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”:
For many, many decades, public school teachers, their unions, and the leaders of those unions, have been (along with colluding politicians) careening Marxist engines of destruction, ruthlessly unraveling the moral fiber of our children, and sundering the fabric of our society into tatters. The leaders of teachers’ unions should fear for their lives, if they were truly to be “paid what they were owed”, considering the catastrophic and probably irreparable damage they have inflicted on the culture of the US over that time.
GOVERNMENTAL UNION CONTRACTS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL
The Textualist Argument: Public Sector Union Contracts as Prohibited Confederacies Under Article I, Section 10
Premise: Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution explicitly mandates: “No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation.”
1. Textual Definition: A “Confederation” is textually defined as a league, alliance, or coalition of entities joined for a common interest. A labor union is, by definition, a private coalition of individuals organized to wield collective leverage.
2. Unconstitutional Power-Sharing: Elected officials are chosen by voters to exclusively hold and exercise sovereign government power—including hiring, firing, paying, and directing public staff. Signing a binding collective bargaining agreement forces the state to share its operational and budgetary authority with an unelected, private entity.
3. The Prohibited Alliance: By contractually binding public operations to union approval, elected officials create a functional dual authority. This partnership establishes a prohibited alliance and confederacy between the state and a private power bloc, subverting representative democracy and violating the manifest tenor of Article I, Section 10.
Merriam-Webster – confederacy – a group of people, countries, organizations, etc. joined together for a common purpose or by a common interest: league, alliance
Elected Officials May Not Engage In Power-Sharing, Nay, Power-Selling.
The first thesaurus entry for “confederacy” is, wait for it, “union.”
The argument deserves more attention than it gets. If the Constitution means what it says, and states cannot confederate with private power blocs, then the entire edifice of public sector unionism rests on shaky ground at best. The fact that it has persisted for decades does not make it constitutional. It merely means the question has never been seriously litigated at the Supreme Court under a textualist framework. Someone should bring that case.
“Exactly, my dear Watson!”
Only the owners of private property may exclusively “claim and exercise” dominion, including, but not limited to, hiring, firing, paying, and directing employees.
The managers of public property may “exercise” the power of governmental dominion, including, but not limited to, hiring, firing, paying, and directing employees.
No elected official has any power to transfer or delegate the power of his elected office to an individual or organization.
Congress has no power to regulate labor and the Department of Labor is unconstitutional.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
As a financial advisor, a strong argument can be made to engage in short sales of municipal bonds of Chicago and Cook County
As those issuers interest rates will be rising, the existing bonds will plummet in market price.
Turning lemons into lemonade.
Watch for Wall Street to begin creating ETFs whose sole objective is to short bonds of socialist Democrat run cities and. Counties.
Rates Up – Prices Down
Here is an independent (non-party) assessment and fleshing-out of what’s happening with Chicago Public Schools, from the The Illinois Policy Institute, “the strongest voice for taxpayers in the state.”
https://www.illinoispolicy.org/parents-beware-chicago-teachers-union-contract-is-anti-student/
The Illinois policy institute is a conservative think tank. They push pieces for the GOP.
Non-party assessment. LOL!
The article attacks the contract for adding 50 “sustainable community schools,” claiming they have the lowest test scores in the district. This completely confuses correlation with causation. These schools are intentionally placed in Chicago’s most deeply impoverished, high-crime neighborhoods precisely because the students there are struggling with housing instability, food insecurity, and trauma. The model adds dental care, mental health services, and food assistance to help the most vulnerable kids in the city. Blaming the program for the neighborhood’s pre-existing, poverty-driven baseline test scores is deeply dishonest.
The IPI praises charter schools because they operate “without the strictures of teachers union contracts”. What they leave out is that private charter networks often maintain higher average scores by pushing out or refusing to enroll high-need students, such as children with severe physical disabilities, behavioral issues, or intensive special education needs (IEPs)—leaving traditional neighborhood public schools to care for and educate them.
The IPI is the same as the KPI (Kansas Policy Institute). They are outfits funds by the Koch Brothers who are big fans of voucher programs and charter schools. They are hardly…independent.
X -oh, but looks like you failed to point out any FACTS that IPI stated which were false or misleading.
Isn’t that the hogwash you throw out every day when slapped down over your own “whimsical” statements?
look up the definition of “independent” while you’re at it, clown.
If you actually read my response instead of typing in a blind rage, you would see the exact IPI deceptions laid out for you. Let’s do a recap, slower this time, so you can keep up.
Here are the specific, misleading “facts” IPI pushed that you swallowed whole:
Blaming the Cure: IPI claims Sustainable Community Schools “failed” due to pre-existing low test scores. They completely hid that these programs were intentionally placed in high-poverty zones to help those exact struggling kids.
Hiding the Real Math: IPI blames the entire deficit on union raises. They totally omitted that the shortfall is driven by expiring federal COVID relief and a $3 billion state funding gap.
The Charter School Mirage: IPI praises charter test scores as a miracle. They conveniently left out that charters routinely push out high-needs special education students back into traditional neighborhood schools.
As for looking up “independent”—IPI is a corporate-funded, right-wing lobbying group explicitly built to destroy public sector unions and sell vouchers. Calling them independent is like calling a McDonald’s commercial an independent study on nutrition.
NO, georgie, you simply lifted and reworded OPINION summaries from AI. those are not facts. clown. God Almighty.
Oh they are facts alright. You haven’t shown that they are not.
YOU are the one who said that the IPI published false and misleading facts. YOU have the burden to prove so.
I just looked up the cited article and it actually underscores and highlights its sources throughout the article. Or didn’t you know what that meant, X? I see why they call you the clown.
got you now X. you are WRONG!
X aka Georgie wrote:
“Hiding the Real Math: IPI blames the entire deficit on union raises. They totally omitted that the shortfall is driven by expiring federal COVID relief and a $3 billion state funding gap.”
Do you understand what you parroted?
Free clue.
COVID relief funds were a stop gap budget increase to fund technology to allow remote teaching along w supplying useless things like protective barriers that the teachers demanded because they feared getting COVID from the students when in reality… they got COVID from social activities outside the school where social distancing was relaxed.
AKA going down to the pub.
The Unions increased their demands based on adding those funds to their permanent budget.
Since you clearly don’t live in Chicago… watching what they’ve done where even libtards have remorse over Brandon… you clear are a maroon.
The teachers Union should be outlawed and the entire set of teachers in CPS should be fired and forced to reapply based on merit.
They are doing nothing more than communist / marxist indoctrination
-G.
No! they are completely independent. don’t lie to cover your failings of intelligence. How dare you lie?
Lin,
Thank you for posting that. Interesting read.
What a vast,, VAST,, majority of teachers, based on their performance are owed,,,, are gibbets.
As OLLY usually says, we need to get to the root of the problem.
In this case, seems illiberalism has highjacked the pubic education system with their emphasis on wokeness, CRT, DEI, pronouns, and all the other stupid and crazy at the expense of reading, writing, math and other basic subjects.
The teachers union is not educating a citizen class but an indoctrinated one.
The other issue, is the years if not decades of gross mismanagement of not only of the city of Chicago but the state of IL. There is a reason why so many companies and people are leaving. Heck, even the Chicago Bears are looking to leave for IN.
How much did it cost to educate Abraham Lincoln? Maybe the issue isn’t “teaching” but “learning”.
edwardmahl,
That is a very interesting observation.
I do not have a degree from a college but I am self taught on many subjects just by reading books.
That explains a LOT. Reading for comprehension obviously was not one of those books.
found the teacher!
Upstate – Ascribed to Socrates: “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”. This quote has also been ascribed to Galileo. The great historian Jacques Barzun also used this phrase in a letter to the New York Times in the 1990’s, without attribution, so perhaps he is the real source.
“It is not that Johnny cant read or write, it is that Johnny cant THINK.
Thinking has been replaced with EMOTION.”
– Thomas Sowell
Who the —- is this tom guy?
Wow, what an inspiring speech. This speaker is cllearly a product of the Chicago school system which really highlights her eloquence. “We want all the things” is a clarion call to help the teachers and the admin state steal more billions before the federal governemnt shutters this grifting organizatIon. It would have been more impactful if she wore her fur coat and diamond jewelry on the dais because then we could what we are really buying with the education funding.
Imagine a mob boss giving this same speech; oh wait the mob boss is giving that speech!
I am a former government employee (non-unionized) and I strongly feel that NO public employees should be unionized, EVER. When a company negotiates with a union, they are constrained by the actual finances of the company. They represent the share holders who will not accept negative return on their investment. (Would you keep money a bank that paid negative interest on your savings?) The management side has skin in the game. Screw up and get fired. With public sector unions, those negotiating with the unions, those representing the government do not. There is no consequence for agreeing to bad contract with no performance objectives for labor. They don’t worry about profit or loss, they simply raise our taxes to cover their mistakes while pandering for votes from labor. They buy their jobs with OUR money.
Jeff, a Union represents THEIR shareholders too. Their members. It’s how a company and unions can have negotiations over wages, work conditions, benefits, etc. If government workers choose to form a private organization to negotiate terms and pay for it out of their own pockets it’s just as legal as corporations forming representative organizations to negotiate with the government.
They ‘buy their jobs’ with THEIR money. Not yours.
If we had a truly free-market, unions would be defunct, useless, and personal skills and education would matter to everyone as that is the true product of human endeavor. Lefty teachers keep students dumb so that a union must speak for them and their lack of skills. Someone with skills has no such burden, just the burden of the big payday. Anyone in a union today is a sucker or a loser.
Now public unions are totally different. They are akin to the mobsters “Nice community you got here, be a shame if something happened to it” Public unions are for those who lack the will to serve and are just in it for themselves. Attracts the ultra-lazy too. Soon use taxpayer will have had enough and we will break them up. the lazy can collect unemployment for 6 months. Also unions are creeping communism which is the real reason for the leftard support.
If we truly had a free market you would be awash in monopolies. Unions are a way to negotiate as a collective. To negotiate as an individual against a multi-billion dollar monopoly is always a losing proposition.
Unions ensure good paying jobs, good working environment and safe conditions.
If we truly had a free market you would be awash in monopolies.
You have it exactly backwards. Free markets are the antidote to monopolies. Monopolies cannot exist when the market is truly free, since more dynamic and innovative startups will capture their market share when they get too big and unwieldy. The large established corporations try to avoid that by capturing the regulatory apparatus, which means they make the market less free.
(I’m not talking about natural monopolies — where the service is delivered through networkds of wires or pipes, e.g., water companies, natural gas companies, electric companiesare — those are a whole different story, and they are always highly regulated.)
BTW, whatever you say about unions has to be qualified whether you’re talking about public or private sector unions. You might be right about private sector unions, but public sector unions are negotiating with themselves to allocate more taxpayer dollars to themselves, so that’s a completely different story.
“Exactly, my dear Watson!”
Free market competition is always the answer, and citizens have no one to blame other than themselves for not competing successfully.
The one and only thing the Constitution provides people is freedom, which is more than enough for people with ambition, capability, and the inclination to sacrifice and endeavor.
Amen
No representation of the taxpayer in the “negotiations” of public unions with politicians.
Just politicians who kick the can of financial mismanagement down the road and trade concessions and overpayments for votes.
Like having the mafia that is receiving huge kickbacks from a corrupt union negotiate for your company with that union.
Public unions are not remotely like private unions who must deal with management that represents the interests of the company and shareholders.
A private union would be busted for racketeering and felony bribery if it made “donations” to the management that is negotiating on behalf of the company.
If public unions are allowed at all ( they should not be, they were legally verboten for many decades) then all donations to political party, candidates, and political causes by them should be outlawed.
re: Representing a negative return on investment.
Examine this union is and WHO it represents (e.g., stewards and friends get their pockets filled, and everyone else begs for scraps from the table) AND their results (just look at how “well educated” our children are. Perhaps useful information?:
A large portion of NEA dues is devoted to political activities and lobbying, with reports indicating that less than 10% of spending is directly tied to member representation.
Political Spending
A significant portion of the National Education Association (NEA) dues is allocated to political activities and lobbying. Reports indicate that less than 10% of the NEA’s spending is directly related to representing its members.
Breakdown of Spending
The following table summarizes the allocation of NEA dues:
Category Percentage of Spending
Political Activities and Lobbying Over 90%
Member Representation Less than 10%
This distribution highlights that the majority of NEA dues are directed towards political efforts rather than direct support for teachers.
One controversy the Palo Alto school board had recently was whether to offer a 2nd year of calculus. But one wonders whether any of them passed 4th grade arithmetic because they offered each of TWO unions 80% of their annual increase in property tax revenue: https://padailypost.com/2026/06/17/school-board-surprised-at-how-much-they-promised-unions/
I am mystified that we didn’t hear from X yesterday about how steaing property and dumping a mountain of garbage onto the street for others to clean up were noble actions. In fact, X was mysteriously quiet yesterday. Did the cat get X’s tongue for a day?
No. It was a boring article. Awww you missed me. How cute.
Is that really the best excuse you could come up with? Wow.
Perhaps X has an actual life outside this pathetically worthless blog, where MAGA morons with limited intelligence feel the compulsion to gather daily to make the same tired old comments about “leftists” regardless of the actual topic, and then congratulate each other on their “well said” comments in an orgy of mutual masturbation, wherein they convince themselves that they are engaging in the real thing.
Sorry to disappoint you, but this forum is not the “real thing”, which you MAGA morons have obviously never actually experienced.
Gigi – You use the term “MAGA morons” quite a bit. You seem very triggered. Must suck to be you. Reality is difficult for you to deal with, eh?
TDS will do that to a low intelligence person. They hear something something Trump! and they are like little bots bumping into each other trying to make little TDS explosions everywhere. Gets stuck in their head like a bad song and drives them to the edge of society. THEN they can’t get enough of it and inevitably post here, where I identify them, tag them, and attempt to talk them down from the ledge. Failing that insults are the only way to get their attention.
Your ad hominem response, I notice, is completely devoid of any comments on the issue at hand. What is the “real thing” which you accuse “MAGA morons.” whatever those are of not having experienced. Please enlighten us. By the way, don’t we all have limited intelligence?
Well, well, well !!!!
In a moment of intellectual clarity we finally have a MAGA moron who admits that he has limited intelligence. I think that Hell has finally frozen over.
Of course the clincher here is that this MAGA moron, who admits his limited intelligence, does not understand my allusion to the “real thing” in contradistinction to masturbation, thus confirming his limited intelligence.
Will wonders never cease !!!!
Gigi. You seem particularly triggered today. Did you not get enough breastfeeding as an infant? Is it that time of the month? Maybe both?
Ah the stupidity of youth. It seems like that to you because your nonsense does not compute. man woman american foreigner democracy fascism etc you leftys can’t agree on any terminology and keep changing words so it’s true, we can’t keep up with your insanity but I’m starting to think it’s crazy to even try. In a marxist fantasy-world anything’s possible but from our realistic viewpoint it seems you ate too many mushrooms. but please, go on with it cause I like to tag and release you guys anyway.
are you X’s lawyer? Does he need your help here? Do you feel better now after talking about masturbation?
Isn’t there a reflecting pool somewhere that deserves your ire? how about a ledge?
“X has an actual life outside this pathetically worthless blog, where MAGA morons with limited intelligence feel the compulsion to gather daily…”
hmmmm. Strange that you and your “MAGA morons” comments are here every day, multiple times a day. Yesterday, about six times.s
It was a boring article from my perspective. I’m sure it was a rager for you.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. I really believe that. /sarc
Well, what do you have to say about your obvious support for the trash dumper?
Obvious support? How did I express the ‘obvious support’ when I posted nothing about it?
That is right X! It was a borrring article! Who cares if some grossly overweight, DEI executive, dumps out trash on the street all to just steal a trash can! And I did miss you! I was hoping you would tell me what to think!
And yet another MAGA moron of limited intelligence here admits that he lacks the capacity to think for himself, in a clear and unequivocal confession of his limited intellectual capacity, thus confirming my observation of the widespread limited intelligence of MAGA morons. Obviously my original observation of limited intelligence of MAGA morons is now verified by the admission of this moron that he comes here daily in order to learn what he should think.
This sudden outbreak of self-admitted limited intelligence and limited intellectual capacity is truly breathtaking to behold.
Poor Gigi. She hasn’t been laid in 10 years. In fact, no male has approached her or even turned his head to look at her in most of that time. She blames that on Trump. She has a pathological hatred and death wish for all “MAGA morons” as she calls them in her eloquent, informative, articulate erudite way.
Anonymous @1.11pm
Not sure what to make of this comment.
Is it an insult??
Is it a compliment??
Is it an insulting compliment, or perhaps a complimentary insult??
You seem to be insulting me, while simultaneously complimenting my undoubtedly masterful and mellifluous literary style.
Very odd comment. Very suggestive of some sort of bipolar disorder.
But I guess it is only to be expected from a MAGA moron with limited intelligence and low intellect and an obviously tenuous grasp of the English language and its common usage.
stay away from the Thesaurus.
I am NOT MAGA! I have blue hair, shaved on one side, a septum nose ring and I am wearing a rainbow colored tu-tu in celebration of Pride Month! X is the smarts person he knows! Just ask him! I need him to tell me what to think! So who is the MORON now, hint YOU!
Please publicy answer this question so it can backfire on you: What is a woman?
Teacher’s unions are a scam and should be shut down just like the DOE.
they have to win “all the things”. kinda sums it up right there. (speechwriter – joe biden)
“. . . CTU and IFT President Stacy Davis Gates framed the demand . . .”
At what point can we expect the union to demand that teachers give students and parents what they are owed — a quality education.
Some call the union demands narcissism. That is a mistake. Those union leaders and fellow teachers have a profoundly delusional sense of their own worth.
Sam, a teacher cannot provide a quality education to 35+ students packed into a single classroom. Lowering class sizes requires hiring more staff, which requires funding.
A “quality education” means having working heating and cooling systems, librarians, and nurse’s offices that are staffed every day of the week, not just one day a week.
Chicago Public Schools serves a high-poverty student body. Teachers are demanding social workers and counselors so they can address student trauma and behavioral issues, allowing them to actually focus on teaching math and reading.
Calling educators “delusional” for demanding the basic tools required to do their jobs is absurd. If a hospital lacked proper medical equipment and nurses went on strike to get it, nobody would call them “narcissists” who have a “delusional sense of their own worth.” They would recognize that nurses need resources to save lives.
The state of Illinois is legally supposed to fund its public schools, but it shorts them by $3 billion every single year. Demanding that the state follow its own laws so kids can get smaller class sizes, safe buildings, and modern textbooks isn’t narcissism—it is exactly how you deliver the quality education that students and parents are actually owed.
Obviously as a teacher at CPS you agree with the nonsense. Why have test scores been going each year? Why aren’t students held back when they can not read or write, much less do basic math? Why are schools operating with less than 10% of student capacity? Why isn’t the school board combining these schools with other students while decreasing the teacher student ratio? Before you claim neighborhood schools, which are being destroyed by local residents, bussing works around the Country. Why can’t they streamline these operations which will reduce costs, improve test scores while actually allowing those students who want learn a better opportunity for themselves.
The only these chronic absences are addressed is when parents are encouraged by teachers to support their children. When the City of Chicago fails completely it will destroy the 6 County regional area, it will cause the cause the County & State so much financial hardship that no one could afford to live here. There are only so many dollars to go around, communism is not the solution. gates & Johnson are stealing million$ & Gates still refuses to show the membership an actual audit the unions finance.
It time dissolve the district & allow CharterSchools to take over.
X
Our nuns at our Catholic School (and several others) average 45-50 students per class (grades 4-8). Our school aced all exams and received NATIONAL recognition for NAEP scores. I’m sure you don’ even know what NAEP means or represents, but as soon as you look it up, you’ll be back to educate the rest of us
Wow. You go to catholic school and lie like that? Do they teach you to do that too?
The NAEP does not post individual school results or recognize individual schools.
45-50 students per class? LOL!! It’s statistically impossible to have that many elementary students in class. It would be really hard to teach a class of that size with one teacher or nun in your case. You better head on to confessional and tell the padre why you felt the compulsion to lie today. Your BS is so obvious.
The law establishing NAEP explicitly bars the program from being used for high-stakes purposes, ranking systems, or school-level accountability. By federal design, it is statistically impossible for any individual institution (public, charter, or private) to “ace” the NAEP or receive special national recognition based on its scores.
https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/guides/
poor reading comprehension, X? Where does it say that the recognition came from NAEP? Or that the recognition was used for “high-stakes purposes, ranking systems, or school-level accountability?”
Stay off of your computer, clown.
You continue to show you ignorance every day.
again you do not know stuff X. Do some research next time!
X- I went to a Catholic grade school. I happen to remember (because I was gone to another school by 8th grade) that my 4th grade class of 48 students underwent tons of scholastic testing, and results were given to our parents, including our IQ testing results and where we stood scholastically in that class, state, and nationally.
We did, er, quite well. That’s why I remember it.
The comment at 1:47 should be re-read by you, if I might add.
Thanks anyway.
There were 24 boys in my first grade class. And 26 girls. Somehow we all learned to read. Using phonics.
I had to laugh at X post. Illinois spends $25,000 per student per year to offer a poor education to its students and X wants them to spend another $7,500 per student so they can have less students per class (as of last year the average classroom had 21 students not the 35 X misinforms us) or more counselors to hold their hands.
The teachers unions in IL and Chicago should be decertified, they are an embarrassment.
Vincrod: I remember seeing several articles about the inversely-proportionate relationship consequential to school budgets greatly ballooning by the creation of excess “administrative” staff positions while student performance drops.
Illinois does not spend $25,000 per student. According to the official Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) Report Card, the statewide average operational expenditure per pupil is around $16,000 to $18,000.
“llinois public schools spent approximately $24,800 per student in the 2022–2023 school year. This amount is about $4,900 more than the national average.” USAFacts edchoice.org
“. . . a teacher cannot provide a quality education to 35+ students packed into a single classroom.”
Hogwash.
I’ve seen teachers provide a great education to 250 students “packed into a single classroom.”
And I’ve seen k-12 schools and teachers provide a great education on a financial shoestring. (E.g., Marva Collins’ private school in *inner-city* Chicago)
Sam: Thanks for that. If just all our teachers could be Marva Collins! It’s my understanding that both Presidents Reagan and Bush attempted to nominate her for higher (government) positions, but she declined. Some special quotes from her:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050205060910/http://www.edocere.org/articles/marva_collins.htm
Thanks lin. This one’s a particular gem, especially in the context of the Left’s race to the bottom:
“Our approach pushes students to excel, and students like to be pushed. They want to do well. They want to succeed. And once they have a taste of it, they will never again settle for mediocrity.”
Did you know that her students were called “unteachable?” So much for that idea.
Nice try by a narcissist teacher. So what happens to all the extra money they get every year? It never seems to go to things you mentioned.
I received a quality-filled comprehensive education (HS class of 68) where most classes had 25-30 students. The difference was not class size as much as the willingness of students to pay attention, do the work and learn the subject. We had no phones, no calculators, we had a strict dress code, we naturally maintained a polite atmosphere because we were taught that at home and throughout most of society. We also had teachers whose outside lives were unknown to us, who never mentioned societal issues and who spent their lives properly dressed, didn’t form personal relationships with their students and who believed that the topics that they were paid to teach were taught and nothing else. I reject your whiney attitude that you need more money… You need a new attitude that teaching is just that and you need an administrative policy that distractions, unruly students and non-academic topics and subjects are removed from the school campus. You are either aware or willfully ignorant of the fact that you were indoctrinated in university and you are now a puppet of the progressive left in pushing their agenda first and educating if there is time left in the school day. My late husband was a certified NY State teacher but left the profession because of the undue pressure to conform to the prog ideology pervading the entire school system.
Do chicago students live in a traumatic environment? how so?
“Teachers are demanding” you got that right.
Why not let parents decide their child’s education?
and another thing? explain the low test scores of public education. Who’s at fault?
They don’t need social workers to address student trauma. they need to bring that mayor to enforce the laws and prevent students from being shot
Let me know when the NEA puts points on score board.
While many may have been convinced that either communism or islamist terrorism and occupation may be our greatest threat as a nation; I propose that our greatest threat to our nation is the world of academia (and I include in there both the unionized teachers/administrator of pubic schools AND the academic climate of universities that indoctrinate these teachers well before they ever hit a classroom for the first time). These progressives have been allowed to mold the minds of several of our generations to the point that the last generation coming to fruition is, not only useless to society, but so indoctrinated/dumbed down, as to be a liability to our nation as a generation filled mostly with human flotsam that will need constant tending to as they age out. A nation without citizens who hold the basic tenets of a culture close is a nation ripe for destruction and/or invasion – both from within and without. Antifa, BLM, other prog hordes are mostly home grown activists who pose a far greater threat than any invading army because they live, unseen. among us. Public education should be dismantled and a voucher system of pupil-attached tax funds should lead to a multitude of private schools of the parent’s choice with the minimum state overseeing the minimum quality of education and a state mandated final examination to insure basic educational goals. This would end the mass indoctrination and only allow for a minority of such schools spewing progressive ideology.
Agree with all of it.
whimsicalmama,
Well said.
We only need to implement one thing to make it happen. freedom in education. Providence just made new non-public schools illegal!
Thanks to near universal education choice, public schools are being slowly but surely dismantled here in Florida. Despite the huge population influx of the last 5-6 years, public schools are closing or consolidating due to lack of students. That needs to continue and accelerate. The whining and moaning of corrupt educrats is wonderful.
I would love to see this or any other red state phase out public schools one grade at a time. Simply prohibit new enrollments after a certain date (July 31 would work nicely.) A year later there would be no more kindergarten, then no more 1st grade, etc. In just 13 years, public schools would be just a distasteful memory.
Dear Mr. Turley, appreciate the comments from GEB and James; they are spot on. The teachers became radicalized the year I was in the 8th grade (1971-1972). I well remember Ms. Porch, who insisted “it was none of our parents’ business if she was married or not”. I do not remember her being particularly happy, just mean and threatening to us students. The demands of the CTA have only become worse over the years. I do not know of any other business or organization who would have the nerve to demand higher pay with worse results. Is there something wrong with the rest of us, who keep giving in to their demands for higher pay?
Why don’t we test them first to see if they can even read. I’ll bet they can’t.
OH HELL YEAH!!! Them teachers be needin all kinda mo money from the Supremacist citizens of CHI TOWN!!!! Time to get milked you FOOOOOLS! Bah haha – more taxpayer funding for negative returns and nonfunctional juvenile CRIMINALS to be held in CITY HOLDING PENS (oops, I mean City Public Schools) until 18. Nothing like the stinky smell of success by low IQ teachers!!! IDIOTS.
This exemplifies the importance of home schooling. No kids or parents should be forced to accept this as “education”.
It’s absurd.
For thousands of families in Chicago, missing school is not a choice or a sign of apathy; it is driven by basic economic survival:
Major cuts and ongoing shortages in the city’s busing systems mean many low-income students lack a reliable way to get to school.
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) serves thousands of students categorized under “Students in Transitional Living Situations” (temporary housing or homelessness). Homelessness is one of the single highest statistical predictors of chronic absenteeism.
Post-pandemic inflation and family job losses forced many high school students to take on part-time or full-time menial jobs during the day to help their families pay rent and buy food.
Turley deliberately ignores these complex issues to ‘gripe’ about teacher unions and tie poor student performance on things beyond teachers ability to control. Other cities including conservative leaning have worse absenteeism percentages than Chicago. Wichita KS has a 49k% rate.
On the latest NAEP data, Chicago’s 8th graders outpaced the national average for large U.S. cities in reading. In fact, CPS closed the gap with the overall U.S. public school average to just 2 points—the highest relative performance in the district’s history.
Conversely, overall state assessments in Kansas and local data from Wichita Public Schools (WPS) have shown severe, stagnant proficiency cliffs. In Wichita, fewer than 15% of students in key tracking grades met state standards for math, lagging significantly behind national urban averages.
Data shows that Chicago students’ reading scores rebounded faster from COVID-19 disruptions than most other school districts across the United States.
Turley selectively uses Chicago’s 40% chronic absenteeism rate to attack its teachers. However, as noted previously, Wichita Public Schools deals with an even higher attendance crisis, with chronic absenteeism peaking at nearly half (49%) of all Wichita students missing 10% or more of the school year.
Because Chicago has utilized its funding to deploy targeted student-retention programs—such as community engagement coordinators and mental health liasons—CPS has managed to buffer its academic scores and pull graduation rates upward, even while fighting the exact same systemic poverty barriers that are currently depressing student performance in Wichita.
It’s clear Turley misrepresents statistics just to bash Teacher Unions for things out of their control. It’s fodder for MAGA consumption and stoking rage and ire towards Democrats.
George, you couldn’t be more wrong. You plagiarized the entire text by using AI.
Can’t think for yourself, you have to steal from others’.
Who’s George!?
Plagiarize? Nope. Used some statistics from the search? Absolutely. How can you plagiarize what AI says anyway? AI texts are not protected by copyright laws.
Turley uses Grammarly often and it uses AI to ‘clean up’ speech. The only difference is I add data or context provided by AI. It’s a tool that is extremely helpful. Even S. Meyer has started using it. You can tell when his responses when they are more coherent.
GSX, you are a liar. A start-up I am deeply involved with has been using AI long before you ever heard of it. I know because the different tiers of AI and the need for multiple providers make it expensive. I know because I actively fund the cost.
I don’t bother with AI unless I forget some facts or numbers. My writing skills are proportional to the time spent and my interest. AI is too flowery for my taste and frequently sounds like a Harvard graduate who doesn’t know the subject matter, but knows a lot of adjectives. My style when I publish is laconic and edited by a human, followed by a reread. AI is good for data and data comparison, but not for an out-of-the-box thinker.
When AI and you meet, AI becomes the thinker, and you tinker, frequently mindlessly, while copying its words, which makes you or it into a moron. You can make AI sound like a dummy, but AI cannot make you sound intelligent.
X does not use AI! He is way to smart for that! He knows everything! He knows about construction, about rent, being a landlord, airplanes, algae, and now teachers unions and budgets and public transportation in Chicago! We need more people like him to tell people like me with blue hair, shaved on one side, septum nose ring what to think! He is the smarts person he knows!
“You plagiarized the entire text . . .”
Close. But worse. Here’s its idea of “research:”
Copy AI text. Paste it into a rewrite program. Copy and paste that here. All in a maniacal attempt to impress others, and smear JT.
Oh so now it’s “close” to plagiarism? But not really?
To impress? No. To post facts? Yes. Criticism of Turley is fair game. Especially when it’s obvious he’s not telling the ‘whole story’.
Pffft! What a crock. Kids are skipping school…it’s not because they have no bus! If that WERE the problem, take some of the money from the bums of the CTU and buy school buses.
Give us one single example of a child who can’t attend school because they’re living on the streets of Chicago. Just one
Taishi Neuman, a Chicago resident who experienced homelessness as a CPS high schooler. Because she was unhoused and lacked access to childcare or stable transportation, she legally could not attend class regularly and was forced to drop out.
Data from the University of Chicago Urban Labs shows that the moment a child loses stable housing, their attendance instantly plummets, causing them to miss massive blocks of instructional days.
A homeless high school student mother had a hard time making it to school every day?
Kamala’s sister got knocked up as a high school student, had the baby, went to college, and even law school But her family had resources.
Though Rep. Ayanna Pressley grew up in public housing, on Chicago’s near north side, raised by a single mom, she was able to attend one of the most exclusive — and expensive — private schools in Chicago: Francis Parker.
Obama, of course, went to the most exclusive and expensive school in Hawaii — Pun̈ahou. He later sent his faculty discount to send Sasha and Malia to the U of C Lab Schools
Used his faculty discount to send
It’s not that, it’s all the gunfire they have to dodge at the bus stop.
X, as part of your argument you admit a shortage of buses in Chicago. What political party is responsible for the shortage of buses to take kids to school in Chicago? Chicago does have some of the highest rated schools but has lower proficiency in neighborhood schools. The average does not tell the entire story. So Chicago is failing the lower income populace. All this in a city that levees a 10.25% sales tax rate. Higher than both Las Angeles and New York City. Yet somehow they can’t keep the school buses running. Well, at least you told part of the truth about Chicago schools.
We owe you a special thanks for revealing to us that kids from low income areas in Chicago can’t ride a bus to school due to the failure of Democratic leadership of the city. GEEZ.
Thinkitthrough, sigh…..you really, really don’t think things through do you. It’s embarrassing.
Sales taxes don’t fund schools in Chicago. Obviously you didn’t know that. Sales taxes go to fund the general municipal budget for the City of Chicago, Cook County, and regional transit systems like the RTA—not Chicago Public Schools.
Schools in Chicago are funded by property taxes.
It’s not a bus shortage that is the problems. It’s drivers. You didn’t think of that did you? School bus drivers have to have a CDL in Illinois.
The shortage is driven by private market forces, not city hall politics. School bus drivers must obtain a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL). In the post-pandemic economy, private delivery and logistics giants like Amazon, FedEx, and UPS offer significantly higher hourly wages, sign-on bonuses, and full-time year-round hours that public school contract bus companies simply cannot match with their split-shift, part-time schedules.
This is not a democrat problem. It’s’ also a republican problem. If political party is going to be used to lay blame on the problem then the Republican Party can be blamed for bus shortages in Iowa, Texas, and Alaska. They too have similar bus shortage problems.
You never think things through. It’s hilarious.
totally irrelevant Why would the city of Chicago need school buses when they have CTA trains and buses. you clearly don’t even live here since I always see school kids on CTA, and I’ve never seen a yellow school bus
Sure X, we are all wrong about teachers unions and you are right. I guess you can go now. How did you get so smart? homeschooling? certainly not in todays chicago
X is the smarts person he knows! Just ask him! He knows everything about construction, rent, being a landlord, the law, airplanes, algae, teaching, unions, Chicago transportation, local and state budgets! He knows more than the SC justices!