Free Republic

They spoke no Spanish, while their migrant students spoke no English. Chicago has a $9.9 billion budget. Its teachers’ unions, who control the city and have one of their own in the mayor’s office, get everything from free abortions to weight loss surgeries, to $145,000 salaries even though their students know absolutely nothing. In math, 19% of Chicago third through eighth graders were proficient on the IAR’s 2024 test, a 2 percentage point increase from the previous school year. During the spring of 2023, 17% of elementary school students were proficient in math, but in the spring of 2019, 24%...

Douglass Academy High School had 35 students with nearly 900 seats unfilled. None were proficient on the SAT. The Chicago Teachers Union wants to add at least eight staffers there and at every other school in the district at a cost of $1.7 billion. Only 35 students enrolled in Douglass Academy High School for the 2023-2024 school year, but the building can hold over 900 students. Logic would say it should be closed, but the Chicago Teachers Union prohibits closing it and other underused schools. In fact, CTU sees the 23 staffers at Douglass as inadequate. CTU’s new contract demands...

Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez said Monday he’s “not going to give up” trying to reach an agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union that averts a districtwide move to remote learning amid a spike in city COVID-19 cases. “I visited six schools today, and our network chiefs were visiting schools across the city. And one of the things that we saw was just significant differences across schools,” Martinez told the Tribune before describing some schools that recorded low staff and student attendance and other schools with opposite experiences. “When I saw that today, it just, for me, confirmed that...

On Monday’s “CNN Newsroom,” Chicago Teachers’ Union Vice President Stacy Davis Gates stated that the fight over re-opening schools in Chicago has “never been about the guidelines per se in Chicago. It has always been about the generations of neglect, under-resourcing, and under-funding, and the defunding, quite frankly, of public education” which has created distrust with the mayor’s office.

Chcago Public Schools officials told principals on Wednesday that the district is "short of the necessary cash for the remainder of the school year" partly because of a pension payment of nearly $700 million due this summer. ... Last month, principals had to absorb $26 million in midyear budget cuts to district-operated schools. Principals tapped internal accounts, cut planned technology and textbook purchases and didn't fill vacant positions to avert layoffs. On Wednesday, principals were told to hold off on $45 million budgeted for "non-personnel" expenses. The district said it wants to save another $10 million through a limit on...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Hundreds of Chicago Public Schools teachers and parents protested at City Hall Thursday morning following 1,400 layoffs and $200 million in cuts to meet a teachers' pension deadline. Mayor Rahm Emanuel delayed a $634 million pension payment until the eleventh-hour on Tuesday, waiting to see any relief would come from state lawmakers. It never came. The mayor and Interim CPS CEO Jesse Ruiz outlined on Wednesday who would be laid off and where cuts would be made. Ruiz said most of the 1,400 jobs cut were in administration and special education programs. Very few teachers were laid...

Four years of up-to-the-limit property tax increases for Chicago homeowners and businesses. Closing scores of under-enrolled and underperforming schools. Thousands of layoffs of teachers and other school staff. More cuts to the central office. That’s what could await the Chicago Public Schools, thanks to the tentative agreement between teachers and the district that is expected to put an end to the five-day teachers strike. Civic Federation President Laurence Msall said the 16 percent pay raise included in the tentative agreement will almost certainly trigger massive layoffs and scores of school closings. Every 1 percent pay raise carries a $20 million...