Illinois Policy Institute - Blog - Charter secrets the CTU hopes you won’t find out

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Charter secrets the CTU hopes you won’t find out

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9/10/2012

by Ted Dabrowski
Vice President of Policy

There's a big reason why the Chicago Teachers Union fears charter schools. Charters will expose truths the CTU hoped would never be revealed.

Charter schools in Chicago are already showing strong results in learning. Looking at the average ACT score, for example, you will see that last year, nine of the top 10 open-enrollment, non-selective high schools were charter schools.

Charters also have longer school days to make sure their students learn the skills necessary to advance. Noble is a perfect example of a charter operator that has increased the length of the school day with results to back it up.

But the biggest secret is teacher pay. CPS average salaries are at least 45 percent more than the average charter school salary in Chicago. CPS teachers earn more than $70,000 per year, while the average charter school teacher makes nearly $49,000. The charter school average falls in line with what a median Chicagoan with a bachelors degree earns - $48,866.

The CTU's demands for higher pay collapse in the face of charter school facts.

Average teacher salary by school (2011)

Source: Teacher Service Record