Almost one-third of Chicago’s well-paid public-school teachers keep their kids out of the Chicago Public School System (CPS), a study finds.
Even the current leader of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), Stacy Davis Gates, sends her son to a private school, according to the Chicago-based Illinois Policy Institute.
According to federal data reviewed by the think tank, about 31 percent of Chicago’s public-school teachers send their kids to a private school to keep them out of the CPS.
The data was culled from the 2018-2022 American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample, compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, the Illinois Policy Institute noted.
Meanwhile, Gates also led the Chicago Teachers Union in a successful campaign to destroy a state voucher plan that allowed 15,000 low-income students to have some semblance of the same opportunity her son has thanks to her $289,000 annual salary.
But this massive failure on the part of the schools and the union is not preventing Gates from demanding an absurd $10.2 billion or more for the CTU’s new contract.
For context, the State of Illinois takes in a bit over $50 billion in tax revenue, So, the CTU thinks it deserves more than one-fifth of the state’s entire revenue.
The CTU, for instance, is demanding a 9-percent pay increase, which would make them some of the highest-paid teachers in the state with a guaranteed starting salary of $61,990. But that is just the low end. According to Chalkbeat, the average Chicago teacher pay is a whopping $92,500 annually. That is about six thousand dollars higher than the state average of $86,148 a year, GovSalaies reports.
Yet, the Chicago schools are some of the worst performing in the state. As Illinois Policy Institute noted, more than 21,000 of the city’s 323,00 students don’t have basic competence in math, science, and reading at their grade level.
Indeed, in February, it was reported that 55 of the city’s schools have zero students proficient in math and reading.
During a recent forum Gates attended in Chicago’s Morgan Park community, she demanded that the Illinois state government chip in $1 billion in tax dollars for Chicago public schools, but said calling it a “bailout” is offensive.
WATCH: Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates gives opening remarks at this evening’s round of open bargaining between CTU and Chicago Public Schools, says calling her demand for $1B+ in additional funding from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker a bailout is “offensive.” pic.twitter.com/OT1jD3JMx2
— Austin Berg (@Austin__Berg) August 14, 2024
The CTU also demanded that the city schools take out a high-interest, $300 million payday loan that would have cost the city $700 million to repay over a 20-year span. Fortunately, the city schools rejected that idea.
The current contract expired on June 30, but both sides are still negotiating with no end in sight and school administrators are bracing for a teachers’ strike as the school year begins.
However, even as the CTU wants to indulge in a hiring spree, hike teacher pay, and “invest” billions of tax dollars in new spending, the city has been steadily losing students for more than a decade. In 2022, for instance, the school system lost 8,300 students. It was the 11th straight year of such losses.
Indeed, many school buildings have been shut down and left abandoned because there aren’t enough students to fill them. In 2013, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel shut down 50 schools across the city, and today almost all of them remain empty and unused.
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