Is This Any Way to Run a City’s Schools?

Even by comparison with other underperforming, Big Labor-dominated government K-12 school districts, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system is doing a miserable job of educating children and preparing them to be responsible adults. 

Many if not most of CPS’s middle- and high-school students are illiterate or barely literate. According to the Nation’s Report Card, just 21% of Chicago eighth graders are “proficient” readers.

The failure of CPS to furnish even a basic education for most kids does not, unfortunately, appear to trouble in the least the top officials of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU/AFT/AFL-CIO), who under Illinois law effectively co-manage government schools with local elected officials. 

In a March 5 speech, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates made no bones to local, state, and federal taxpayers about Big Labor’s bottom line for the next four-year CPS union contract, which is scheduled to commence at the beginning of the 2024-25 school year. It’s all about more money and power for the CTU brass. 

The union hierarchy’s demands, declared Ms. Davis Gates, “will cost $50 billion and three cents. And so what? That’s audacity. That’s Chicago.”

NATIONAL RIGHT TO WORK COMMITTEE

All contents from this article were originally published on the National Right to Work Committee Website.

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