Union-Run Chicago Schools are Failing Miserably
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Chicago schools are failing right now. In fact, in 30 Chicago public schools, 0% of their students can read at grade level. And if that’s not scary enough, only 20% of those in grades 3-8 in the entire city have met the requirements to be considered “proficient” in reading, while only 15% meet proficiency in mathematics.
So why is this happening? Why are Chicago public schools failing so miserably? How can we explain why students’ educations must suffer?
Well, we can certainly rule out that the problems are not due to a lack of funding.
The per-student outlay in Chicago is $29,207, more than enough to provide students what they need to succeed. And even the teachers are getting paid nicely. A new teacher starts out making $64,000 a year, and can work their way up to $122,000 a year. And that doesn’t even take into consideration pension and healthcare benefits!
So if the problem isn’t due to funding, then it must be due to priorities.
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is supposed to help better the school systems and represent the teachers and students. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case now.
Last year alone, the union spent over $1 million on politics and lobbying. That’s $1 million that the union has collected in dues from teachers and staff that wasn’t used to represent them or make improvements.
The year before, only 19% of the union’s income was spent on teacher representation. The rest, $25.1 million, was spent on politics and union boss priorities.
And in the last 23 years, CTU has spent $17.2 million on supporting political committees that will grant them what they want.
It’s clear that CTU union bosses only care about getting what they want, not about the teachers in students.
In the past 13 years, the union has held a total of five strikes, which interrupts education and leaves students without teachers until the union decides their done striking. The most recent one was in January 2022, when they illegally conducted a walkout with no warnings to make a statement about the Covid-19 protocols.
So the failings of Chicago public schools isn’t due to a lack of funding, but a lack of priorities. When you have an education system being run by an organization that cares of nothing but politics, it fails.
To read more, visit For Kids and Country.
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