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 borders 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”:
They are acting like savages. They aren’t owed a thing. THEY owe Chicago parents, educated children, and they aren’t doing their job. Fire them.
What is this nonsense about Chcago’s “teachers“? No such persons exist anymore. First, there is no such thing as “institutional neutrality”. Second, there is no such thing as “higher education”?
Chcago’s schools have been replaced by Leftist Indoctrination Entities or “LIEs”, for short. They are primarily designed to promote the IslamoCommuNazi agenda, and actual education either takes a seat at the back of the bus, or it doesn’t exist at all. Thus, its graduates know little about any of the basics that were formerly and commonly taught decades ago, but they are incredibly stupid, uncreative, unproductive, and worthless members of society who can’t even tell you what a woman or a man is or figure out a simple math problem. They can only regurgitate the IslamoCommuNazi talking points that they’ve been spoon fed.
And as the world is replaced with these depraved, degenerate, slugs, the costs of the remaining citizens who graduated from genuine educational institutions from 30 or 40 years ago have risen exponentially to pay for those worthless slugs. And as the population of the IslamoCommuNazi subcretinoids continues to massively increase as the production lines of the LIEs continue to crank out more and more of these depraved, degenerate, slugs, the political leaders get worse and worse. Now, real Americans have to deal with the damages being caused by the lowlife, scumbagwormmeat subhuman filthy perverts as Johnson, Pritizger, Mamdani, AOC, Platner, MTG, Jeffries, Tlaib, Fateh, Talarico, Valdez, Crockett, and on and on and on, when such creatures shouldn’t even exist on the planet, let alone be elected to public office.
“Of course, none of this matters when teachers’ unions are funneling over a billion dollars into Democratic campaign coffers”
Not quite true and substantially misleading.
“Investigative reports and watchdog filings confirm that national teachers’ unions and their affiliates have contributed over $1 billion to political causes and left-leaning organizations since 2015, with over $85 million directed specifically to Democratic party entities”
Over more than a decade only $85M has gone directly to Democratic Party coffers, unlike the implication that the entire $1B not only went directly, but also that it was an annual expenditure.
Hmmm it says clearly “ over $1 billion to political causes and left-leaning organizations since 2015”. Turley doesn’t imply it was annual expeiture to the Democrat party directly.
The most radical unions are the police unions. Locally the police union is looking to get a large enough pay increase that most other departments in the city will be cut by 50% or more. Departments like fire and EMS services, for example, and on-site medical care for inmates in the city jail – which will mean more calls for the police on EMS to transfer inmates to local hospitals and require police officer escorts to do that. Increased labor and increased chances for things to go wrong, driven by a police force who thinks that those approaching retirement, who are contributing less on the streets, should inflate their pre-retirement incomes by 20-25% and therefore increase their pensions by a similar amount.
Great work if you can extort the population to do so. That’s radical.
Speaking of “what is owed”, doesn’t Illinois have an astronomical amount of unfunded pension liabilities?
breathtaking. look at their products: mindless racist orcs who know exactly nothing.
these freaks want what they’re owed? okay, let them bend over while I put on my size twelve jackboot with the steel lugs that enhance penetration.
Leftistst are mentally-deranged monsters.
The Left ruins everything it touches.
OT, but free speech related, the German government, controlled by woke globalists, de-facto banned the movie Citizen Vigilante. Elon Musk, who has proven a champion for free speech, has now put it on X for free. The woke globalist totalitarians lose again. Winning!
“In the film, Sanders, a vigilante upset about violence perpetuated by migrants, decides to take justice into his own hands, killing immigrant criminals and corrupt officials.”
The nice thing about movies is that the writer(s) and director(s) can be sure of who the criminals are and it gives the audience the pleasure of seeing people getting killed who the audience thinks should be killed. As one might reflect, Germany has experience with that feeling and they don’t like it.
If it is on X, it isn’t free. Musk gets a list of everyone who sees that movie to sell to advertisers who enjoy watching someone decide to just kill people. The viewers on X are the product, bundled and sold.
These people are demonic!
The three socialists who just won primaries in New York are beyond far-leftists, they are anti-American zealots whose goal is to bring America down from within.
Genetics are real. Money won’t change that.
Yes, genetics is real, which is why biological males shouldn’t be in girls’ locker rooms, showers, or competitive sports. 80% of Americans agree, but the lunatic Democrats disagree.
There are more proposed bills prohibiting trans students from various activities than there are trans students.
Argument is insufficient. Chicago needs exorcism.
Chicago teachers are owed pink slips, nothing else, they have failed to educate the children miserablely.
an old English teacher corrects your post: the public school ‘teachers’ have INDEED educated the children MISERABLY.