The Chicago Teachers Union says city teachers should be able to live anywhere they want.
The union is supporting state legislation that would remove a residency requirement for teachers in the Chicago Public Schools system.
But Mayor Richard Daley says that would hurt the city.
DALEY: Right, you know, you see other cities. You go to Detroit, St. Louis and the rest of them, when they allow government employees who work for the municipality to live outside the city, they lose all their middle class. If you look at all these cities that did that, they lost their middle class of working people.
Rosemaria Genova is a Chicago Teachers Union spokeswoman. She says teachers aren’t emergency responders like police officers and firemen for whom a residency requirement makes more sense. Genova says CPS loses many teacher candidates because they can’t afford to live in the city.
The legislation is now in the House after the state Senate approved the measure last week.