Springfield politicians keep making the same mistakes when it comes to the Chicago Teachers Union and its militant president, Stacy Davis Gates. They won’t stop giving credence to Davis Gates’ outlandish arguments and rhetoric.
The latest example arose last week after Gov. JB Pritzker, responding to CTU’s demands that Illinois jack up taxes on its dwindling number of billionaires to prop up Chicago’s bloated public school system, told reporters, “That’s just not going to happen.”
In her typically provocative fashion, Davis Gates retorted that the governor had given the “wrong answer.”
“Ask him again if he’s serious about not paying his debt,” she said.
His debt? With the exception of the pandemic year of 2020, a budget-constrained state government under Pritzker has pumped over $300 million more each year into Illinois’ public schools, seeking bit by bit to reach a goal set in landmark legislation that established a so-called evidence-based formula for proper school funding. In recent years, CTU has seized on that law to claim that Springfield “owes” Chicago Public Schools upward of $1 billion.
The formula, signed into law in 2017 by Pritzker’s Republican predecessor Bruce Rauner, indeed was an important milestone in Illinois. The state for generations had fallen short in funding public schools, not just in Chicago but statewide, and the law was a recognition of that reality. But there’s nothing in the statute compelling Springfield to write a check it can’t possibly cash all at once.
Let’s consider some numbers. Since the law’s 2017 enactment, the state contribution to Chicago Public Schools has increased 59% to $2.7 billion from $1.7 billion, according to CPS budget materials.
That’s a lot. But the state support is even more robust when considering falling CPS enrollment. The student population in Chicago’s schools dropped by 12% in that period to about 325,000 from more than 371,000. So on that basis, state contributions to CPS have increased 82% to $8,368 per student from $4,606.
To hear Davis Gates tell it, Springfield is starving CPS of money. Does that trend line strike you as a dramatic shortchanging? In fact, that increase more than doubled the pace of inflation.
In the meantime, Illinois’ real gross domestic product from 2017 to 2024 rose just 7.4% even as the nation’s GDP increased 49%. See the problem here? It’s tough to keep pumping cash into the public sector to appease politically influential unions when your economy is in neutral.
So instead of making these obvious points to union provocateurs such as Davis Gates, our political leaders treat her with kid gloves. Pritzker in his comments said he agreed conceptually with Davis Gates that the state ought to be furnishing another $1 billion or more to CPS and conveniently blamed President Donald Trump for the lack of funds.
Pritzker isn’t Springfield’s only enabler. Illinois Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago, late last month chaired a hearing on CPS’ budget crisis. Shortly after the Aug. 13 release of interim CPS CEO Macquline King’s $10.2 billion fiscal 2026 budget, which won plaudits for being surprisingly responsible, Williams posted on X that she was in support and that work in Springfield needed to begin immediately to boost education funding “across the board.”
Unsurprisingly, school board members appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson very quickly expressed opposition to King’s budget and pushed for adding hundreds of millions in high-priced debt to junk-rated CPS — a position Williams opposes but Davis Gates supports. The board this coming week will vote on the budget and quite possibly will overrule King and green-light more debt.
When will the political “grown-ups” in Springfield ever learn to stop engaging in this debate on CTU’s terms? Chicago residents don’t support CTU and Davis Gates; their polling is well underwater. There’s a reason for that.
The union earlier this year successfully won four-year pay raises for teachers that well exceeded the inflation rate when those teachers are among the highest paid in the nation. Simultaneously, CTU refuses to consider consolidating near-empty schools. Davis Gates has no standing to demand $1 billion from taxpayers. The public and Chicago’s business community have every right to insist that CPS and CTU begin the urgent task of right-sizing a shrunken district before even beginning to consider the painful steps that would accompany any major funding infusion.
Our political leaders should tell Davis Gates unequivocally that throwing buckets of cash at the status quo is a nonstarter.
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