Vallas: Chicago Teachers Union’s school closing tall tale
The Chicago Teachers Union wails about schools closing, but it is the union’s actions that have been solely responsible for past school closings and for the conditions that will lead to more closures in the future.
The Chicago Teachers Union has been using school closures as a rallying cry to the public and their members since former Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed 50 near-empty schools in 2013. Now, they’re at it again, creating drama in front of state lawmakers to “Stop school closures. Contract now.”
With President Donald Trump’s administration supporting parental choice, the CTU’s scare tactics will be in high gear as they work to associate critics of the CTU contract demands and Chicago Public Schools’ failures with Trump and Project 2025.
Don’t be fooled. It’s just rhetoric. Since the ascension of the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators leadership in 2010, the CTU has consistently engaged in behaviors and advanced policies that have shuttered schools for extended periods of time, blocked charter schools from using school buildings and created conditions that will force the district to close more schools.
Remember these CTU actions:
The union’s CORE leadership has frequently shut and threatened to shut down schools
When the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators took control of the CTU in 2010, they embraced the “new gospel” of strike power that spread across the country after CTU’s 2012 strike. Since then, the CTU has gone out on strike twice and illegally walked out three times, closing schools for thousands of students in the district. Three years ago, the union illegally walked out on students over COVID-19 protocols, giving parents just hours to scramble for a back-up plan after the union decided late one night not to show up for in-person classes the next morning.
The CTU was responsible for school closings it blames on former Mayor Emanuel
Most of the 50 schools Emanuel closed would be in use if CTU leadership had not forced him to block public charter schools from inhabiting those campuses. They wouldn’t approve it, even though public charters were willing to pay rent and enroll the few community students who had attended the schools before they were closed. There were about 126 public charter schools within CPS that were effectively barred from renting any of the closed schools.
The CORE leadership was responsible for the longest school shutdown in history
The CTU forced the district and former Mayor Lori Lightfoot to keep school campuses closed for 78 weeks after COVID struck. The district subsequently saw its enrollment drop by 38,000. Compare that to the 700 students who did not return to the system following Emanuel’s school closures. The pandemic shutdown lasted long after guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was safe for students to return to school buildings. Meanwhile, parochial and other private schools demonstrated in-person learning was safe.
The CTU resistance to local school improvements is driving families away
Neighborhood schools have continued to deteriorate as the CTU resists efforts to make any changes that would improve student performance because it could hurt their membership levels. The CTU forced CPS to return to the practice of social promotion – or moving up unprepared students to the next grade – to hide poor student performance, failing schools and bad teachers. The school board has ended ranking schools based on performance because parents who are dissatisfied with their schools’ rankings will seek better schools. The CTU’s assault on selective enrollment schools is also part of its effort to conceal failure by eliminating school comparisons.
The CTU’s opposition to even public-school choice has driven district-wide enrollment losses
Charter schools, which educate 54,000 students – 98% of whom are Black or Latino – receive on average $8,600 less per student than traditional schools and virtually no support for their facilities. The CTU contract caps the number of charter schools allowed, as well as student enrollment. CPS has given charters shorter renewal periods, disrupting their ability to recruit and retain staff. Now the district is shifting funding away from higher performing selective enrollment schools in the name of a new student funding formula despite them receiving less funding than the district average.
CTU policies orchestrated the Acero Charter School closures
CTU is rallying to fire Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, blaming him for not having a plan to keep seven Acero charter schools open – schools he doesn’t control. But the closures are a direct product of the CTU’s years-long strategy to eliminate charter schools. The strategy is to unionize charter school employees, undermine the school with strikes and deny the school leadership the flexibility to innovate by subjecting them to the same type of expensive and restrictive collective bargaining agreements that prioritize CTU members over students.
Under-enrolled schools are the legacy of CTU’s leadership
Since Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators took over leadership of CTU in 2010, enrollment at CPS has dropped and student proficiency has plummeted. Only about 1 in 4 students read at grade level and, for math, it’s worse. Families seeking public school alternatives to their often-failing neighborhood schools see those options increasingly limited in a system that blocks improvement to schools and is determined to eliminate public school choice options such as charter or selective enrollment schools.
As a result, people are leaving the district. Since 2000, the greatest exodus of students has been from the Black community. Black enrollment in CPS last year stood at 113,000, less than half the 227,000 total population in the 1999-2000 school year. Children are overrepresented in the city’s massive Black population decline. While there was a 14% decline in the city’s Black population from 2000 to 2020, the number of Black children, age 17 and younger, fell by 49%.
CTU response to near-empty schools is to prevent them from closing
Today, more than one-third of Chicago’s 474 stand-alone public schools are half empty or worse. This is the CTU’s destructive legacy. The CTU now pressures the school board – appointed by former CTU lobbyist turned Mayor Brandon Johnson – to place a moratorium on school closings until 2027. This even though consolations would not only save the district money but would allow more services and student activities to be provided.
The 20 most-empty schools operate at 25% capacity or less, with three schools sitting at less than 10% full. For example, Manley High School has about 76 students and spends $44,000 per student, or $3.4 million total. Douglass with its 34 students spends $68,000 per student, or $2.3 million total. All these schools are barred from closing and their elected Local School Councils have no authority to seek better school models or even consider sharing their buildings.
When CTU says school closures are a problem, they fail to admit they have driven shutdowns, strikes and constant disruptions that have done the real damage. The union’s militant leaders have pressured the district to abandon high standards, accountability and to limit school choice, contributing to the district’s enrollment free fall.
If CTU continues to prioritize power over students, families will continue to flee CPS – and taxpayers will be paying even more as student achievement suffers so resources can be wasted on keeping schools open regardless of the need or the price.