Chicago School District In Shambles As Teachers Union Thwarts Major Change That Could Help Turn Fortunes Around

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is attempting to block the closing of "empty" and "failing" public schools in Chicago despite experts calling for closures and consolidations.

According to a report from Wirepoints, many public schools in Chicago are facing various issues, such as a steep decline in enrollment, budgetary stresses, and "emptying" schools. While experts are calling for school closures or consolidation in the district, CTU has opposed the idea of potential closures and instead is calling for the school district to hire more employees.

"If the union really believes that those staff are needed to improve student outcomes, it should approve of closings and consolidations so the district can more easily provide the needed amount of support staff for every school," Wirepoints said in their report. "Of course, the CTU doesn't approve because that would reduce its membership and its power."

Shrinking enrollment was a key factor that led to the closure of 50 Chicago schools back in 2013, according to the Wirepoints report. Despite some calling for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to either close or consolidate to help "save on capital expenditures," CTU have continued to oppose this idea, according to Wirepoints.

"Most recently, CPS reported just 323,000 students attending schools," Wirepoints said in their report. "That's a debilitating drop of 26% over the two decades."

"The drop in enrollment has been overwhelmingly driven by a 50% drop in black attendance – down by about 115,000," the report mentions. "The fact that crime continues undeterred in the city and that black reading proficiency levels for graduating students remains stuck at near 10% are sure to be contributing factors to their flight."

"CPS wants to spend $1 Billion alone on maintenance/upgrades for the 20 most-empty schools," Wirepoints said. "In all, the district says it needs a massive $14.4 billion to address emergency building repairs and to fully renovate all 522 of its public school buildings. That's nearly $5 billion more than the entire annual budget for the district."

CTU has accused CEO of Chicago Public Schools Pedro Martinez of planning to consolidate or close schools in the district with low enrollment, calling Martinez a "huge barrier to our collective success" despite his denying claims about school closure plans, according to Chalkbeat Chicago. According to a post on their website from Sunday, the union has called for Martinez to step aside amidst their ongoing contract negotiations with the school district.

"CEO Martinez's plans for closures, cuts, consolidations and furloughs, are a call to action," CTU said in their post. "We need to show our strength and solidarity in the coming weeks so that we can win a transformative contract and put an end to discussions of balancing the budget on the backs of our students and school communities."

"Our members know the district desperately needs a leader who will fight for the resources our students deserve and CEO Martinez has lost our confidence," CTU went on to say in their post. "We need someone who can steer CPS toward equity, growth, and opportunity — not back to the harmful decisions of the past. Our students and communities deserve a leader who will invest in the future of public education and prioritize Black and Brown neighborhoods, not leave them behind. We believe it's time for CEO Martinez to step aside for someone who will seize this historic opportunity to transform our schools."

The teachers union endorsed Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson over former Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot in the city's most recent mayoral race in part because CTU opposed reopening the district's schools during the pandemic until school teachers became vaccinated. Some questioned CTU's endorsement of Johnson due to his having been on the union's payroll, according to a report from the Illinois Policy Institute from March 2023.

"Chronic absenteeism has been poor across the nation since the pandemic, but in Chicago it's worse," senior vice president of the Illinois Policy Institute Hilary Gowins said in an op-ed published in April. "That hurts students' futures and the city's wellbeing."

According to data in the Wirepoints report, the number of over half-empty public schools in Chicago has doubled over the past decade. Many Chicago public school students cannot read at grade level, according to a report from Wirepoints in July 2023.

"Chicagoans' deep-seated connections to their neighborhood schools shouldn't be easily dismissed," Wirepoints said in their report. "But neither should the long-term trend of families fleeing CPS, the increase in empty schools and worsening literacy rates. Not to mention the tax hikes as the costs of mismanagement keep going up."

Reading proficiency is one of the key concerns among CPS teachers. According to a report from Public Agenda in May, Many Chicago residents feel that their public school students are not learning enough.

"In brief, Public Agenda's survey finds that Chicagoans think the biggest problem in the city's public schools is that students are not learning enough academically," Public Agenda said in their report. "A plurality of city residents—particularly parents—think the system's main goal should be to prepare students for college."

"The biggest problem is the system doesn't work," president of Wirepoints Ted Dabrowski told the Daily Caller News Foundation. "Kids can't read, they can't do math."

"I think that parents and Chicago residents should wake up to the fact that CPS is spending 30,000 dollars per kid and most kids, like the overwhelming amount of kids, can't read," Dabrowski told the DCNF. "And everybody should know that and everybody should be up in arms to do something about that. You know, school closures is just the beginning, that's not really a solution. Really, we need to obsess about literacy and we need to give parents the choice to go to some other schools besides the public schools."

"I think the biggest concern just when you look at data talking about how students are performing in the district is how few students are reaching grade-level standards for reading and math each school year," policy analyst at the Illinois Policy Institute Schmid told the DCNF. "So this past Spring 2023 is the most recent test data available that the Illinois State Board of Education has released for student outcomes. On that 2023 test, just 26% of Chicago 3rd-8th graders could read at grade level."

"The Chicago Public School's Board of Education just released a five year strategic plan outlining kind of their proposal for how to invest in the district then to improve student outcomes over the next five years," Schmid told the DCNF. "But one big thing that we noticed in their plan is a discussion of how to redefine student success in the district which is just interesting because it seems to have a lack of accountability on the district's part for the increasing rates of students not meeting proficiency in reading and math."

CPS pointed the DCNF to a statement that says that there are currently no plans to close any schools.

CTU declined to comment to the DCNF.

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