How Chicago Teachers Union cost 2,000 students their charter schools
The Acero Schools charter network is closing seven of its 15 charter schools in the Chicago Public Schools district. Blame the Chicago Teachers Union’s history of opposition to charter schools for spurring the school closures.
The Acero Schools charter network’s board of directors voted to reorganize the network on Oct. 9, including the decision to close seven of their 15 schools by the end of next school year.
While an announcement by Acero Schools to its families stated the reorganization is not final, the plan remains to “begin winding down operations and close [the schools] after school ends in June 2025.”
There are seven affected schools with about 2,000 students and at least 270 staff. Six of the schools serve students in kindergarten to 8th grade: Casas, Cisneros, Fuentes, Paz, Santiago and Tamayo. One school, Cruz, serves students in kindergarten through 12th grade.
The Chicago Teachers Union released a statement condemning the charter network’s decision to close seven schools. But it is a hollow statement, considering CTU has worked hard to force cumbersome regulations on charter schools, quash their innovations and limit their growth for years.
In 2023, CTU got Gov. J.B. Pritzker to force charter schools to remain silent on union organizing efforts. A significant part of charter school success is linked to their flexibility and freedoms from union mandates and restrictions.
CTU also backed other damaging restrictions.
The Chicago Public Schools Board of Education had approved Acero Schools’ charter contract renewal in 2023 but only gave the charter network a three-year contract. Illinois law allows charter renewals for up to 10 years. The Chicago Board of Education under CTU’s influence has recently been limiting the length of charter renewals to two or three years, as in the case of Acero. That makes it tough for charters to plan, invest in the schools or attract staff when jobs may evaporate in a few years.
The seven schools scheduled to shut down will close prior to the end of the charter’s short extension, which expires in June 2026. It is no coincidence that the charter network’s bargaining agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union also expires in 2026, at the same time the charter school will need to seek another charter renewal.
Educators at the Acero Schools charter network unionized in 2014 under the American Federation of Teachers and merged with the Chicago Teachers Union in 2018 despite the union’s history of denying access to charter schools for Chicago families.
The recently expired CTU contract with Chicago Public Schools already places a moratorium on adding charter schools and capping enrollment. CTU’s demands for the new contract would further limit enrollment at charter schools and continue to deny access to Chicago students and families who want to take advantage of a different public-school option than traditional public schools.
CTU is also demanding the school board adopt a clear transition procedure for charter and contract school closures and reabsorptions. The union is obviously preparing for the ultimate shut-down of charter schools in Chicago.
The seven Acero schools are just the beginning as failing Chicago Public Schools lose an education option that the rest of the nation is embracing.
CTU lobbied for union neutrality agreement which places burdens on charter schools
CTU hampered the autonomy of charter schools when it lobbied in favor of a union neutrality bill. Pritzker signed a union neutrality clause into Illinois’ charter school law on Aug. 4, 2023. It means charter school operators will be required to, in effect, support a union’s attempt to organize its staff, making it easier to unionize charter schools.
Charter schools were designed to combat union demands and improve public education while maintaining autonomy and, most importantly, innovation. “The hallmark of the charter movement is innovation,” said Andrew Broy, president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools. “And it’s hard to innovate when you’re bound by a very restrictive contract.”
The unionization of charter schools not only restricts innovation but also forces many families who had fled the restrictions of teachers unions in public schools to once again submit to those unions’ whims.
Many students, parents and teachers in Chicago charters were historically spared the militant tactics and extreme demands of CTU. But CTU merged with the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff in 2018, forcing CTU’s agenda onto the charter schools represented by the charter union.
Later that year, CTU made history by organizing the first charter school strike in the nation at Chicago’s Acero Schools charter network. The strike canceled class for more than 7,000 students in 15 charter schools, where more than 90% of students were Hispanic.
CTU works to hinder charter school growth and innovation
While charter schools are thriving across many states with enrollment increasing nationwide, Illinois teachers unions and lawmakers have placed burdensome limits on charter schools.
Illinois’ charter school law already imposes a limit on the total number of charter schools allowed to operate at any one time in the state. It caps the number of charter schools at 120, with no more than 70 allowed to operate in Chicago. Many charter schools operate multiple campuses under the same charter agreement.
In the most recent 2022-2023 school year data available from the Illinois State Board of Education, there were over 37,000 students enrolled in 131 charter school campuses in Illinois. Of that, 116 were in Chicago.
Yet CTU has fought to further cap charter school growth – both in collective bargaining agreements and through lobbying.
In negotiating the past two teacher contracts with Chicago Public Schools, CTU required a moratorium on the growth of charter schools. The current contract provides:
“There will be a net zero increase in the number of Board authorized charter schools over the term of this agreement and the total number of students enrolled by the 2023-24 school year will not exceed 101% of the total student enrollment capacity as of school year 2019-20.”
In other words, CTU works to prevent the growth of charter schools and the number of students who can choose them.
The union works against charter schools in Springfield as well, even fighting an effort to help high school dropouts.
CTU opposed a bill that would have allowed four-year universities in Chicago to serve as the authorizer for a multi-site charter school devoted exclusively to re-enrolled high school dropouts. It has also opposed bills removing the cap on the total number of charter schools that can operate statewide and bills raising the minimum funding for charter schools.
CTU hasn’t limited its fight against Chicago charters. The union also lobbied in favor of a bill extending a moratorium on the creation of charter schools that have virtual-schooling components – even though the bill only affected charters in school districts outside of Chicago. It also worked in favor of a bill prohibiting the opening of a charter school in any ZIP code in which a public school was closed in the previous 10 years. It also wanted to prohibit opening charter schools in ZIP codes contiguous to a ZIP code where a public school was closed.
Clearly, this lobbying against the growth and flourishing of charter schools by CTU impacts the whole state, limiting parents’ options from East St. Louis to Rockford.
Families deserve options in the public school system
CTU’s latest demands mean parents’ choices will be further limited in choosing the education that is best for their children. If ratified in the new contract, “the total number of students enrolled by the 2027-28 school year will not exceed 100% of the total student enrollment capacity as of school year 2023-24” compared to allowing a little growth in the current contract.
Parents ought to have the opportunity to enroll their children in the schools that best fit their needs. Charter schools offer an alternative to traditional public schools while still being a free, public-school option for Chicago families. Chicago should expand access to public schooling options by eliminating the cap on the number of charter schools and charter school students – not kowtow to a teachers union that has a history of working against parents’ interests so it can further its own political goals.