Teachers and school employees represented by the Chicago Teachers Union swarmed the Illinois Capitol building on Wednesday to rally for full funding of the state’s largest public school system amid the depletion of federal COVID-19 relief money that has the district facing a fiscal cliff.
The union is pushing for more than $1 billion in state funding it says is owed to Chicago Public Schools following a 2017 overhaul of the state’s formula for funding public schools.
After a couple of hundred union members clad in red flooded the Capitol, several attended a news conference and described a shortage of English as a second language teachers and paraprofessionals who work with students with disabilities, the need for school employees who specialize in helping children who’ve experienced trauma, and a lack of resources for homeless students.
Pavlyn Jankov, CTU’s research director, noted that the city’s public schools got some federal funding through COVID relief and that brought in counselors, after-school programs and helped maintain lower class sizes. But with that money running out, he said he’s worried those gains could be lost.
“It’s important that we keep up the progress we’ve made. We can’t afford to go back. And we want to be on a path towards full funding,” Jankov said. “And right now what we’re seeing from the state legislature in the budgets that have been passed so far, we’re just not on that path. We can’t wait another 10 years or more for our schools to be fully invested.”
CPS leaders have said the influx of federal relief money demonstrated what’s possible when schools are fully funded, citing growth in student achievement on standardized tests.
It's for the children...
