Illinois Federation of Teachers lied about its membership numbers
A report from the union itself showed it had 16,500 fewer members last year than it claimed. Is it lying about anything else?
At least 16,542 Illinois educators and other school personnel have rejected membership in the Illinois Federation of Teachers.
That didn’t stop the union from lying to the public about its membership numbers.
The union’s claim: In a February 2025 press release, IFT said “educators and state workers from the 105,000-member Illinois Federation of Teachers” had rallied at the Capitol in Springfield.
The truth: The union told the U.S. Labor Department something drastically different. Its most recent federal filing — dated a month after the press release and signed under penalty of perjury — said it had 88,458 members.
That’s 16,542 fewer members than the union claimed.
This begs the question: If the union is lying about something so simple — and disprovable — as its number of members, is it lying about anything else?
One example is the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program, which the union opposes.
The program provides a dollar-for-dollar annual tax credit up to $1,700 for people contributing to scholarship-granting organizations. Those organizations then provide money to eligible public, private or homeschool children for tutoring, fees for dual enrollment, tuition, educational therapies for students with disabilities and other academic needs.
It’s a win-win-win: Students get much-needed education funding, donors get tax credits and no money is diverted from public schools.
But there’s a catch. Gov. J.B. Pritzker must opt the state into the program for students to get the money. Donors get the tax credit no matter what.
A recent poll conducted for the Illinois Policy Institute showed that almost 55% of Illinoisans support opting into the program, and only about 22% oppose or strongly oppose doing so. Opting in gained more support than opposition across ages, regions, race and political ideology.
IFT is focusing its opposition only on the “scholarship” and “tuition” parts of the federal program that could let families choose private schools. It is ignoring — or purposely hiding — that the money also could go to public school students.
The union’s narrow focus would hurt Illinois public school students.
The union’s stance is all about spite. IFT might not like school choice, but Illinois taxpayers will get the tax credits even if Illinois fails to opt into the program. The money donated by Illinois taxpayers would flow to other states. With the majority of other states already planning to participate in the program, Illinois students would be left behind.
That includes public school students.
As an entity that can’t even tell the truth about its own membership numbers, it’s not a trusted source on what’s best for the state’s students when it comes to the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program.