The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has long been one of the most radical labor organizations in the country from its insistence on teachers being subsidized in political protests to members praising the former Communist regime in Venezuela. Now, with the Illinois Federation of Teachers, the CTU is demanding yet another massive public infusion of money despite the dismal performance of its members in actually improving scores for Chicago children. They are calling for a special session and billions in more funding.
We have previously discussed how teacher unions have become virtual slush funds for Democratic Party operations, spending over a billion dollars on Democratic candidates and campaigns. In return, Democratic politicians have agreed to bloated pension and compensation packages that have driven cities and states into the red, particularly in Illinois.
It is a closed loop of influence and excess. The teacher unions funded Democratic campaigns and Democratic politicians then sign off on windfall union contracts without forcing any improvements for the actual students.
For these students, the system bordered on the criminal. Rather than actually improve their educational results, the Chicago teachers (like unions and administrators in other cities) have lowered their proficiency standards. Even with that lowering, just 2 out of 5 children meet the lower proficiency standards. Forty percent of Chicago students are “chronically absent” from class.
According to the latest Illinois Report Card, 38% of the state’s public school students demonstrated proficiency in math last year. 52% showed ELA proficiency.
Nevertheless, teachers demanded the right to join May Day protests during work hours to speak against immigration enforcement, billionaires, and oligarchs. They called on citizens to boycott stores to oppose the super-wealthy and billionaires.
They are now demanding a special session to fund what “we are owed.”
Chicago Board of Education member Jitu Brown demanded “The $2 billion that we are owed just adequately funds, but when you are repairing harm you have to fund above and beyond.” Brown called on Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who was previously a Chicago teacher and is generally viewed as owing his election to the unions, to repeat his December 2025 $1 billion tax-increment-financing push for the Chicago Public Schools.
As always, the CTU and IFT President Stacy Davis Gates framed the demand in class-warfare terms, calling on Gov. J.B. Pritzker to convene a special legislative session to raise revenue from the “ultra-wealthy.”
Of course, Pritzker did not respond by raising concerns about the dismal educational record for students, but by promising more money. While he acknowledged that they have increased spending every year, with the budget hitting $3 billion, he said the unions are right that they need even more money.
Notably, both the IFT and CTU are demanding that Pritzker reject a federal tax credit scholarship program that would provide tax credits for donations to scholarship organizations that fund education-related expenses for students in public, private, and homeschool settings.
The unions oppose any voucher system that would give poor families a real choice in seeking better education for their children. Both AFT president Randi Weingarten and NEA president Rebecca S. Pringle opposed voucher options.
Some of us have changed our views of vouchers in light of the stranglehold these unions have on public education.
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 diverse, shared experiences.
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 priorities (as opposed to advocacy).
Of course, none of this matters when teachers’ unions are funneling over a billion dollars into Democratic campaign coffers. This is all part of a pay-to-play operation. The unions fund Democratic campaigns and then Democratic politicians fund bloated union contracts. Teachers then cycle some of this money back into Democratic campaigns in a self-perpetuating machine. The only losers are the taxpayers and, more importantly, the children.
Time to cue Pringle on using their massive political campaign chests to “win all the things”:
Chicago Teaches and their Radical Leadership is well Over Paid/ More Money More Benefits etc. They always want more an dmore $$$$.
Oh look, Jonathan Turley is recycling the classic “greedy teachers union vs. captive children” script while conveniently deleting the actual math. Calling Chicago Public Schools a “slush fund” is a neat rhetorical trick, but it totally ignores that the state of Illinois shortchanges its own Evidence-Based Funding formula by $3 billion annually, and that the current district deficit is fueled by expiring federal COVID relief—not just union contracts.
Turley’s sudden conversion to the church of voucher privatization as the “only way” to save the kids is particularly disingenuous. He claims voucher systems rescue families from failure, yet he completely blanks on the actual data from his favorite school-choice poster children.Look at Florida: after removing income limits and adopting universal vouchers, the program’s cost skyrocketed from $1.4 billion to over $4.5 billion annually. According to the Education Law Center, state aid rerouted to private vouchers averages $8,833 per pupil, while aid left for actual public school students averages less than half of that at $4,405.
Worse yet, a recent state audit revealed that Florida couldn’t fully account for $270 million in taxpayer voucher funds due to a complete lack of oversight. If vouchers are a magic bullet for academic excellence, Florida’s cratering test scores missed the memo; its 8th-grade reading rankings on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) plummeted from 25th in the nation in 2017 down to a dismal 43rd in 2024.
Pretending privatization fixes education while the data shows it just drains public coffers to subsidize wealthy private school tuition and tank student performance isn’t analysis—it’s just carrying water for a political agenda.
Blaming Teacher Unions for things out of their control is typical turley.
What they are owed?
What are the taxpayers and the children owed by the teachers union? Something like well educated children? Or at least a child who can read their own diploma.
Go ahead. Raise taxes to pay them more for nothing. Watch as the exodus increases.
Professor Turley has changed his mind about school vouchers and what the teacher’s unions are doing to our children but once again will not change that voter registration from Dem to Republican. It will happen Professor, just pull the band-aid off and make the move already. You see what is happening in NY, in Seattle, in MI and in LA with socialists/communists, and in NY even worse, becoming the new Democrat party so understand that they have left you and the party is gone.
Ya know Jenny Craig has an 800 number.
They’re all stuffed in the video. Pigs.
The End of the Barry Era is near.
Just got replaced in Ny. Buh bye.
Unions can be beneficial in the private sector if the employer is not considerate of the employees. In the public sector they should be outlawed because of the conflict of interest between negotiations and donations.
Years ago one of the departments I managed as a satellite of the main center voted to go union. Most of the employees in the department were students at Stanford. After looking at the contract, I called a meeting in which I told them they would all have to be fired. The union contract eliminated the flex schedule that we had arranged so they could go to school. On our own we came to a deal, where I would not know as long as we met the coverage needed to provide the blood services as required.
“Venezuela will never forget the hand extended to our people in these hard hours,” -President Rodriguez
It is just a matter of time when Chicago will be compared as similar to Lagos, Nigeria. The teacher unions have become like a plague of locusts, consuming everything, giving nothing.
Franklin D. Roosevelt firmly stated that “the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.”
These teacher collectives are nothing more than an angry den of thieves, who serve only themselves. Where have all the good people gone?
Serves only? That is the reason for unions. Worldwide too.
Good people? Define it.
Nothing new here. Democrats firmly believe that education money does matter for inner city children of color, but actual education of inner city children of color doesn’t matter a whit.
Why on God’s green earth are teacher unions even allowed to contribute to any political organization
Political influence. Turley stated it. Comprehension problem? Guess you’re one of those whose so called education was not an education.
President Trump and GOP
Outlaw Public Unions, the political army of the Dems
TAXPAYERS shouldn’t fund BRIBES for Democrats!
Outlaw unions? Why? What about private unions? Bribes? Got proof?