CPS school closings: teachers union demands added pressure to an already-buckling district

by Paul Kersey Sometimes decline is a reality that must be dealt with before it can be reversed – and that’s the situation that the Chicago Public Schools board faces. With shrinking enrollment in traditional public schools the CPS board had little choice but to close down some school buildings and redistribute students to new...

by Paul Kersey

Sometimes decline is a reality that must be dealt with before it can be reversed – and that’s the situation that the Chicago Public Schools board faces. With shrinking enrollment in traditional public schools the CPS board had little choice but to close down some school buildings and redistribute students to new classrooms.

Some of the choices CPS has made are questionable, and it is doubtful that many parents will see any improvement in the education their kids are getting (for reasons my colleague Josh Dwyer went over yesterday). But in defense of the CPS board, it has to be said that they weren’t helped by a union that has done much to drag CPS down, and is only making matters worse by insisting that CPS pretend that it isn’t losing students.

The Chicago Teachers Union’s position all along has been that Chicago schools either aren’t broke, or that if they are it’s only because they don’t tax enough. But CTU forgets that there are limits to how much a government can tax, and it looks like Chicago has run into its limit. The city lost 200,000 people between 2000 and 2010, and Chicago was still the slowest-growing major city in America in 2012.

Meanwhile, CPS struggles with poor academics, which CTU isn’t helping with its resistance to rigorous teacher evaluations. CTU’s pay raise demands have pushed the school system even further into the red. Even before the most recent contract awarded teachers raises averaging 17.6 percent over four years, CPS’s budget was all out of kilter due to a severely underfunded pension plan.

Back when the teachers strike ended last fall it was fairly obvious that CPS would have to respond by closing down schools. CTU’s rhetoric has gotten more and more passionate, but nothing they have said or done has changed the basic arithmetic confronting the school board. That’s why CPS did what they did.  And if the union doesn’t change its tune, there could be even more schools closed down in the not-too-distant future.