Last week, in response to another weekend of shootings, Mayor Brandon Johnson pushed back on critics of Chicago’s violence, saying, “What I find disingenuous is, where were these individuals when schools were being shut down and closed?” This latest rhetorical gem builds on what already qualifies as a pattern of deflection by distraction by the new administration.
More Top Picks Best Tactical Boots For Men
Last week’s comments followed his explanation for the most violent Memorial Day weekend in seven years as being the product of “community divestment, poverty and trauma” the city has “struggled with for far too long.” He attributed the mayhem in the Loop in April to youths being “starved of opportunities in their own communities.” Combined, his commentary is building not just an explanation but also a rationale for violence.
What the mayor and his base supporters are doing when they can’t or won’t answer questions is relitigate the past based on a false narrative to deflect responsibility for a mediocre present in which they are complicit. Expect more of this, accompanied by aggressive attacks on the news media for asking even innocuous questions. We are not even two months into the new administration, and the mayor is already calling out the media for criticism on crime, accusing them of demonizing the city and saying that “if you don’t live in Chicago and you aren’t offering solutions, stop talking about us.”
Connecting the closing of 50 virtually empty schools under then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel over a decade ago to the public safety struggles of today is particularly disingenuous. Many of the closed schools would not be empty if Chicago Teachers Union leadership had not blocked the city from allowing well over 100 charter-based schools to inhabit closed campuses. The charters were willing to pay rent and enroll the few students from the community who had attended the schools at the time they were closed.
And if union leaders think more schools are the answer to enrollment falling for the 11th consecutive year, then the CTU should be made to account for its opposition to any expansion of public charter schools, which the union has capped.
The CTU also opposed a bill allowing four-year universities like the University of Illinois at Chicago to serve as the charter authorizer for a multisite charter school devoted exclusively to older reenrolled high school dropouts. The state provides funding for such young adults who because of age and past record will never return to a traditional public high school.
The criticism of the closing of near-empty schools by Emanuel is particularly hypocritical given the catastrophic consequences of closing school campuses after COVID-19 struck. Johnson and his fellow CTU leadership were the force behind Chicago’s indefensible, long shutdown of public schools ostensibly because of COVID-19. That shutdown lasted long after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was safe to open schools.
School closings had a direct impact on student academic performance as state test scores, already abysmal pre-COVID, plummeted. Meanwhile a University of Chicago Crime Lab analysis points to increases in carjackings being committed by school-age youth.
School closures did not just affect teachers, children and parents — this policy will have a decadeslong impact on every aspect of the city. While middle-class and affluent families may opt for charter and private schools as a solution, the poorest and most vulnerable children, overwhelmingly Black and Latino, will remain hostages to a failing system.
The union’s behavior during COVID-19 was part of its claimed “new gospel” of strike power that spread across the country after CTU’s 2012 strike. That gospel was developed and implemented by the militant Caucus of Rank and File Educators, or CORE, that came to power in 2010. Since then, the CTU has gone out on strike twice.
Parents have seen their children struggle in the wake of repeated school closures and constant threats of disruption as the CTU kept pushing and striking for demands unrelated to education. The union faces no consequences for interrupting students’ learning and instead celebrates its use of strike power. Notably, since CORE took leadership, the district enrollment loss has accelerated as 20% fewer students enrolled.
Why should enrollment loss concern the CTU? The district receives well over half of all property taxes paid by city residents, no matter the number of students. As for state funding, the current school formula is heavily weighted to benefit districts like Chicago Public Schools with high numbers of poor students and helps minimize enrollment losses. CPS receives 25% of all state-allocated K-12 funds including federal funds. Meanwhile, teachers union leaders push to make further changes to the school funding formula to make it even less based on enrollment.
This Trojan horse is designed to secure more funding regardless of enrollment losses by giving an even greater weighting to need than to enrollment numbers. This will protect against enrollment-driven school closings or consolidations. It enables CPS, which is now spending $30,000 per student, to claim with a straight face that CPS state funding is $1 billion short.
CPS consumes almost five times what is spent on the Chicago Police Department. Getting at the underlying causes of violence that CPD must address in real time is not possible as long as the CTU-dominated public schools continue to be the major obstacle to allocating those immense resources in ways that meet the needs of Chicago’s most at-risk children and their families.
Paul Vallas is an adviser for the Illinois Policy Institute. He ran for Chicago mayor this year and in 2019 and was previously budget director for the city and CEO of Chicago Public Schools.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email [email protected]
More Top Picks Best Long Reach Grabbers For Elderly
.