Final evening, Brandon Johnson, a progressive organizer and former public faculty instructor, beat out Paul Vallas, a former Chicago Public Faculties govt with a tough-on-crime platform and a long-held affinity for constitution colleges, to be the following mayor of Chicago. The 2 males clashed over how one can police the town and how one can educate its kids.
Training is a dominant challenge in Chicago, the place the general public faculty system faces a dramatic enrollment decline. From 2019 to 2022, almost 37,000 college students—10 % of the district’s inhabitants—fled the college system. This decline is probably going as a consequence of prolonged COVID-related faculty closures, which saved Chicago public colleges sporadically shuttered as late as January 2022.
Regardless of this dysfunction, the Chicago Lecturers Union (CTU) has remained a robust political drive that used member dues to fund Johnson’s marketing campaign.
Johnson, presently a Prepare dinner County commissioner, gained the help of the CTU by promising to extend funding for Chicago’s public colleges. Regardless of the enrollment declines, Johnson has vowed to not shut under-enrolled colleges and to supply funding based mostly upon “scholar and neighborhood wants” fairly than on a per-pupil foundation. This technique would pump funding into colleges with dwindling scholar populations. In response to public information obtained by the Chicago Solar–Instances, the Chicago Lecturers Union pays Johnson between $83,000 and $103,000 yearly.
In distinction, Vallas, CEO of Chicago Public Faculties from 1995 to 2001, had a extra important view of Johnson’s give attention to elevated funding. He highlighted the misuse of faculty {dollars}, writing on his web site that “Proper now solely 60% of funds attain the classroom,” but “80% of CPS college students [are] studying under grade degree and fewer than 15% assembly grade proficiency requirements.”
Crime was additionally a significant challenge through the marketing campaign. Whereas the CTU backed Johnson, Vallas acquired the endorsement of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police. Vallas’ tough-on-crime perspective extends to his academic insurance policies, the place he harassed the necessity to improve faculty security. Vallas has additionally been an ardent supporter of constitution colleges, serving because the CEO of a dozen army academy-style constitution colleges.
With Johnson’s election, the political affect of the Chicago Lecturers Union will proceed to develop. “CTU already has outsized energy in comparison with every other union or particular curiosity group as a result of in contrast to the police or the firefighters or transit staff, they’ve the best to strike,” Forrest Claypool, a former Chicago Public Faculties CEO advised Politico “Additionally they have an outsized affect on working households who haven’t any different selection on the place to ship their kids . . . that energy, mixed with a mayor who is basically a completely owned subsidiary, would make them a harmful drive.”
