Charter v Public Education Fight Continues at Chicago Board of Education June Meeting
The battle between public schools and charter schools is played out at each Chicago Board of Education meeting.
The mainstream corporate-owned media will report on a certain topic after a Chicago Board of Trustees meeting that fits their narrative. This time it was the budget fight that resulted in the Chicago Public Schools cutting 300 mostly black and brown teacher assistants in the schools. Before it was removing police officers from the schools.
But the title fight that is fought at each and every Chicago Board of Education monthly meeting is between the pro-charter privatization forces against the Chicago Teachers Union pro-public education forces.
The June 27, 2024 Board meeting thus led off public participation with union officials from the Chicago Teachers Union lambasting the charter schools once again.
“We shouldn’t allow charter networks to actively fight unionization drives like Noble or Perspectives to stack up $100 million in reserves when this district has three days worth of cash,” CTU Vice President Jackson Potter said. “That’s outrageous. That’s taxpayer dollars and we should hold them accountable.”
CTU Charter Chair Jen Conant said that the charters want less accountability because they say they are doing a wonderful job yet Namaste refuses to sign onto a contract that guarantees the school will be fully staffed with the necessary teachers and resources the students need. She asked the Board members to help land a contract that will ensure this.
“The Board said they aren’t meeting the standards and yet they refuse to put in writing a commitment to serve the kids by law,” Conant said. “Hold charters accountable because they won’t on their own.”
The first public speaker, and many to follow, were the charter people. They said that they should be a part of the five year strategic plan at CPS. This plan is focused on restoring the neighborhood schools after years of mayoral control helped destroy these schools in order to usher in privatization. Many students now travel over an hour to attend a school.
Joyanna Smith, the Chief Program and Operations Officer of the IL Network of Charter Schools, said it is the wrong conversation to pit charters and magnets against neighborhood schools. She cited a Stand for Children (an anti-public education pro-privatization group) survey that found 86 percent of parents prefer to choose what public school they want.
“The opponents of choice undermine neighborhood schools, we can have both,” she said. “The real work is to activate communities to rally against the broader forces that continue to allow poorly performing schools that do not meet the needs of the children or communities.”
This reminded me of why we started CORE, the current CTU leadership. We were tired of hearing charter people speak negatively against public schools at the board meetings. Former CPS CEO Arne Duncan stormed out on his last day after speaker after speaker spoke against his anti-public education policies. He took his discredited Turnaround model to close public schools and open charters to Washington D.C. when he became the Education Secretary under President Barack Obama.
CTU VP Potter said in his opening address that he hopes the annual bloodletting ritual that this year has laid off 300 mostly black and brown teacher assistants will end. He said he thinks the district is still wedded to some bad habits, such as bad bank deals that resulted in past corporate politicians like Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Rauner that called for CPS to declare bankruptcy, “and that led to some of the most usurious, broken, terribly managed financial deals in the district’s history.” He cited JP Morgan’s $150 million bonds with 10 percent interest rates and at least $234 million in termination fees that totally drained CPS reserves in 2015.
“That’s why we’re here today, those bad actors must be called out and be held accountable, and get back that money,” Jackson said.
Well, let’s start with the Mayor Brandon Johnson administration taking another look at the disgustingly outrageous privatized parking meter scam that cost the city billions of dollars in revenue. JP Morgan profited off this scam as well.
Jackson said the state should pay the pension costs which are legacy, stop IL from being at the bottom quartile in education funding and stop contracting with Teach for America.
“We can’t cut teacher assistants while putting millions of dollars into Skyline, which educators I speak with have timely referred to that curriculum as a dumpster file,” he said.
Stacia Scott, SEIU VP Local 73, whose union just landed a strong contract for its members, said they still haven’t received their retro check and there are buses with no air conditioning.
Dwayne Truss, a former CPS board and pension trustee under Mayor Lori Lightfoot, said he was upset that he was not invited to participate in a city committee to address the black student level achievement gap. He said he and Natasha Dunn, who had the idea to start this committee, were not invited because they are critics of the Chicago Teachers Union. The West Side activist added there was no need for security this time after he was removed for speaking over his time limit at the previous board meeting.
Many speakers spoke out against the cuts of teacher assistants. Jessica Kearns, LSC chair at Foreman High School, said they could not appeal their special education and SECA position cuts because they did not have a regular principal in place after one resigned and another died. In a rare response to a speaker’s concern, Board President Shi told the CPS staff to fix this problem.
Disney Magnet school teacher Jordan Kunkle said her Latina teacher assistant was crying after she found out she was laid off and meanwhile the school was hosting a PD (professional development) to address the achievement gap in which they concluded that they said they should hire more minority teacher assistants to fix it.
“This is not about the teachers, it’s about our children,” said Angela Young, a TA who was laid off. This reminded me of CPS Chief Arne Duncan days when he would tell us when we were fighting against school closures that we teachers just wanted to save our jobs. Greedy Teachers!
The most powerful speaker, and they were all good, was Edward Ward, a restorative justice coordinator also recently laid off by CPS. His measured cadence punctuated his passion as he strongly bellowed out that he as a black man has lost his job twice despite the goal to hire more black male teachers who make up less than 4 percent of the teaching force.
“Black men like me have been deemed disposable,” he said. “I was laid off twice just to balance the budget. I worked to protect student health and all I got in return was a layoff notice.”
One teacher from Mark Twain School said his TA helped him to breath again in an 8th grade class of 36 students, while another kindergarten teacher had 34 kids and made it through the year thanks to her assistant who too was fired due to budget cuts.
A Special Education Teacher from Wendell Phillips High School said they lost nine teachers and 1 CTU PSRP. Most CPS teacher assistants are part of the SEIU Local 7 Union and they are called SECA’s. It is confusing that there are two different unions representing teacher assistants. I heard that this was done years ago to undermine the CTU. The teacher assistants laid off in this budget are called PSRPs and are under the CTU. Amazia Burton from Phillips said three special education teachers were laid off at her school which has created a very stressful environment. “How is my neighborhood school losing 10 positions equitable?” she asked. “Would you fund our staff positions with the Skyline funding? If not then what is your solution?”
Fair question. One principal said their network added some positions. These positions are used to gather data on the schools.
The elected officials now speak at the end of the public participation (before they would speak in the beginning). Alderman Nick Sposato spoke out against taking cops out of schools, and voiced his displeasure that Columbus is renamed Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He was a big opponent to renaming Columbus Day the Indigenous People’s Day CPS holiday because he supposedly represents Italian interests. I would say he more fronts for corporate empire interests such as honoring an explorer who searched for slaves and gold and ruthlessly punished anyone getting in the way. Sposato said he didn’t have a problem with renaming it Ruth Bader Ginsberg the Supreme Court Justice because you couldn’t rename it after Justice Clarence Thomas. Now, what the hell did he mean by this? That a controversial conservative black Supreme Court justice should have the same right to have the school named after him other than the fact that he ain’t dead like Ginsberg? He then continued in his nasal tone that ‘blood will be on your hands’ with the decision to remove cops from the schools and was upset that Senior Advisor for Intergovernmental Affairs at CPS Chuck Swirsky is gone. I had no idea that the Chicago Bulls long-time radio announcer was also the chief liaison between CPS and government officials. “Chuck was a huge asset to us and a friend,” Sposato said. “I just want to say I’m not sure exactly what happened, but Chuck is gone and 50 aldermen are not happy about this.”
Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor of the 20th Ward called for a forensic audit of the Chicago Public Schools.
“Chicago Public Schools needs a forensic audit,” she said. “I don’t think we pay attention to where we spend the money.”
And yes, last but not least, and interestingly not the first this time but toward the end, spoke Dr. Angel Alvarez, with long dark hair flowing resembling more a CPS prophet than a critic. He demanded a CPS student safety plan for victims of sexual assault and violent crimes and lambasted the district for using Harvard and Standford data that is not correct about student gains, noting that Latino students made the les gains in reading, according to his data. “Please release the budget!”
There were no questions or comments from the Trustees after the end of the public comments.