By any measure, Chicago Public Schools teachers are extraordinarily well paid given the norms of their profession.
The median salary for a CPS teacher is nearly $95,000. That’s 21% more than teachers make in Cook County’s suburbs, where median pay is $78,000. What’s more, CPS says it pays its teachers more than any other large school district in the nation, and that’s before whatever increases they get in union contract negotiations that are ongoing.
The Chicago Teachers Union continues to demand 9% annual raises, an outlandish ask, and is growing ever more shrill as CPS CEO Pedro Martinez and his administration try to hold the line on behalf of Chicago’s beleaguered taxpayers and in the face of heavy pressure from Mayor Brandon Johnson to give CTU everything it wants. The impasse is headed next month for a neutral fact-finder, who will hear both sides out and produce a report in January.
These are the first steps toward a potential teachers strike, which could occur as soon as February.
So, given the audacity of these CTU demands and salaries that already are among the highest in the nation, one might think that CPS teachers would be motivated to show up for work. School administrators tend to put great emphasis on student attendance, but precious little attention is paid to how frequently teachers miss work.
In the case of CPS, over 41% of teachers were absent from their classes more than 10 days during the 2023-24 school year, according to state records. Those 10 days represent a statistical benchmark the profession uses to monitor “chronic absenteeism” among teachers.
Alarmingly, this poor record of CPS teachers showing up for work has been a new and recent phenomenon. In the 2022-23 school year, for example, CPS teachers’ performance was even worse — 43% were absent more than 10 days. Before that year, though, the rate was considerably better: in the 2016-17 school year, chronic absenteeism among CPS teachers was 31%. The number worsened slightly from there leading into the pandemic but still was better than what we’re seeing now.
Not surprisingly, the rate of teacher attendance soared during the era of remote schooling, with just 12% chronically absent in 2020, for example. It’s a lot easier to show up for class when you don’t have to leave your home.
It's for the children.
