The Chicago Public Schools are facing a major truancy problem…among teachers.
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) was up in arms over suggestions that classes should be held on May 1 when teachers wanted to be out protesting. Called International Workers’ Day, May Day is a global day of protest for socialist, communist, and unionist groups.
The CTU was upset when parents objected that canceling a day of class for teachers to join a political protest was a burden for working parents. These teachers believe that they are teaching something far more important through their activism. In defending the demand for publicly subsidized protests, CTU Vice President Jackson Potter explained that “teaching our students what civic action looks like requires more than textbooks.”
While that does not help with the dismal proficiency scores of actual students, it is vital to training students as political foot soldiers.
The CTU and the National Education Association recently collaborated on a “curriculum build” to bring “social justice into the classroom” ahead of May Day. Dave Stieber, a history teacher in Chicago Public Schools is shown declaring that “May Day is a dress rehearsal for maybe there’s a random day in, you know, June that we all are, like, no work, no school, no shopping…So this is a continuation and a buildup of that.”
In the meantime, with only 2 of 5 students reading at grade level, the Chicago teachers chose to lower proficiency levels rather than improve their teaching record.
While failing on actually teaching students, the CTU is proficient at instructing politicians such as Mayor Brandon Johnson through the use of union dues to fund Democratic campaigns. The CTU and other teachers’ unions funneled millions into Johnson’s campaign. By one estimate, 93 percent of Johnson’s campaign budget came from unions.
The CTU has long held the distinction of being the most radical teachers’ union in the country. It was a CTU delegation that went to Venezuela during the Maduro regime to praise conditions under socialism. In a country where dissenters and reporters were being jailed and killed, the Chicago teachers gushed about how “we did not see a single homeless person!”
Chicago area teachers have been charged with violent protests.
Suggesting that teachers should work rather than attend May Day protests set off the Chicago teachers. Now, the union has confirmed that classes will be held without the participating teachers, and Chicago Public Schools will pay for buses for both students and educators to go to the protests.
The city further promised that there would be no repercussions for either students or teachers playing hooky from school.
This is not the first time unions and teachers have allowed students to skip classes to support left-wing protests. In New York, teachers and students were allowed to skip school to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Previously, students were allowed to skip school to protest climate change.
These school districts do not show the same participatory support for protests on the right. There is no accommodation or city-subsidized buses for pro-life protests or demonstrations in favor of Israel.
Nevertheless, the Chicago school system is declaring that this is what schooling is all about in the Windy City. CPS CEO Macquline King stated that “the agreement honors the proud history of civic action in Chicago and beyond.”
Decades ago, my parents helped create an organization to stem the exodus of families from public schools and to reinforce academic standards in the Chicago Public School system. They convinced more families to remain in the system because they believed (as I do) that public schools can play a critical role in shaping citizens through a diverse and shared experience.
I was long skeptical of voucher systems because of that commitment to public education. However, teacher unions and administrators are destroying public education in America. They are treating families as captive audiences while infusing education with social and political agendas. The only way to break this decades-long cycle of failure, in my opinion, is to give families alternatives by allowing them to send their children to schools with core educational (as opposed to advocacy) priorities.
Nevertheless, Mayor Johnson celebrated the funding of the May Day protests:
“We are pleased all parties are working together to ensure school communities can participate in commemorating International Workers Day…Encouraging participating allows Chicagoans to honor our history while advocating for our future. We look forward to a day of meaningful solidarity and community resistance to the forces trying to tear us apart.
Schools have long been a target for indoctrination by radical elements. The Cultural Revolution in China was the most extreme example where children were forced into protests and taught that political activism came before scholastics under the slogan “to rebel is justified.”
Mao declared that “our educational policy must enable everyone who receives an education to develop morally, intellectually and physically and become a worker with both socialist consciousness and culture.”
In the CTU/NEA seminar, Kirstin Roberts, a pre-school teacher in Chicago Public Schools, is shown explaining that the purpose is to “encourage teachers of young children not to feel like this is stuff that’s way beyond their students, not to be afraid of raising up social justice issues, including workers’ rights, anti-racism, pro LGBT, LGBTQIA plus issues, immigration and immigrants rights.”
The erosion of the line between education and advocacy is now occurring on every level of our educational system. Some universities now have “resident activist” programs or offer degrees in advocacy.
In my book Rage and the Republic, I discuss the rise of the “new Jacobins” in the United States, including a cadre of radical educators who use our schools to pursue fundamental changes in our constitutional system. Law professors and deans are now calling for trashing our Constitution as a threat to the nation while teachers are using classes to radicalize students.
Chicago’s subsidy of May Day protests uses public funds in the struggling school system to foster radical political agendas. It removes any doubt for parents about the priority of Johnson, the CTU, and many of these teachers.
Some of the sentiments expressed in Chicago could have been ripped from Mao’s Little Red Book and speeches. He insisted “education must serve proletarian politics” and demanded “the period of schooling should be shortened, education should be revolutionized.”
In Chicago, the “period for schooling” is now being shortened in favor of “solidarity and community resistance.” While the students may not be able to actually read, they will learn the three R’s of modern education: resisting, raging, and rebelling.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution
I decided not to jump into this one right away. It was interesting to just sit back for a day, watch the debate, and see all the usual suspects do their thing. Honestly, it was refreshing.
What stands out after watching is this. Chicago can create a formal “Day of Civic Action” around May 1, but there is nothing remotely similar around our own founding in this 250th year.
The CPS–CTU deal does not actually shut schools down; it keeps a full instructional day on the books and treats the rallies as field trips or as one excused civic absence with permission. You can think that is bad policy, but it is not what is driving Chicago’s test scores into the ground. The proficiency crisis has been building for decades and comes from deeper failures in curriculum, standards, family conditions, and school culture.
If we are serious about fixing public education, we should go after those root problems, and we should be at least as eager to organize visible student civic work around the Declaration and the Constitution as we are to put buses behind the cause of the week.
I doubt that they will fund anything to support the declaration or the constitution. Moreover, the money used to finance this day of civic action is provided by many taxpayers who don’t not agree with the premise of this so-called day of action. Yet their money is being used to finance this.
Kind of funny.
The demand for racism far exceeds the supply.
Apparently the SPLC has been paying groups like the KKK to manufacture ‘racist’ incidents.
How many people donating to the SPLC to fight racism were, without their knowledge, actually donating to the KKK?!
It’s Jussie Smolletts all the way down.
At least it kind of makes financial sense for the SPLC to stir up racial hatred in this country: MONEY.
What I can’t understand is why the news media is doing it. They must hate everyone and this country.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/04/21/doj-charges-far-left-splc-with-fraud-money-laundering-manufacturing-racism-to-justify-its-existence/
What were they paying BLM, that’s a racist hate group for sure!
“A spokesperson for the HHS did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for evidence to support the secretary’s claim.”
Why can’t the press just say RFK Jr is lying?
It’s all so phoney. This is the US if minorities and the fringe were governing the US? Ha ha…
AI is writing the scripts and it’s Pete and repeat. It is truly crime stricken on the otherhand. That’s real.
Toodles
OT re SPLC being indicted.
How many know that George Clooney and his wife Amal have donated at least One Million Dollars to the Southern Poverty Law Center?
George Clooney is such a useful idiot.
“Ghislaine Maxwell claimed she performed sex act on George Clooney, Virginia Giuffre’s memoir alleges”
Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell once bragged that she performed a sex act on actor George Clooney during a party, Jeffery Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre claimed in her posthumous memoir.
– NY Post
Keep away from Chicago – no conventions, no vacations. no visits at all.
(Apologies to Jonathan’s family there)
Trump’s poll numbers are circling the drain.
Yeah, well instead of focusing on our myriad domestic problems especially not taking control of his deportation effort and adapting to conditions on the ground he let the criminal Netanyahu lie/blackmail/threaten him into more wars in the Middle East. Not a good look for the President of the United States. It certainly doesn’t look like “leadership.” FAIL.
Notes:
I despise Islam
Israel is not an ally
I am not a Christian
I still think Trump is worlds better than any Democrat.
I am sorely disappointed
Trump is not in charge. The Heritage Foundation is, along with Stephen Miller providing direct control.
There is a God!
DNC/CNN gives you their talking points??? Biden was ever in charge???
Unlike Biden- Trump can do more than 1 thing at a time. Getting rid of upcoming nuclear weapons is bad??
Ya, from those lefty polls from MSNBC, NBC, BBC, CNN, NPR, AP, etc–we know how they quote the worst poll and pretend–and tell AMerica during the national news broadcasts, – that it represents America. Actually, he is doing better than Biden and Obama at this stage in their terms. We’re not fooled, bud.
LOL! Nope. FYI Virginia voters just approved new congressional maps adding 4 more democratic seats in Congress.
WILL be in court!!! LOL
Trump’s numbers that matter:
312 electoral votes and 31 states
v
226 electoral votes and 19 states
WINNING numbers!!!
Those are WINNING numbers!!!
Subpoenas were issued in probe of Russia ‘conspiracy,’ then DOJ clawed them back, sources say
The Justice Department sent subpoenas to witnesses, and then withdrew them, in its investigation of former CIA Director John Brennan for his role in the Russia investigation.
By: Carol Leonnig and Lisa Rubin – MS Now ~ Apr. 21, 2026
https://www.ms.now/news/subpoenas-were-issued-in-probe-of-russia-conspiracy-then-doj-clawed-them-back-sources-say
MS Now’s Nicolle Wallace did a live interview with John Brennan that aired ~3:00pm ET – it is not up on the internet yet.
Here you go:
Ex-CIA Chief Defiant After Trump DOJ Drops Subpoenas on Him: ‘I Am Quite Proud’
Former CIA Director John Brennan declared he’s “quite proud” of probes into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election following the Department of Justice reportedly dropping subpoenas related to an investigation into him.
Zachary Leeman ~ Apr 21st, 2026, 6:35 pm
https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/ex-cia-chief-defiant-after-trump-doj-drops-subpoenas-on-him-i-am-quite-proud/
Video:
https://videos-cloudfront.jwpsrv.com/69e8b046_c4c071b81aebdc33c20c2db21902a16e07c25847/content/conversions/amsr3OgJ/videos/YNtTGKNo-34584670.mp4
Let’s see how proud Brennan is when he is doing hard time in maximum security with his ankles pinned behind his ears on the prison train gang?!
Better Video (The Full Interview):
MS NOW? ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Here is an interesting article on BBC.com
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260417-ai-chatbots-could-be-making-you-stupider
Essentially it restates the obvious, yet to quantify the obvious tends to make it more apparent.
It isn’t surprising. Learning to think isn’t easy.
TACO Trump chickens out yet again and extends the ceasefire !!!
What a joke !!!
What a loser !!!
He has extended the ceasefire “until an Iranian proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded”, which is a completely open ended situation that puts Iran firmly in the driver’s seat with total control of the negotiations.
So now Iran can simply refuse to play ball, refuse to submit a proposal, and thus extend the ceasefire indefinitely.
If the ceasefire is extended until they submit a proposal, and they refuse to do so, then that extends the ceasefire indefinitely, and they effectively win.
Trump is too stupid to understand the implications of his own stupidity.
Wait! It sounds as if you are an authority on stupid?
Sorry, TACO and potato head are unfamiliar as is shill.
“TACO Trump chickens out yet again and extends the ceasefire !!!”
The Left and never-Trumpers: “Stop bombing Iran!”
He stops.
The Left: “TACO!”
*That* is the definition of TDS.
“If the ceasefire is extended [. . .] they effectively win.”
If you’re going to lie by omission, don’t make it so obvious.
The U.S. blockade is costing Iran some *$500 million* per day. In what accounting system is that considered a “win?”
They are losing $500 million a day in oil revenues. Trump has given them the opportunity to put the rope around their necks all on their own by extending. this ceasefire.
The left is too stupid to understand the implications of their own economic ignorance.
Anna
They will lose far more than that. Iran doesn’t have adequate storage facilities to receive the daily output from their oil fields. That results in shutting down wells which in turn results in groundwater intrusion into the cone of influence surrounding their well head. That results in contamination of the crude requiring further processing equating to additional lost revenues.
War is hell
NEWSFLASH!
MAY DAY IS COMMUNIST CRIME DAY
Unions are illegal and unconstitutional communist gangs composed of thugs. No private or public organization may negotiate with criminal organizations, aka organized crime. The sole and only bargaining chip of unions consists of breach of contract, intimidation, threats, vandalism, violence, criminal trespass, property damage, bodily injury, mayhem, etc.
There is no such thing as “labor” in the popular sense. Labor is the expenditure of human energy. All humans perform labor, including theoretical physicists, doctors, trashmen, and janitors. Communist unions have no legal rights to or dominion over the term “labor.” Karl Marx referred to workers as the proletariat. What he actually meant was unskilled, poor, and parasitic workers who were seeking other people’s money, usually referred to as thieves.
Unions and communists are direct and mortal enemies of the American thesis of freedom and self-reliance, statutory law, and the Constitution. the Bill of Rights, actual Americans and America.
Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto 59 years after the adoption of the Constitution because none of the principles of the Communist Manifesto were in the Constitution. Had the principles of the Communist Manifesto been in the Constitution, Karl Marx would have had no reason to write the Communist Manifesto. The principles of the Communist Manifesto were not in the Constitution then, and the principles of the Communist Manifesto are not in the Constitution now.
““He couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs”, DJT 4-21-2025.
Minutes later DJT falls, twice, while waking up a flight of stairs.
How, exactly, does one wake up a flight of stairs?
By stomping loudly?
Alternatively, one parades a shapely female flight of stairs by for his perusal?
Oh, an escalator, right?
American schools and universities should teach the truth that unions are unconstitutional criminal organizations perpetrating communist union crime, that crime does not pay, and that the American thesis is freedom and self-reliance, distinctly not parasitism. Americans make money the old-fashioned way; they earn it!
” is to give families alternatives by allowing them to send their children to schools with core educational (as opposed to advocacy) priorities.”
Bravo Jonathan Turley. Competition is the answer. In the long run it will benefit the students, the parents, and even the public schools and their teachers if one is focusing on the student.
Yeah, have Christian schools, moslem schools, voodoo univ, etc. Pay for your own education. If you have 10 children choose the smartest one for school. Public schools are for welfare recipients. Everyone else pay for it.
As to immigration, just come here (jurisdiction) , fill out a form with your name on it and we’ll send you a citizenship card with your photo. All ya gotta do. Nothing else.
/s
Compulsory public education constitutes a violation of the Equal Protection Clause; compulsory public education denies persons their constitutional rights and freedoms.
A person may not be deprived of the “liberty” to obtain an education for his children or denied the equal protection of the law.
^^^ it’s printed within minutes actually and a passport needing only your name is also issued with a pocket for your citizenship card. Millions of pre-made passports numbered consecutively just require a name. No need for English, allegiance, checks, prints, present to vote and yes, presidency is open, no wait, no naturalization, resident or address, nothing else needed. Delete dept of immigration and naturalization. Convert it to dept of citizens.
Simplify
Let’s take this discussion into real terms. What is wrong with Charter Schools in NYC except for the fact that kids are better educated?
They aren’t, at least to the extent that the schools are primarily responsible for causing children to learn. Charter schools usually screen for higher performing students who would do well anyway, often due to parents being available to work with their children on learning critical skills such as reading and the ability to offer resources, such as educational items – toys, games, tools, a quiet place to study and decent food.
In NYC aceptance to charter schools is random so a family could have twins, one in public school and one in charter school where the charter twin does well and the public school twin fails. The difference in the education is enourmous with numbers that are astoundingly positive. Far better then I ever thought, yet they are paid a percapita rate of 75%. The study used to demonstrate the results was incredibly good, and not the typical social science type of study. The only defect I see in the study is a parent has to apply but the results are so good even in same family comparisons, it is not a big deal.
You can hear Thomas Sowell discussing his book on Charter Schools at Uncommon Knowledge or buy the book All the data per school and comparisons are listed.
Yes and genius!