Vallas: 10 things CTU doesn’t want voters to know about school board races
With 10 Chicago Public Schools Board of Education seats on the Nov. 5 ballot up for grabs, the battle is on for the Chicago Teachers Union to take full control of the city and district.
According to leaked budget documents, the union has pledged $1 million to their slate of candidates with the aim of increasing their ranks, protecting their members, increasing compensation and reducing their workloads. They plan to deploy their funding and door knockers to boost far-left progressives and Socialists who are anti-police, anti-incarceration, anti-school choice and anti-accountability. They want higher taxes, more mandates and big government to be the answer to all problems.
The repercussions of CTU’s dominance of their former lobbyist turned Mayor Brandon Johnson should now be clear to all. He’s handed them a $271-million financial windfall from Chicago’s 2024 budget. He removed police from schools. He immediately criticized and demanded changes to the district’s recently approved $9.9 billion budget, which already increases spending by $500 million and adds 800 additional CTU member employees to the shrinking district. He’s been in nonstop communication with CTU to the tune of 1,200-plus pages of emails between Stacy Davis Gates and other CTU leaders.
Chicago can’t let more of its governance fall under CTU control.
A CPS school board controlled by the union would be disastrous for children. The CTU always opposes any changes that could improve student outcomes if they somehow degrade CTU membership levels or job security or heighten accountability and results.
Most harmed would be low-income, minority families. They can’t afford alternatives to Chicago’s often failing district schools and are increasingly denied even public school alternatives such as charter and magnet schools.
CTU control of the board would also have devastating financial implications for the city and taxpayers. Property taxes would rise and the city would be forced to increase its school subsidies at the expense of the city services the rest of us rely on.
The CTU derives its power from our public schools. More members mean more political power through increased foot soldiers and member dues feeding the CTU machine.
Democratically electing our school board offers a historic opportunity to free CPS from the CTU’s grip. It’s a chance to empower the community to dismantle CPS’ central bureaucracy and demand more than 54% of district funding go into the classroom, where it can actually impact kids. It’s an opportunity to once again give parents the choice to select from a variety of schools: traditional, charter, magnet and so on.
With the election almost three months away, Chicagoans should be aware of the CTU’s involvement in the CPS school board races and what it means for the city.
Here are 10 things the CTU doesn’t want you to know:
1. Chicago’s education spending ranks second among large school districts nationwide. While CPS’ budget has grown by 24% since 2019, CPS has hiked per pupil spending by 40%. CPS spends approximately $30,000 per student in a state that spends 19-64% more per pupil than its neighbors and other Midwestern states.
2. Despite rising spending, CPS’ student outcomes remain abysmal. Despite spending on the district nearly doubling between 2012 and 2022, test scores have plummeted. Reading proficiency for third through eighth graders is only 25.9%. Math proficiency comes in at 17.5%.
3. CPS accounts for most of Chicagoans’ tax burdens. CPS’ share of total property tax revenues raised by local governments in Chicago has risen from 45% in 1990 to 56% in 2022, according to the Civic Federation. CPS also receives 25% of all state K-12 funding and takes 40% of all federal funds, including $2.8 billion in COVID federal handouts that have all but been exhausted. Plus, the city provides an $800 million annual subsidy.
4. CPS staff is growing while enrollment shrinks. The district added 14.5% more staff despite losing 9% of its enrollment. CPS now has one employee for every 7.5 students. Despite their growing ranks, the CTU accepts no responsibility for struggling students, failing schools or underperforming teachers.
5. CTU already had the most expensive contract in history. CTU’s expiring 2019-2024 contract – which they now complain about incessantly – was the most expensive in city history, adding thousands of union jobs and raising CTU salaries between 24-50%. This, while not adding one minute of teaching time to the school year. The CTU’s current demands are more of the same, which will cost taxpayers at least $10 billion.
6. During the more than two decades the Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators have ruled CTU, teachers have walked off the job five times and threatened to strike many others. CTU also illegally forced CPS to remain closed for 17 months during the pandemic, in utter defiance of the science and at great cost to student achievement.
7. It is the CTU, not Mayor Rahm Emanuel, to blame for having empty school buildings. When former Mayor Emanuel closed 50 neighborhood schools that were nearly empty to help pay for an expensive new CTU contract, CTU’s extreme Caucus of Rank and File Educators used it as a rallying cry to become more progressive and aggressive. Part of the deal was CPS promised not to turn any of the newly-emptied schools over to charter schools, despite those schools’ willingness to pay rent and enroll remaining students. There are 114 public charter schools in the Chicago Public Schools district that are effectively barred from renting any of the closed schools.
8. The district systematically discriminates against public charter schools that help poor and minority students. Chicago’s charter schools enroll 54,000 students, including 25% of all high school and 10% of all K-12 students. These schools receive $8,600 less per pupil than CPS, and zero facility support. Chicago’s charter school students are 98% Black and Latino and 86% low income.
9. The CTU spent big to end the state’s private school scholarship for poor families, as part of its war on school choice. It successfully stunted public charter school expansion. Now, it’s targeting the magnet schools – continuing the campaign that victimizes poor Black and Hispanic families.
10. The CTU-backed school board voted to remove all police from schools, despite a 26% increase in school-based violence in one year. There were 470 reported complaints of sexual abuse and misconduct in 2022, yet CTU blocked investigations into school sexual abuse cases to protect its members.
Taxpayers and students are supposed to have elected champions on the school board and in City Hall. Hope dies if those champions are controlled by the CTU.