Vallas: Biggest obstacle to improving city schools is Chicago Teachers Union

Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates decried standardized testing. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said schools should be measured by spending, not performance. ‘Accountability’ is not in their vocabulary.

Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates recently went on Chicago radio station WVON to decry standardized testing as a holdover of “white supremacy.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson backed her up, saying school success is measured in the amount of money spent, not performance.

These are just the latest examples of CTU showing exactly how they approach public education. Their aim is not to better educate students, but to get more money and more CTU members while blocking changes to workload, job security and accountability.

CTU is trying to skirt accountability by claiming a lack of funding.

Let’s be clear: funding has never been the issue at Chicago Public Schools. The district spends the equivalent to $30,000 per student based on total operational budget and receives over $12,000 in property taxes per student. It budgets one teacher for every 15 students and one overall staff person for every 7.5 students.

If money creates success, then why are CPS academics abysmal?

About three-quarters of CPS students could not read at grade level on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness in 2023. Nearly 83% did not meet proficiency in math.

The attack on testing is an attempt not only to hide underperformance but also to avoid calls for greater accountability for both schools and their teachers.

It’s no coincidence that CTU leaders, including Davis Gates, Johnson and others either send their children to private schools or magnet schools; and that 3 in 10 CPS teachers send their kids to private schools. Meanwhile, poor families – overwhelmingly Black and Latino – are denied alternatives to their often-failing neighborhood schools. The quality of a Chicago child’s education is now determined by income and ZIP code.

Now that is racist – if not by intent, then by outcome.

Yet the CTU has killed school choice in Illinois and taken to attack public charter schools and magnet schools, which do a far better job educating Black children. They eliminated the private school escape hatch and are determined to eliminate public school competition that is embarrassing the CTU-preferred “sustainable community schools” model. That model is failing students in the 20 schools where it currently exists.

Of all the students attending Chicago charter schools, 98% are Black and Latino and 86% come from low-income families. In selective-enrollment schools, over 70% of children are minority and over 50% are from low-income families. According to Davis Gates, school choice is the choice of racists. She claims “conservatives don’t want Black children to learn to read.” That is CTU putting politics and power above the needs of families and students.

If Chicago were to truly improve schools, it requires five basic changes:

1. Tie the CTU contract to existing revenues and embrace true zero-based budgeting.

CTU’s current contract is already the most expensive contract in CPS history and increased CTU member salaries between 24% to 50%, including 33% for teachers, while also mandating a surge in district staff. Analysis from the nonprofit Kids First Chicago found one-time COVID funding was used to create 9,000 positions.

Leaders should follow a zero-based budgeting approach by limiting the new contract’s salary increases, staffing and other costs to the local, state and federal revenues already available to the school district.

2. The school system must be radically decentralized.

Only about 54% of school district funding finds its way to local schools because it gets caught up in the bureaucratic central office. In 2024, the district had 7,556 central and citywide employees, or one for every 44 students.

Cutting down on bureaucracy and district-managed programs is how to balance the budget and shift much more funding to local schools. This can be done by radically decentralizing the district and eliminating or phasing out many citywide positions and programs.

3. Parents must be allowed to select alternatives to their neighborhood schools, whether public charter or private.

Expanded school choice enables poor families to access superior alternatives to their often-failing schools, creates competition which drives improvement and saves the district money. Public charter schools spend around $8,600 less per pupil than neighborhood schools. That’s because school property taxes are guaranteed regardless of enrollment and the state aid formula protects against enrollment losses.

4. The community must be empowered to select the best school model for their neighborhood school and determine the best use of the building

Elected Local School Councils and their school leaders should have autonomy to determine the most effective use of school financial resources, staff and buildings. This should also include the ability to select the preferred school model – whether traditional public or public charter – and the school building, including the ability to consolidate schools or share buildings if they are under enrolled.

5. Under-enrolled schools should be consolidated, and public charter schools allowed to lease or share near-empty schools.

When former Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed 50 neighborhood schools that were nearly empty to help pay for an expensive new CTU contract, 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 enroll remaining students. If some of Chicago’s charter schools are allowed to inhabit or use empty or nearly empty buildings, this could save the school district in operating costs and also generate revenue from public charter school leases. 

Of course, neither the CTU nor the CPS administration will support any of these reforms as they would disrupt the status quo. The administration wants to sustain its bureaucracy and maintain control over local school resources. CTU leaders want the administration to enforce its contract, increasing members and benefits while limiting accountability and competition.

Chicago will see more calls for equity and cries of racism as long as the current CTU leadership is in power. But the truth is, that is all a game to protect their power.