Chicago Public Schools Sinks Further Into Debt

WBEZ reports:

Chicago Public School is sinking further into the red, with debt payments now topping $1,600 per student, budget documents released last week show.

CPS owes $8.6 billion — a 28 percent increase compared to the end of last school year when it was $6.7 billion. That dwarfs CPS’ total annual operating budget of $5.7 billion.

The school district this year will commit about $600 million to chip away at that debt, plus an additional $784 million for a teacher pension payment. All told, that adds up to nearly $1.3 billion of CPS’ $5.7 billion budget that won’t be spent on classrooms.

That's a lot of money.....