Chicago Public Schools has struck a deal with the city’s teachers’ union that turns students into political props. On May 1, a regular school day, children will participate in rallies and civic lessons before being bused to a union rally at Union Park. The agreement promises no retaliation for participants and for joint lobbying in Springfield.
This deal does nothing to advance education. It simply enables the union to use children as pawns to demand more money from the very taxpayers funding the system.
The choice of May 1 is no coincidence. May Day has long been celebrated as a labor and communist holiday (and perhaps it’s a warning cry for a reason). The mask slips when the union schedules its political action on this date. Chicago Public Schools will provide the buses and the time. Taxpayers will foot the bill for the union to lobby against them, using their own children as the foot soldiers in the effort to extract more government funding.
The agreement exposes the cozy relationship between the union and the school district. The Chicago Teachers Union deploys its money and political muscle to handpick candidates for office. The union then pressures the school board, stacked with union allies, to do its bidding. The result is a district that serves the interests of adult employees far more than it serves students.
Other Chicago schools will be empty on May 1 for a related reason. Consider Frederick Douglass Academy High School. The school is 97 percent empty. It enrolls just 27 students in a building with capacity for over 1,000. It employs 28 staff members, creating a roughly one-to-one staff-to-student ratio. Despite tiny class sizes that would be the envy of any educator, not a single child at Douglass Academy is proficient in math or reading. The district spends more than $90,000 per student in operational funding alone at the school. The outcomes remain abysmal.
The dysfunction extends far beyond one building. Chicago has 80 public schools where not a single child is proficient in math. Another 145 standalone public schools are more than 50 percent empty. These statistics reveal a system bloated with underutilized facilities and excess staff. Yet the union’s solution remains the same: pour in even more taxpayer dollars.
Chicago Public Schools desperately needs competition. School choice would empower parents and force the district to improve. Instead, the union successfully killed the state’s Invest in Kids scholarship program. That program helped more than 9,000 low-income children attend the school that best fit their needs.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Teachers Union president sends her own son to a private school after she called school choice “racist.” The hypocrisy could not be clearer. Union leaders want options for their own families while denying them to the low-income families the union claims to champion.
The latest antics will only make the Chicago Teachers Union’s brand more toxic among Chicago voters. A recent poll found that just 27.5 percent of Chicago voters hold a favorable view of the union. More than half, 53.6 percent, view the union unfavorably. That yields a net favorability rating of negative 26 points.
Half of voters say they are less likely to support a candidate who takes money from the union. In the most recent primary elections, most of the union’s endorsed candidates in contested races lost. Some politicians avoided bragging about their CTU endorsements altogether.
Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman famously said, “The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.” In an open market, dissatisfied families can vote with their feet and take their money elsewhere. But when it comes to a monopoly like the government school system, children are trapped in failing institutions with no recourse.
Union President Stacy Davis Gates has been remarkably candid about the union’s priorities. As president, she’s admitted that the organization engages in political activity so that “Black women can maintain a standard of living” and “have the ability to sustain life without a husband.” There was no mention of improving student achievement. The union’s focus remains on preserving a jobs program for adults.
The numbers confirm the union’s priorities. Chicago public school enrollment has dropped 10 percent since 2019. Over the same period, the district has increased staffing by 20 percent. While families vote with their feet and leave the system, the bureaucracy grows.
The Chicago Teachers Union is also under congressional investigation for failing to provide its own members with financial audits for five years in a row. The union’s own members, with help from the Liberty Justice Center, had to sue to force transparency. The organization that claims moral authority to shape Chicago’s education policy cannot even manage basic financial accountability for the teachers it represents.
Parents and taxpayers in Chicago have had enough of the union’s tactics. The deal to hijack the school calendar for political gain will accelerate the backlash. The district cannot continue to operate as a jobs program for adults while students fall further behind. The solution lies in breaking the monopoly. School choice would introduce competition, empower families, and finally put the needs of children first.
The union’s influence runs deep in Chicago politics, but the public is waking up to the costs. Families see empty schools draining resources while proficiency rates hover near zero. Taxpayers watch their dollars fund rallies instead of reading lessons.
The pattern is unmistakable. The Chicago Teachers Union prioritizes power and paychecks over results. School choice offers the only real path forward. Parents deserve the freedom to choose schools that deliver, not just buildings that employ union members. Until competition arrives, expect more days like May 1, where the union commandeers the classroom for its own ends.
