your graduation. you will get knocked down, and it s in the valley that your character gets revealed, not at the peak. parents continue to voice their objections to the mayor s plan, but the most vocal critic is the chicago teacher s union. he is the murder mayor. look at the murder rate in this city. he s murdering schools, he s murdering good jobs, he s murdering housing. i don t know what else to call him. he s the murder mayor. chicago teacher s union president karen lewis is mayor emanuel s most outspoken opponent. it s the largest teacher strike this country has teen in two decades. in 2012, she led teachers out on a week-long strike and faced off with rahm emanuel. he s a liar. and a bully.
we have a murder problem, he s murdering schools, he s murdering communities and it s okay, how is that okay? willie cochran remains optimistic even for schools on that list. i would say to the frustrated parents, there s still time to work. after all he says this is chicago. martin savage, cnn, chicago. great story. cnn newsroom continues now with fredricka whitfield. you talked about hunkering down. there s a nasty storm heading throughout the midwest and along the northeast. we ll be taking you to see more about that. in the meantime, all along the east coast, a bright fireball actually streaked across the sky last night and caught the attention of a lot of people. experts say it was a meteor. and in a real shocker,
i really don t know. i don t know what s going to happen. reporter: parents also fear chicago s notorious gang problems as kids cross into strange neighborhoods to attend new schools. okay. you have certain gangs, you know, you got certain kids that go to certain schools because it s in their neighborhood. so when you go outside of your neighborhood, you know, that becomes a problem. reporter: some blame the high number of school closings on the chicago teachers union which won a significant pay raise for teachers last fall. but the head of the union blames mayor rahm emanuel. we have a murder mayor. we have a murder problem. he s murdering schools, he s murdering communities, and it s okay. how is that okay? reporter: willie cochran remains optimistic even for schools on that list. i would say to the parents that are frustrated right now, there s still time to work. reporter: after all, he says, this is chicago.