Illinois successfully reformed public school funding, provided more school choice to families and leveled the playing field for students all within the last decade. Things that were once considered impossible in the Land of Lincoln passed with bipartisan support.
This success was accomplished because policymakers could focus more on the needs of students and families and less on those of special interest groups and grown-ups who financially benefit from preserving the status quo.
Sadly, much of that progress is now being reversed by groups such as the Chicago Teachers Union that are actively fighting against families and the choices they desire.
More Top Picks Best Stereo Receivers For Turntables 2
Last November, union allies succeeded in having eliminated the state’s popular Invest in Kids Act, a bipartisan effort passed in 2017 that has provided thousands of low-income and working-class kids with scholarships to private schools at a minimal cost to the state budget. These families will now spend all spring figuring out how to afford to keep their children in the schools they’ve chosen. And for those families who won’t be able to do this, they’ll have to give their child news that no parent wants to deliver.
Unions also have spent years inflicting their wrath on public school choice, promoting caps on charter schools, limiting their pathways to authorization and pushing for charter unionization requirements that would destroy teacher freedom and school autonomy.
Now the CTU and its allies want to bring changes to high-performing public school options. Union leaders have singled out Chicago’s selective-enrollment high schools, which serve a diverse student population and manage each year to prove that achievement gaps can be closed when schools focus on delivering a high standard of education to every student. The data clearly shows that these schools are working for students of color while our traditional public schools are delivering lackluster results.
According to the state report card, only about 10% of Chicago’s Black 11th graders met or exceeded English language arts standards on the SAT last year, and less than 8% did in math. Contrast that with Black students who attend Chicago’s Whitney Young Magnet High School. More than 75% of the school’s Black 11th graders met or exceeded English language arts standards on the SAT, and nearly 80% did in math. Similarly, at Northside College Prep, 93% of Black 11th graders met or exceeded English language arts standards on the SAT, and 81% did in math.
Yet the union’s hand-picked Board of Education is working to dismantle these options in Chicago. Union backers say they want more investment in neighborhood schools, even though high-quality choice schools such as Walter Payton, Whitney Young and Northside are serving neighborhood communities.
The union also contends these schools don’t serve as diverse a student population as it believes they should. Yet Illinois has a law on the books, the Untapped Potential Act, which was designed to better identify low-income and minority students for admission into academically gifted and talented programming and schools. If the CTU cares about better access for disadvantaged communities, the union should embrace this law and support funding for it in Springfield.
When you pull back the union smoke screen, it’s clear these moves are nothing more than power politics designed to take away educational opportunity for those who need it most: Illinois students and families.
It’s inequitable and unfair, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
Lawmakers can revive the successful statewide school choice program and equitably support charter schools, and Chicago officials can step in and restore some certainty for families that the public schools they are choosing will continue to be options for many years.
And if Chicago’s City Council won’t stand up on behalf of the students who attend these schools and force the mayor and the Board of Education to reverse course or clarify their intent, it’s incumbent upon the Illinois General Assembly to step in and protect the education of the students at these schools.
The union wants to take Illinois backward. It’s time for the families and taxpayers to fight back against the union’s entrenched political power and continued attempts to roll back options and restrict parental voice.
Bruce Rauner was the 42nd governor of Illinois.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email [email protected].