The Chicago Board of Education’s en masse resignation is not an act of bravery. These members are cutting and running to clear the way for Johnson to remove Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez and cave on the Chicago Teachers Union’s contract demands.
It was a cowardly act. Whether Martinez stays or goes, the school district faces a catastrophic financial crisis that will be made far worse by yielding to CTU’s demands.
The attack on Martinez is a sign of desperation for the mayor and CTU leadership. CTU President Stacy Davis Gates dramatically miscalculated by raising expectations that the new contract would provide 9% annual salary increases, more staff, greater job protections and an advancement of a broad social agenda, all advocated by the union’s far left members. She thought Gov. JB Pritzker would come to CPS’ financial rescue. With Pritzker rejecting her demand for $1.1 billion more in state aid that would require he add $4.4 billion to school funding statewide, Martinez is CTU’s and Johnson’s villain and scapegoat.
Pritzker was right to rebuff the CTU’s exorbitant demands. Wirepoints, a conservative think tank, reports that Illinois spends between 16% and 60% more per pupil than neighboring states. The CTU, its allies and the school district claim incorrectly that the state is shortchanging them based on the evidence-based funding formula. These are goals, not mandates, and were set by proponents who see inadequate and inequitable funding as the root cause of Illinois’ poor public school performance.
CPS teachers are some of the highest paid among large districts as CTU members’ salaries grew in the last contract. Since 2019, the district’s budget grew 30% and per pupil funding by 43%, a Wirepoints analysis found. This dramatic growth came despite a 9% decline in enrollment and the CTU forcing the district to close campuses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The district has one budgeted employee for every 7.6 students.
Pritzker not only has provided record increases in school funding but also has been a strong supporter of the CTU legislative agenda. This includes signing legislation restoring the full bargaining rights to unions and delaying full implementation of an elected Chicago school board, ensuring the city’s CTU lobbyist-turned-mayor controls schools through his first term. CTU leaders showed their appreciation by questioning Pritzker’s commitment to public school students, particularly Black children, and his fitness to be vice president.
The CTU demands not only threaten to bankrupt the district but the city as well. I estimate that Chicago provides the district well over $900 million in annual subsidies including tax increment financing funds. The district faces a budget deficit approaching $1 billion next year. With the city facing its own budget deficit, it is in no position to bail out the schools without a massive property tax increase.
There is a pathway to address the financial crisis. It requires at minimum four things:
- Confine CTU contract negotiations to financial issues and limit salary increases, staffing levels and other costs to available revenues.
- Radically downsize central and regional offices and their programs.
- Close and consolidate near empty schools and lease empty buildings to public charter schools.
- Increase enrollment by expanding school choice through charter, alternative, and magnet schools and programs.
Pritzker can incentivize the district and the CTU to take such actions by bringing state funding for the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund into parity with what the state provides other teachers statewide. This would free up the pension fund’s special city property levy, which totaled $557 million last year, to fund the city pensions, helping it balance its own budget. Unlike requests for more state aid, teacher pension funding equity would not require additional contributions to other districts.
Rest assured that the CTU and the district administration will resist these recommendations. The CTU and district administrators have long collaborated to preserve the status quo. The administration seeks to sustain its bureaucracy and maintain control over local school resources. CTU leaders need the central administration to enforce its contract.
It time for Pritzker to re-create the Chicago School Finance Authority, similar the one formed in 1980 that kept the district from financial collapse, to exercise financial control over and furnish financial guidance to the Board of Education. The goal would be to approve budgets and contracts to secure the financial basis for the continued operation of the schools. It would have the power to conduct an independent management assessment and audits. Principal responsibility for education policies would remain with the Board of Education.
Simultaneously, school reform advocates, who are fighting to keep the CTU from controlling the elected school board, should push for a federal consent decree that would end the system that sees low-income families in Chicago, overwhelmingly Black and Latino, relegated to failing schools by virtue of their income and ZIP code. The objective would be to remove obstacles that prevent elected Local School Councils and their principals from improving schools, selecting better school models and supporting parents who seek alternatives to their failing schools.
The central question is: Will Pritzker take on the CTU? His national aspirations postponed, this is Pritzker’s moment to lead. Having long supported the CTU, it is his responsibility to press its leaders and Johnson to be responsible. The CTU’s demands for another unaffordable contract that further undermines education accountability and quality school choices for low-income families poses a clear and present danger to the city and its children.
Paul Vallas is an adviser for the Illinois Policy Institute. He ran for Chicago mayor in 2023 and in 2019 and was previously budget director for the city and CEO of Chicago Public Schools.
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