended a fourth year with a 3-percent raise. A first-year teacher earns about $49,000, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality; the highest-paid teacher earns $92,227.

Chicago Public Schools would move away from merit pay for individual teachers.

EVALUATION: Teachers would be evaluated 70 percent in terms of how they teach (“teacher practice”) and 30 percent in terms of how their students improve (“student growth”). Evaluations will not affect tenured teachers during the first year, and teachers may appeal their evaluation.  

HIRES: Responding to parent demands, Chicago Public Schools would hire more than 600 teachers specialized in art, music, physical education and foreign languages, among other teacher specialties. More than half of large school districts rehire laid-off teachers, according to The New York Times; the Chicago school board has pushed to leave control to principals.

Those new hires will allow for the longer class day – which will be seven hours for elementary school students, up from five hours and 45 minutes. Chicago had been known for one of the shortest school days in the country -- a point that became a sticking point for Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Of those new hires, half must be union employees who were previously laid off. (Higher-rated teachers would have a better chance at being rehired, the Chicago Tribune reported.)

BULLYING: The contract demands ending bullying by principals and managerial personnel to “curtail some of the abusive practices that have run rampant in many neighborhood schools.” Principals, however, will continue to exercise power over hiring teachers, the Tribune reported.

In one instance, according to CBS Chicago, dozens of complaints were made about a principal at Josiah Pickard Elementary School during his five years on the job. A union representative told CBS Chicago that the volume of complaints was not normal for a principal.

TEXTBOOKS: Chicago students would have their textbooks on the first day of school instead of having to wait up to six weeks

Related: Chicago strike: Will teachers union approve proposed contract?

The strike may have hurt Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s image as a hard-nosed innovator, the Chicago Tribune reported, largely because of the mayor’s aggressive statements about teachers – which he implied after the school board nixed half their pay raise.

The strike received nationwide attention in part because Chicago is the third-largest school district in the nation and its teachers hadn’t gone on strike for 25 years, since 1987.

But the strike has made headlines also because Emanuel was Obama’s first chief of staff. Obama, whose daughters attended the private University of Chicago Laboratory School (known as the “Lab school”), campaigned on public school reform and has advocated merit pay.

On Friday, Emanuel released a more muted statement than his ones in the past, according to the Tribune:

"This tentative framework is an honest and principled compromise that is about who we all work for: our students. It preserves more time for learning in the classroom, provides more support for teachers to excel at their craft and gives principals the latitude and responsibility to build an environment in which our children can succeed."

Emanuel had argued for a long school day – which he appears to have achieved with the proposed contract. For high schools, the bell would ring after seven and a half hours.

The contract doesn’t end the school district’s woes, however. After school doors open again, the school district is likely to shutter schools to help close a projected $1 billion budget deficit for the 2014-1015 school year, according to the Tribune.

NBC's Isolde Raftery, Sevil Omer and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Updated at 5:45 p.m. ET: CHICAGO -- As Chicago teachers union delegates met Sunday to go over the details of the proposed contract hammered out late Saturday night, some worried the union would not approve the deal.

A faction of the union sees it as a "back room deal" that does not have unified support. While Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis and her team are ready to present the details this afternoon, already there is a vocal faction promising to vote no.   

A source close to the union says late into Saturday night, Lewis' caucus shouted obscenities at her and the other leaders - "You sold out" and "Rahm's getting everything they wanted, what the hell did we get?"   

Lewis, who is exhausted from a tense week, indicated that she's done negotiating and asked "Will my own caucus defy me?"

At the heart of those who oppose this new deal - they feel the negotiating team did not fight for paraprofessionals and special education teachers and students.

Read full coverage at NBCChicago.com

Compounding the delegates anger is today at sundown is the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah and many of the Jewish delegates feel pressured to vote  even though  they shouted at Lewis there is "no way to vote on something we haven't seen." 

On the other hand, union members could vote to accept the new contract, ending the city’s week-long teacher strike -- the first one in 25 years -- opening school doors for 350,000 students as early as Monday. But delegates could ask for 24 hours to talk to individual members in their schools before making a decision on what to do next.

“We are a democratic body and therefore we want to ensure all of our members have had the chance to weigh-in on what we were able to win,” said CTU President Karen Lewis. “We believe this is a good contract, however, no contract will solve all of the inequities in our District."

Delegates are not the ones who will sign off on the new contract, union leadership explained. That responsibility remains with the union rank and file.

Negotiators started the day with a vow to remain at the table all day, to hammer out final details in an agreement which could open classroom doors again on Monday.

Related:

"Hopefully we can do it," said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said on Saturday before heading into talks to end the week-long teacher strike. "But like I said, the devil's in the details in the contracts, and we want it in writing."

The talks, which began at 9 a.m. Saturday, took most of the day and were still going on 12 hours later. Both sides are working out the details to a "tentative" contract that could suspend the strike and put students back in class.

Once the language of the contract is decided, it will go to the union's House of Delegates for approval. Both sides have expressed a desire to have the contract ready for approval by Sunday.

Even though an agreement is still being negotiated, Sharkey thinks the strike itself was a victory for his members.

"Educators in the city of Chicago feel like they've had their voices heard for the first time in a very long time," he said. "Frankly we're tired of the political establishment taking credit for every gain the schools make, when we're the ones who do all the work."

Earlier in the day, Mayor Rahm Emanuel had no words about the possibility of an agreement and refused all questions pertaining to the strike as he worked the crowd at the Mexican Independence Parade.

Around the same time in Union Park, an estimated 2,500 teachers and supporters gathered for a "Solidarity Rally."

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Lewis was one of the 20 speakers who took to the stage during the rally and applauded the teachers for standing their ground while reminding them the work was not over.

"We are still on strike," Lewis told the crowd decked out in red. "We have a framework; we do not have an agreement."

On Friday, leaders on both sides of Chicago's teacher strike said they have a "framework" in place to end the stalemate that's embroiled the city and kept students out of classes for a full week.

Chicago's first teacher strike in 25 years could end Sunday if the union's House of Delegates approves that action. The delegates are not the ones who will sign off on the new contract, however, union leadership explained. That responsibility remains with the union rank and file.

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Sitthixay Ditthavong / AP

A large group of public school teachers marches past John Marshall Metropolitan High School Wednesday on Chicago's West Side. Teachers walked off the job Monday for the first time in 25 years over issues that include pay raises, classroom conditions, job security and teacher evaluations.

Updated at 3:31 p.m.. ET: CHICAGO -- Classes for the nation’s third-largest school district were canceled for Friday as the Chicago teachers set out to strike for a fifth day, according to NBCChicago.com.

 Negotiators trying to bring an end to the Chicago teachers' strike had said they were confident an agreement would be reached soon, but union leaders cautioned parents it was "highly unlikely" students would return to school Friday.

Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis said she hoped an agreement can be reached by the end of Thursday, the fourth day of the strike.

Lewis told reporters she doubts teachers would be back in classrooms Friday, but said she's hoping for a Monday return. "Oh, I'm praying, praying, praying. I'm on my knees for that, please," Lewis told NBC Chicago. "Yes, I'm hoping for Monday. That would be good for us."

Chicago Public Schools chief education adviser Barbara Byrd-Bennett was even more optimistic, saying she was trying to get students back in class by Friday.

"The conversation was productive," Byrd-Bennett said on Thursday. "There was steady and substantial movement on key issues around teacher evaluation and layoffs and recall.”

Chicago's teachers in the nation's third-largest school district went on strike Monday for the first time in 25 years in dispute of education reforms sought by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

For the first time in days, Emanuel's chief negotiator, School Board President David Vitale, agreed with Lewis' summary of the talks. Only 24 hours earlier, Vitale had threatened not to come back to the negotiating table until the union put forward a better offer. 

"We had a very productive evening," Vitale said. "We all go away hopeful that we can go come together on this." 

350,000 kids out of school
With more than 350,000 children out of school, the patience of parents had begun to fray as hopes of a quick resolution to the biggest U.S. labor strike in a year faded. 

Earlier in the day, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who is based in Chicago, appeared at the site where negotiations were supposed to take place on Wednesday and said that he had met with both sides separately to urge them to settle. 

Lewis said the progress on Wednesday was on the two most vexing issues -- using student test scores to evaluate teachers and giving more authority to principals to hire teachers. 

 Chicago mayor: Get kids in class during contract talks with teachers

"We made significant progress on the teacher evaluation side of the equation," Byrd-Bennett told NBC Chicago. "Clearly we're remaining consistent with not wanting to lower the standards for our children. ... I think there were really good discussions."

 But Lewis said Thursday, there's still much work to be done.

"We haven't even talked about the professional development side," she said. "We want to make sure this is done right. Doing something fast is not the way to go. Haste makes waste."

The union is concerned that more than a quarter of its membership could be fired because the teachers work in poor neighborhoods where students perform poorly on standardized tests, which Emanuel wants to use to evaluate teachers. 

Lewis also said the union fears Emanuel plans to close scores of schools, putting unionized teachers out of work. 

Lewis led the walkout on Monday of more than 29,000 teachers and support staff, saying the union would not agree to school reforms it considers misguided and disrespectful.

Question at heart of Chicago strike: How do you measure teacher performance?

The dispute jolted the United States, where a weakened labor movement seldom stages strikes and even less frequently wins them. Organized labor has lost several fights in the last year including Wisconsin stripping public sector unions of most of their bargaining power, Indiana making union dues voluntary and two California cities voting to pare pensions for union workers. 

The strike in Barack Obama's home city has also put the U.S. president in a tough spot between his ally and former top White House aide Emanuel and labor unions Obama is counting on to win re-election on November 6. 

Obama has said nothing in public about the dispute, allowing administration surrogates to urge the two sides to settle. 

Obama's own Education Department has championed some of the reforms Emanuel is seeking, and a win for the ambitious Chicago mayor would add momentum to the national school reform movement. 

'Difficult for us to understand'
The city is operating 147 schools with non-union staff to offer meals and "keep children safe and engaged," but only a fraction of parents have been using that option, officials said. 

At Disney elementary school, several dozen strikers with homemade signs targeting Emanuel and school policies picketed in cool, sunny weather on Wednesday. 

 Union leader to Chicago teachers rally: In for the long haul

Kent Barnhart, a music teacher for the past 25 years, said neighborhood parents had been supportive, offering water and opening their homes and even joining picket lines to march. But he said teachers were frustrated with the slow talks. 

"It's difficult for us to understand why they have not truly discussed over the last 11 months things that have been very important," he said of school officials. "It didn't seem like they took it seriously -- really important things like evaluations, health benefits and pay." 

Both sides agree Chicago schools need fixing. Chicago students consistently perform poorly on standardized math and reading tests. About 60 percent of high school students graduate, compared with 75 percent nationwide and more than 90 percent in some affluent Chicago suburban schools. 

The fight does not appear to center on wages, with the school district offering an average 16 percent rise over four years and some benefit improvements. 

More than 80 percent of Chicago public school students qualify for free lunches at school because they come from low-income households. 

NBCChicago.com's Michelle Relerford and Lisa Balde contributed to this report, as did  The Associated Press and Reuters.

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Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is ready to "finish it" already.

As Chicago teachers picketed for the third day Wednesday, Emanuel said there's no reason students can't return to classrooms while union representatives and school officials hammer out the final contract issues.

"There is nothing that can't be worked through while our kids stay in the classroom," Emanuel told reporters in a news conference ahead of Wednesday's City Council meeting. "My staff, as well as the Chicago Public School leadership team, is committed to working through these issues, never leaving the table to get this job done. And those issues can be negotiated simultaneously while our kids are in the classroom learning."

Negotiations continued as teachers attended three rallies and continued to picket outside the board of education headquarters. The union said it submitted a new written response to CPS' latest proposal, handed down Tuesday night.

Scott Olson / Getty Images file

Mayor Rahm Emanuel visits Chicago Public School children at Woodson Regional Library, Sept. 10, 2012.

"We've looked at their comprehensive package," CTU president Karen Lewis said before heading into negotiations. "There's some movement forward, there's some movement backward. What we'd like to do is continue to move forward."

For more visit NBCChicago.com.

CTU vice president Jesse Sharkey said his biggest concern with the proposal was the tone.

"[It] seemed to say, 'This is it, we're drawing the line in the sand, now the union's gonna have to come to us, we've done all the compromising we're going to do,' and I think that's a really harmful tone to take in a negotiation," Sharkey said.

It's not clear how much longer negotiations could take.

Earlier, Sharkey told reporters the school board's latest proposal isn't much different than the previous proposal and mostly just moved things around. 

Emanuel and school officials said only a couple key issues remain to be settled, but union representatives said there are 43 left to tackle.

Question at heart of Chicago strike: How do you measure teacher performance?

Sitthixay Ditthavong / AP

Public school teachers cheer as Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, unseen, arrives unexpectedly to address a rally of thousands of teachers outside the Chicago Board of Education district headquarters on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012.

When asked what it hopes to accomplish Wednesday, Chicago Board of Education vice president Jesse Ruiz told NBC Chicago the group wants to make progress on remaining issues, however many there may be.

Union leader to Chicago teachers rally: In for the long haul

"We believe we're not that far apart and should be able to wrap these things up," Ruiz said.

Both sides admit some progress was made. The board agreed to the teachers' proposal on sick days, a health care rate freeze and seniority. They still haven't come to terms on a new teacher evaluation system, and Lewis said they remain "miles apart."

Follow NBCChicago.com's live blog on the teachers strike

Chicago’s school leaders are proposing that student performance on standardized tests count toward 25 percent of a teacher’s assessment, growing to 40 percent in five years.

But Lewis is critical of Emanuel’s push to make great use of standardized tests in teacher reviews, calling the process flawed. Union officials say the system wouldn’t do enough to take into account outside factors such as poverty, crime and homelessness.

"Evaluate us on what we do, not the lives of our children we do not control," Lewis said in announcing the strike. It was unclear what union officials proposed instead.

Chicago teachers strike affects 350,000 students

"This is far more than a labor struggle," American Teachers Federation President Randi Weingarten said during a big rally downtown -- the second massive protest this week. "This is a struggle for the heart and the soul of public education for the kids of Chicago."

In response to one potential next step being weighed by Emanuel and city leaders -- an injunction requiring teachers to get back to work -- Lewis said the mayor doesn't have the legal standing.

"We have a completely legal work stoppage, we have followed every rule," she said.

Meanwhile, student attendance at the 147 strike-designated schools and safe haven sites was reportedly low for the second day. At a South Side YMCA, the site saw just 35 kids Monday and Tuesday, lower than expected.

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