the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Aug 5, 2024
Chicago’s school board, appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, passed the budget for this year at the end of July. The 9.9-billion-dollar budget dealt with a 505-million-dollar deficit by making cuts—cuts which the mayor denounced. Yet the School Board voted the budget unanimously.
The Board laid off 600 staff and teacher aides in June, as well as a smaller number of teachers. Five percent of teacher positions are vacant. Unfilled teacher positions mean, in fact, cuts to students’ education. But the Board is balancing the budget by leaving many of these positions unfilled. Moreover, at many schools, money for anything other than staff has been cut to the bone. Concerts and plays at one Southside high school will have to take place in the afternoon—while many parents are still working—because there’s no longer money to pay security overtime to cover evening performances.
Moreover, Mayor Johnson has proposed that the school board should cover a 175-million-dollar pension payment, rather than the city. Johnson and the Teachers Union criticized former mayor Lori Lightfoot for doing exactly that, just a couple years ago. And no wonder—it meant more cuts for the schools. So far, this school board has refused.
Teachers Union Vice President Jackson Potter defended Johnson and his political flip-flop, telling the meeting: “We have to deal with the conundrum of robbing Peter to pay Paul on the city side.” Well, Peter and Paul are broke because the ruling class, which controls the real money in this society, doesn’t want to pay for the schools OR for city services!
Over a decade ago, the Chicago Teachers Union leadership won election and mobilized their members to defend the city schools, a fight that culminated in the big teachers strike in 2012. Teachers Union president Karen Lewis won a lot of admiration from working people and union activists for confronting Mayor Rahm Emanuel and defending education for the working class.
But, in the decade since, the union leadership has shifted to make electoral politics their primary focus. To their members and to the city, they pushed the idea of electing their organizer, Brandon Johnson, to the mayor’s office as the solution to the problems for the working class in both the schools and the city at large. It is becoming more and more obvious that this was not the solution they promised us.
The ruling class has the money. Johnson either doesn’t have his hands on it or won’t spend it.
To get any of that money would take a fight by workers across Chicago, starting with teachers and school workers, parents and students. But this is not what Johnson and the CTU propose.