For the first time in years, when parents drop off their children to school this year, they will be in smaller class sizes. Elementary students will have access to the state-mandated recess Chicago Public Schools previously didn’t provide. Libraries are reopening. Our homegrown national model for public education, sustainable community schools, is expanding to 16 more campuses this year.
Black students will be taught in classrooms where the right to learn their history is enshrined in our contract and all students will have greater access to sports, arts, music and a nurse and counselor. School will be one of the safest places immigrant students can be due to our expanded sanctuary protections. Students with disabilities will be supported by 215 new case managers. LGBTQ+ students will arrive at schools with staff support, access to all-gender restrooms and protocols against bullying.
All of these improvements to the school day are a result of the contract educators fought hard for over the past year and ratified in April. And they all require the governor and Democratic majority in Springfield to pay our district what is owed.
While parents were fulfilling back-to-school shopping and educators were equipping classrooms with supplies out of their own pockets, the state that withholds money from CPS was holding a hearing to find out why the district is in financial trouble.
The answer is obvious. It’s a choice. It is not a math problem. The difference between a cost and an investment is one’s values. The difference between a deficit and a robbery is one’s tax bracket.
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At a time when Illinois’ wealthiest 5% are getting handed $8 billion in tax cuts from President Donald Trump, Gov. JB Pritzker’s budget provided $10 billion in tax breaks and other incentives at the state level to tech corporations and the ultra-rich. Combine those and you’re looking at $18 billion in giveaways to those who need it least.
That’s enough to eliminate CPS’ entire $1.6 billion funding gap more than 11 times over.
The governor says he wants to fund Illinois schools fully, but has yet to create a budget to reflect that desire. Meanwhile, books are locked in libraries because schools don’t have librarians. We’re losing art and music teachers at schools deemed “fine arts.” High schools operate without math and science teachers. CPS just laid off crossing guards, security guards, janitors and — at a time when Trump is cutting SNAP for families — CPS is planning to cut the one hot meal some students have access to.
Our schools have been cut to the bone and constantly asked to do more with less. But this isn’t just underinvestment. It is also extraction. While banks prey on the false scarcity by demanding an even higher premium on loans, research shows that for Cook County is being shortchanged in terms of state funding. For every dollar it sends to the state of Illinois in tax revenue, it receives only 90 cents back. Meanwhile southern regions in Illinois receive $2.81 for every dollar of tax revenue created.
The Blackest school district in the state, with the highest homeless student population, the highest bilingual population and the highest special needs population hasn’t just experienced disinvestment. Black and brown families in Chicago have been subsidizing the education of students outside city limits for as long as the system has been designed to deprive our own children of equal opportunity.
This back-to-school season is the result of more than a decade of work to undo the damage done by privatizers and school closers. We are in the midst of a reconstruction in our city to make good on what formerly enslaved ancestors dreamed of for their descendants when they broke the back of the Confederacy, ended the Civil War, and created public schools, labor rights and public health.
We need a partner in our governor and the Democratic supermajority, not just a debt that’s past due. We need being a blue state during Trump’s authoritarianism to mean something.
As much as is spent to try to demonize our union, we’re more in-line with the people of our state than anyone arguing for cuts or to deny our children the education they deserve.
Ninety-one percent of Illinoisans, when asked, believe in the right to a public education and 71% support increasing funding for schools. When asked where that money should come from, 63% of Americans say raise taxes on corporations and the ultra-rich.
States such as Massachusetts are proof positive that this isn’t rhetorical, it’s successful. There they implemented a millionaire’s tax that raised $2.2 billion in its first year alone — double what was expected. This revenue was used for universal free school meals, free community college and transit improvements. No millionaires fled the state. The state’s millionaire population increased by 38%.
Just last week, Massachusetts adopted an initiative to Trump-proof their education infrastructure while Illinois Democrats hold hearings asking why schools are broke.
With 78 Democrats in the House and 40 in the Senate, that’s more than enough to call a special session and do the same.
Trump is actively dismantling public education, attacking communities of color, and transferring wealth to billionaires. The question for our state is simple: Will you be a beacon that stands up to the president, protects democracy and fights for our children? Or will you passively complement his plan for our schools through inaction? The state set the goal of at least adequately funding our schools by 2027. But the most recent budget opens that gap to $1.6 billion dollars owed instead of closing it.
The steps are simple. End the tax breaks. Fund our schools. Turn the political theater into political leadership. Our students are waiting.
Stacy Davis Gates is president of the Chicago Teachers Union.
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