Vallas: Chicago Teachers Union destroying even public-school choice

The Chicago Teachers Union and its cronies destroyed Illinois’ only private school choice program. Now they are out to kill charter schools and public-school choice, leaving parents with no option but CTU’s failing product.

The Chicago Teachers Union has long seen public charter schools as its primary adversary, and the union’s on the offensive once again.

Public charter schools present a significant challenge to the union’s monopoly over public education. CTU is continuing its efforts to undermine them.

In a report released May 22, CTU argues for more regulation and oversight on charter schools, falsely blaming them for abrupt closures, financial mismanagement, poor student outcomes and labor violations. CTU released the report in advance of the Chicago Board of Education’s renewal decisions for charter school contracts, which left several charter schools with very short renewal contract lengths.

These same claims of mismanagement and poor outcomes can be made against the union-run Chicago Public Schools. CPS boast some of the highest teacher salaries, highest per-pupil funding and lowest student-to-staff ratios in the country. What does it deliver with all that money? Dismal academic results.

In a city such as Chicago, where most students are Black or Latino, charter schools offer one of the few alternatives to often failing and under-enrolled neighborhood schools. Of the more than 54,000 students attending Chicago’s 122 public charter schools, 98% are Black or Latino, and 86% receive free or reduced lunch. That number could be higher if not for the district’s cap on charter schools and enrollment.

For over a decade, the CTU has worked to destabilize, defund and ultimately eliminate charter schools in Chicago. That campaign can only be described as discriminatory.

How the union attacks charters:

• Capping charter schools and enrollment: Through its collective bargaining agreement, the CTU has locked in a cap on both the number of charter schools and enrollment, regardless of demand or waiting lists.
• Blocking access to facilities: The union has advocated against the Chicago Board of Education leasing closed public school buildings to charter operators or offering them meaningful facility support. Although charters serve around 17% of CPS students, they receive less than 2.3% of the capital budget.
• Underfunding: Charter schools receive on average $8,600 less per student than district-run schools and are excluded from the annual tax increment financing surplus, which has delivered $1.3 billion to CPS since 2019.
• Destabilizing through shorter renewals: Rather than the five-, seven- or 10-year renewals allowed under state law, Chicago charters recently only receive two- or three-year renewals. This uncertainty undermines long-term planning and creates anxiety for educators and families.
• Stripping autonomy through union mandates: The CTU championed a “union neutrality” law, signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, that requires charter schools to in effect support a union’s attempt to organize its staff, undermining the independence charters were designed to protect.

Charter schools were created to offer innovation, flexibility and accountability, free from the bureaucracy and politics of traditional school systems. But innovation is impossible when schools are shackled by rules imposed by the very union they were meant to be an alternative to. Many families turn to charters to escape the dysfunction of union-dominated schools. Now they’re being dragged back.

The story of Acero Charter Schools is a textbook example of CTU’s playbook to destroy charters. After unionizing Acero staff, the CTU led the first-ever charter school strike, forcing the network into an expensive labor contract with restrictive work rules that hampered its ability to innovate. In 2023, the CPS Board granted Acero only a three-year charter renewal, making it nearly impossible for the network to plan and invest in its future.

Predictably, Acero was forced to close multiple campuses because of rising costs and declining enrollment. But because these were now CTU-represented schools, the union pressured CPS to absorb them as district-run schools. Just what the district needs: more failing CTU-run schools.

Meanwhile, the union pushed the school board through its collective bargaining agreement to adopt a formal process for closing and reabsorbing charter and contract schools, signaling its endgame: the systematic elimination of public-school choice.

What happened to Acero is not an isolated case – it’s the beginning of a broader strategy. As traditional public schools continue to fail, CTU is working to ensure families have no alternatives – not even other public-school options – while cities across the country expand both public and private school-choice options.

And the CTU’s assault on public school choice doesn’t stop at charters.

The union is also targeting Chicago’s selective enrollment schools, the district’s top-performing institutions. It falsely claims these schools are “tools of inequality” when they spend less per student than the district average and serve student bodies that are over 70% Black and Hispanic and more than 50% low-income.

The CTU’s goal is clear: eliminate the stark contrast between high-performing selective enrollment schools and the glaring failures of many neighborhood schools. They are not trying to do that by improving the neighborhood schools, but rather by dragging down the selective schools.

Every family – regardless of income or ZIP code – deserves the right to choose the best school for their children. Chicago’s working-class families aren’t asking for special treatment. They’re asking for the same freedom of choice that wealthy families and CTU members already enjoy.