The Acero Schools charter network is closing seven of its 15 charter schools in the Chicago Public Schools district. Blame the Chicago Teachers Union’s history of opposition to charter schools for spurring the school closures.
The Chicago Teachers Union is required to provide an annual audit to members under its own internal rules. It hasn’t done so for over four years. Members are suing to see what the union bosses are doing with the money.
The number of administrators and teachers in Illinois public schools has increased while the number of students has declined. Illinois is adding administrators faster than teachers.
Not even 20% of CTU’s spending went to representing its members during its 2023-2024 fiscal year, according to its own federal reporting.
The Chicago Teachers Union is backing various candidates for Chicago Board of Education. CTU has donated more than $175,000 to their endorsed candidates.
Years of exorbitant political spending in Illinois – more than $24.3 million since 2010 – has secured an enormous amount of political influence for the Chicago Teachers Union. It is now the main political player not just in Chicago, but across the state.
Illinois government workers’ union dues fund Democratic Party campaign committees, which are now seeking to tip the presidential election outcome in swing states. That fails to align with at least 40% of members’ politics.
The Chicago Teachers Union’s internal rules require it to release an audit to members each year. It hasn’t done so since Sept. 9, 2020.
The Chicago Teachers Union’s leaders want teachers to keep parents in the dark if their child asks to go by a different name or pronouns in school. The school district is OK with that.
Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates decried standardized testing. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said schools should be measured by spending, not performance. ‘Accountability’ is not in their vocabulary.
Chicago teachers were handed a union without the ability to choose for themselves. It’s the result of a system that props up government unions at the expense of the members they are supposed to serve.
It may be based in Chicago, but the Chicago Teachers Union’s lobbying affects residents throughout Illinois. The Illinois General Assembly did CTU’s bidding on 60% of the bills on which the union took a stance last session. CTU discontent is growing.
Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates had words for state lawmakers, the governor, corporations and financial institutions at a public bargaining session over a new union contract. She said union demands are not a money discussion, but rather about culture.
The federal filings of the Illinois Federation of Teachers and its national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers, reveal questionable spending, with little spent on representing teachers, millions spent on politics and deficit spending while the big boss got $500K.