Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson appointed a new board of education on Monday. This news comes just a few days after the entire seven-member Chicago Board of Education made the unprecedented decision to resign in protest following pressure from Mayor Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).
The union is demanding more resources from taxpayers for raises and benefits, even though Chicago Public Schools already spend about $30,000 per student per year. The school district is in the middle of a financial crisis and faces a $505 million budget shortfall. The mayor, a former union organizer whose campaign was heavily supported by CTU, suggested that the school district take out a $300 million short-term high-interest loan to placate the teachers union.
The district’s CEO, Pedro Martinez, rightfully declined that fiscally irresponsible idea. Last month, Mr. Martinez said, “I remain against exorbitant, short-term borrowing, a past practice that generated negative bond ratings for CPS and that would likely lead to additional bond rating cuts and higher borrowing interest rates.”
Mayor Johnson reportedly requested the resignation of the CEO and, after he refused, pressured the school board to terminate him. The school board apparently had enough of it all and quit.
“The latest data show not a single student was proficient in math in 33 public schools in Chicago in 2022.”
Following the mass resignations, a supermajority of Chicago’s aldermen (41 out of 50 members of their city council) signed a letter slamming Mayor Johnson for his handling of the situation. “It is critical that CPS leaders keep the interests of taxpayers and our children top of mind as they make budget decisions that will impact the District for decades to come. CEO Pedro Martinez and the members of the School Board, who have announced their resignation, understood the reality of the situation by not passing this loan,” the letter stated.
That said, Mr. Johnson’s hand-picked board of education will probably do his bidding, fire the CEO, and secure the payday loan for the teachers’ union anyway. In a Monday press conference, Mayor Johnson refused to allow reporters to ask the school board he selected whether they would support his plan to fund the demands of the teachers union, his top campaign contributor. At the same presser, the Mayor also compared the opposition to his plan to slavery and said he would do “anything necessary” to accomplish his goals.
Johnson’s board will remain until a partially elected 21-member board takes over in January, following the November 5 election.
Taxpayers aren’t getting their money’s worth. And neither are the kids. In fact, a recent analysis by Illinois Policy Institute found that CPS has doubled spending per student since 2012 while reading and math scores have dropped by 63 and 78 percent, respectively. The latest data show that not a single student was proficient in math in 33 public schools in Chicago in 2022.
The union is a national embarrassment. This year, they called for $50 billion — an amount roughly equal to the entire state budget — for higher pay, abortions, and migrant accommodations. They also claimed in a now-deleted post that “the push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism and misogyny.” Their board member was caught vacationing in Puerto Rico while railing against reopening schools during the COVID era.
This situation with CTU perfectly highlights the inherent problem with public sector unions. Special interests — in this case the teachers unions — are at the other end of the bargaining table with the same people they put in office. The Mayor is beholden to the teachers unions who control him and the teachers unions are only interested in enriching themselves at the expense of children and their families.
Meanwhile, taxpayers and ordinary families get the short end of the stick with no meaningful recourse. They do not have a real option of holding anyone accountable in a system where students are residentially assigned to the monopolistic government-run schools staffed by the unions.
The teachers unions know this fact — and it’s why they fight so hard against school choice. When private sector employees provide subpar services or go on strike, employers feel the pain. Private sector employees have skin in the game, too, because they can lose their jobs. When public sector employees do the same, customers feel the pain, and the unions can fleece taxpayers without accountability. But when customers can vote with their feet – as is the case with school choice — incentives become aligned in a better way. Allowing the money to follow the child creates competitive pressures and incentivizes the school system to up their game and care about families.
CTU knows they ran their public school system into the ground. The teachers union’s president understands that the school system they control is a dumpster fire for children. Stacy Davis Gates, their president, sends her son to a private school even though she called school choice racist. The school she chose for her son has an annual tuition of $15,050, about half of what they spend per student in the city’s public schools.
Of course, CTU fights as hard as possible against allowing other families to exercise school choice because they only see kids as dollar signs. They want to trap other people’s children in their failing government schools so that they can protect their monopoly and hoard the money meant for educating those students.
It’s time to allow all families to escape these failure factories run by adults who put their own desires before the needs of children.
All Chicago families should be able to take their children’s taxpayer-funded education dollars to the education providers that best meet their needs. Only then will the system have a real incentive to cater to the needs of parents, as opposed to the other way around.
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