You can’t make this up.

The state that withholds money from our district held a hearing yesterday to find out why the district is in financial trouble.

State representative Curtis Tarver, who represents Chicago students and their families, called a hearing on CPS school finance to reiterate why he and his colleagues have no solutions or any political will to fund CPS and stabilize successful programs like sustainable community schools.

Instead of using the time to engage stakeholders like parents, Board of Education members and educators on the district’s recent layoffs and its dwindling resources, we were held hostage to an hours long Rep. Tarver “Burn Session.” We wish he had the same energy for taxing the rich and funding schools as he does for criticizing Mayor Johnson.

Here are the facts: While our students go without librarians, art teachers, and basic supplies, Illinois’ wealthiest 5 percent are getting handed $8 billion in Trump tax cuts from his recent budget bill. Add in the $10 billion in tax breaks already baked into Gov. Pritzker’s budget for tech corporations and the ultra-rich, and you’re looking at $18 billion in giveaways to those who need it least.

That’s enough to eliminate CPS’s entire $1.2 billion funding gap 15 times over.

Reminder: It is 2025, not 2012, and we are no longer debating already failed arguments on retirement security versus smaller class sizes. Working families deserve both.

Meanwhile, Trump’s tax cuts transfer wealth from SNAP, schools, and Medicaid straight into billionaires’ pockets while regular Illinoisans’ pleas for increased education, transit, and medical funding go unheard. And the same politicians asking, “Why are schools struggling?” are the
ones who just approved billions in tax breaks while telling teachers to do more with less.

Board members argue against increased funding for our school communities

Interim CPS CEO Macquline King and Board President Sean Harden and board members Debby Pope and Michiela Blaise are sending a crystal clear message that no cuts are acceptable and to pay the district what it is owed. Inexplicably, board members Jenny Custer and Ellen Rosenfeld resurrected disgraced former mayor Rahm Emanuel’s school closings language while attempting to justify why the state legislature and governor should continue to ignore state law and NOT fully fund CPS. Talk about strange times.

GOOD NEWS: Our hardworking and courageous members, like teacher and CPS parent Deja Tillman testified at the hearing. Ms. Tillman talked about our district libraries full of books, but no librarian to open the
library’s doors. She spoke about the $90,000 in missing support from the state of Illinois for her classroom of 24 students.

Chicago Teachers Union Financial Secretary Dr. Diane Castro reminded us that Illinois has a Democratic super majority. We are a blue state. We need that to mean something.

Meanwhile, Joe Ferguson—the newest megaphone for the “Don’t Fund CPS Billionaire Bros Club” AKA the Civic Federation— lobbied to strip the newly formed hybrid BOE of their recently acquired democracy and pushed to give the governor and his appointees power over the nearly two billion dollar member led Chicago Teachers Pension Fund.

United for full funding and a Trump-proof Illinois

Thursday morning before this theater began, the CTU
stood with Better Streets Chicago, The People’s Lobby, SEIU Healthcare,
IFT Local 4100 and the Cook County College Teachers Union demanding full funding for transit, schools, and essential services. Chicago Teachers Union Financial Secretary Dr. Diane Castro held up envelopes with letters to Illinois’ 16 Billionaires who are among our state’s wealthiest 5% who are getting back $8 billion in Trump tax cuts. We are asking those billionaires to lead and invest those giveaways to our schools, something that other millionaires are starting to call for nationwide.

We know these solutions work because the state of Massachusetts proved it. Its millionaire’s tax raised $2.2 billion in the first year alone – double what was expected – and used it for universal free school meals, free community college, and transit improvements. And no millionaires fled the state. In fact, the state’s millionaire population
increased by 38 percent. And just this week, their governor — in coalition with labor, including teachers unions — adopted DRIVE (Discovery, Research and Innovation for a Vibrant Economy), an initiative intended to Trump-proof Massachusetts’s education
infrastructure. This is especially important as the Trump administration has cancelled or frozen billions of dollars in grant funding at universities and research institutions across the country.

The pathway to sustainable healthcare, improved transit and fully funded public education in Illinois is within reach – just look at Massachusetts, a state that taxes the rich.

And, Illinois voters have spoken twice, with 60 percent supporting a millionaire’s tax last November and 64 percent in support in 2014. Rep. Tarver already introduced the resolution for a millionaire’s tax that would fund public education. We have 78 Democrats in the House and 40 in the Senate – more than enough. We are a blue state. We need that to mean something.

How does one hold a hearing to ask why schools are broke while doing very little to protect Illinoisans from billionaire tax breaks that rob our schools of critical resources? #MakeItMakeSense

As CTU member, veteran educator and CPS parent Chanise Stephens said in her testimony to the legislators yesterday, “Be brave. Take action. Invest in our children. Because if we don’t, the cost down the line — in lost potential, in trauma, in fractured communities — will be far
greater.”

At the CTU, we are doing the work to have the best start of school possible, to win the resources our students need and deserve, and to build a culture of love for our children that can guide the
transformation of our city. After the hearing, we threw a block party for youth at our headquarters, because the solutions are not hard to understand.

Taking Action

We sent off individual letters for Illinois’ billionaires asking them to step up and give back their Trump tax cuts to fund public schools, reliable public transit, healthcare, and higher education. As President Stacy Davis Gates said yesterday, “Trump’s tax cuts mean that the richest Illinoisans can pay more now. All we need are the 78 Democrats in the House and 40 Democrats in the Senate to demonstrate the political will to make the rich share with the rest of us.”

“When the people who have the power to create greater equity and opportunity hold hearings to rehash the problems and their impacts, that’s not oversight or the dimensional leadership we need right now.
That’s theater. Our students deserve better than political performance art.”

In solidarity,

Chicago Teachers Union