Weekend greetings, CharterFolk.
You may have seen the news accounts in recent weeks:
Seven charter schools are closing in Chicago.
Thousands of students and families who have been happy with the option that has been afforded to them are now being affected.
Acero made national headlines in 2018 when it became the first charter school organization in the country to experience a teacher strike.
Earlier that year, the leadership of the Chicago Teacher Union had made explicit …
… that its goal in unionizing charter school teachers was to “undermine the charter school movement.”
In June, shortly after union educators in Local 4343 voted overwhelmingly to merge with the CTU, Broy [Illinois Network of Charter Schools CEO Andrew Broy] wrote that merger was a “tactic to strengthen the CTU and undermine the charter public school movement.” And that is precisely our goal: [emphasis added] to undermine further charter expansion and bring every publicly funded school in Chicago under one shared union banner.
And yet, Acero teachers, deluded into believing somehow that CTU was at their back, agreed to the union becoming their bargaining unit.
These announced closures are the inevitable consequence of Acero teachers having made that fateful decision.
It resulted in Acero being forced to accept a contract that compromised the financial viability of all but its strongest schools.
Now union leadership is running around claiming that they’re trying to keep Acero’s schools open.
But that’s an utter fiction.
CTU doesn’t want the charter schools kept open.
It wants them re-absorbed.
Which equates, of course, to nothing other than their complete destruction.
This op-ed gets it right.
The destruction of charter schools is CTU’s top priority.
And they prey upon the naïveté of charter school teachers in order to bring it about.
Telling charter school teachers that they’re not anti-charter.
CharterFolk, look at this local station’s coverage …
… of the mailers that CTU is sending out right now about charter schools as part of their $3M+ school board election campaign …
… presenting CharterFolk as nothing other than puppets …
… of Trump and billionaires.
Are those the messages that any entity even remotely respectful of charter school people would ever send?
And yet, this is where the dues of CTU-represented charter school teachers are going right now.
To send out vile like this.
Amazing, isn’t it?
There are many teacher naïvetés that the union preys upon to enact its strategy for destroying charter schools.
Another is that charter schools receive the same resources as district schools, so it should be common sense that charter school teachers receive the same salary and benefits that teachers receive in district schools.
In many cases charter schools do manage to provide compensation comparable to what school districts provide. But they have to be incredibly frugal in order to do it because, generally, charter schools don’t come close to receiving the same per pupil funding as district schools do. And many have to pay for facilities in ways that district schools don’t.
And if there is any entity that is working to make sure that charter schools don’t receive funding equity or facilities increments, it is teacher unions.
So unionized charter school teachers are actually paying dues to entities that are actively working to reduce the amount of resources that are available to pay charter school teachers.
The audacity of it is just stunning.
In 2017, former CTU President Karen Lewis came before the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education …
… to say she had “nothing against charter school teachers,” but she objected to their schools receiving the same funding that other public schools receive.
I come before you today to say that, sadly, this proposed new budget falls short in every possible way. It fails to serve our students and to support our dedicated workforce of educators, and it fails to provide our neighborhoods with sustainable community schools …. I disagree with the whole notion that charter schools have been unfairly funded. They came before you years ago saying we would do this work for less money and can do it better. That was their whole claim to fame …. I understand you’re getting $76 million in new funding. Let’s make sure it gets to where we said we want it to go. To neighborhood schools where people can walk their kids to school.
A few minutes later, another union rep stepped up to the podium …
… to declare new funding coming to charter schools to be “a bribe” that is provided to “privatization vultures” wanting to perpetrate “systemic racism” on public education.
And yet, less than a year after this hearing, Acero teachers agreed to their bargaining unit becoming CTU, which led to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year going to CTU coffers.
Over the years, Acero teachers have sent literally millions to CTU.
And this is the representation they get for it.
Incredible, isn’t it?
It’s a conundrum that EdWeek reported during the Acero strike that teacher unions face across the country.
How can they convince charter school teachers that they’re not anti-charter when the public record is so replete with examples of teacher unions working to undermine charter schools in legislatures and school districts across the country.
Sometimes their efforts to reduce charter school resources are so effective they undermine the solvency of schools altogether.
Like these seven Acero schools that are now closing.
They are all in facilities that used to be Catholic schools, meaning they’re having to pay rent. Furthermore, those buildings are old and have not been kept up, and now the district is saying that Acero would have to spend millions on each site to bring them up to standards if it wants those schools’ charters to be renewed, all while adhering to a side letter negotiated by CTU …
… that prevents Acero from expanding its enrollment at any schools, thereby denying them the additional revenue they need to pay for the additional costs that CTU is now imposing upon them.
Maybe the naïveté the teachers least appreciate is how CTU can use against charter schools the fact that they are financially accountable in ways that district schools are not.
District schools are extensions of the state. If they agree to salary and pension costs that are not sustainable, the state must bail them out. The fact that the state is on the hook is reflected in the fact that a teetering organization such as Chicago Public Schools can even consider taking on more debt right now.
They only can because the banks know the state must step in to keep the district solvent should it fail.
Charter schools on the other hand are truly accountable.
We are not extensions of the state. If we agree to anything unsustainable, we go out of business. We have to close schools, like Acero is having to do right now.
CTU knows all this, of course.
They know that, if they get a charter school to agree to something unsustainable, they have achieved their goal, which is the ultimate demise of that very school.
It’s why they push so hard for charter schools to endure unreasonable things, like a teacher strike.
Sadly, many charter school teachers don’t understand these things.
So they get taken advantage of.
Like these Acero teachers have been taken advantage of.
And now they and the thousands of kids and families who they care so much about are paying the price.
It’s why I constantly encourage charter school teachers to think very carefully and to educate themselves whenever they are approached by entities like CTU.
Because perhaps the most tragic thing of all surrounding this situation is the following fact:
Not only has CTU has been able to engineer the destruction of seven Acero charter schools.
But it has been able to get Acero’s teachers to pay them to do it.