Children depending on Cairo's teachers

Sometimes, when times are tough and pressures abound, professionals can forget why they began their careers in the first place.

No doubt that is what's happening in Cairo, Ill., where 71 union teachers picked about a month before graduation as the time to go on strike.

They've been negotiating with district officials since July over cost-of-living increases, raises and health insurance. The district cut the first item for some teachers, the second for all of them and wants teachers to pick up the tab for their own health insurance.

Certainly a discouraging turn of events, and teachers form unions to protect themselves from those circumstances. The union contends that the district has enough money to pay administrators, so there should be enough for them.

But even if the argument is understandable, the teachers' timing is not. The children of Cairo depend on them for their very futures, particularly seniors who need to take final exams and graduate.

Perhaps Cairo's teachers need to ask themselves why they got into their profession in the beginning.