By advancing unsustainable financial demands, taking an ever larger share of tax revenues at the expense of city workers and systematically denying residents quality school choices, CTU support is plummeting
The Chicago Teachers Union’s (CTU) defamation lawsuit against the Illinois Policy Institute and the Liberty Justice Center is evidence of a union in full panic mode as it attempts to silence its political opponents. The lawsuit follows a significant court ruling compelling discovery, which may finally force the union to open its books and account for years of delayed financial disclosures. It also comes as the CTU experiences a series of political defeats driven by its current leadership as its public support erodes and key labor relationships fray.
The CTU has evolved into a hyper-political force with a broad agenda extending far beyond educating Chicago’s students. It deploys millions in member dues to back far-left political candidates and seek control over the Chicago Board of Education. As the Chicago Tribune editorial board correctly observed, the CTU attempts to have it both ways: Acting as the city's dominant political power broker while claiming immunity from public criticism under the guise of merely representing teachers.
The union faces public controversy, member-led litigation, and congressional scrutiny over its failure to release audited financial reports for five consecutive years. Following legal and political pressure, the CTU released backdated audits; however, serious questions remain regarding omitted data, missing financial transparency, and the massive allocation of union dues toward political activism rather than direct member representation. Meanwhile, rank-and-file CTU members are demonstrating a loss of patience with current Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE) leadership.
Despite pressure from CTU President Stacy Davis Gates and Mayor Brandon Johnson to mobilize students and teachers for May Day protests, reports indicated that only about 13 percent to 21 percent of educators participated. Shortly thereafter, union leadership suffered a defeat when members resoundingly rejected a proposed dues increase intended to fund upcoming political campaigns — including the transition to a fully elected 21-member school board. Furthermore, the CTU struggled to secure ballot signatures for its preferred school board candidates, placing only six candidates on the ballot for 10 open elected seats during the initial filing phase.
Citywide, public support for the CTU has dropped significantly. An Illinois Policy Institute poll found that only 27.5 percent of Chicago voters hold a favorable opinion of the union, while 53.6 percent view it unfavorably. For every voter with a favorable view, two view the union negatively, and over 50 percent of voters report being less likely to support candidates backed by CTU money. This decline in popularity is producing a consistent trail of electoral defeats since Brandon Johnson’s election in 2023.
The primary and municipal election results illustrate a clear pattern of high-profile setbacks. In 2024, CTU-backed candidate Clayton Harris lost the Democratic primary for Cook County State’s Attorney to Eileen O’Neill Burke. Voters subsequently rejected the CTU-supported real estate transfer tax referendum ("Bring Chicago Home.") In the 2024 inaugural hybrid school board elections, CTU-aligned candidates lost six out of nine competitive elected seats, despite unprecedented financial spending.
An analysis of school board race campaign spending showed that the union and its political affiliates expended nearly $2.8 million across school board contests, with approximately $2.1 million — nearly 75 percent — directed toward losing campaigns. For an organization long treated as an unbeatable political juggernaut, these setbacks have triggered defensive maneuvers, including aggressive rhetoric aimed at demonizing critics. No Chicago union leadership in recent memory has been as aggressive in attacking political opponents as the current CORE Caucus leadership.
There is a growing realization among other public employee unions that the CTU advances its ideological agenda at their expense. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the CTU’s insistence on keeping school buildings closed for nearly a full academic year created severe friction with fellow union workers. Essential city workers, first responders, and municipal employees were required to remain on the job while public school facilities remained closed to in-person instruction, even as teachers received full compensation and negotiated salary increases.
The rift between the CTU and the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) has widened under CORE Caucus leadership. Driven by an ideological shift, the CTU leadership embraced "defund the police" platform positions following 2020, campaigned for removing Student Resource Officers (SROs) from Chicago Public Schools, and maintained hostile rhetoric toward law enforcement.
Simultaneously, friction erupted between the CTU and its traditional labor ally, SEIU Local 73. This tension stems from CTU contract proposals seeking to expand its bargaining unit to include support personnel traditionally represented by Local 73 — a move that would undermine SEIU’s membership and bargaining power. This dispute spilled into the political arena, leading SEIU to withhold support from several CTU-backed school board candidates.
Other municipal unions recognize that since the CORE Caucus assumed control of the CTU in 2010, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has become one of the city’s largest financial burdens. The city continues to channel escalating subsidies into CPS, transforming the school district into a quasi-subsidiary of City Hall. What began under Mayor Rahm Emanuel as targeted pension assistance has grown into an annual multi-hundred-million-dollar transfer composed of dedicated pension levies, Tax Increment Financing (TIF) surpluses, capital subsidies, fee waivers, and transit subsidies.
Under Mayor Johnson, this diversion of resources has accelerated. With CPS’s Chicago just approved budget, the mayor will have allocated over $1.2 in additional property tax revenues from cumulative TIF surpluses on top of the schools 56 percent share of all annual city property tax revenues. Combined with the dedicated property tax levy for teacher pensions, intergovernmental transfers and fee waivers, annual city support for CPS last year alone exceeded $1.3 billion.
Since 2019, while non-educational city departments eliminated over 2,000 positions — including a reduction of nearly 1,700 police officers — CPS added approximately 9,000 employees despite an 11 percent decline in student enrollment. CPS currently maintains approximately one full-time employee for every seven students and employs thousands more non-teaching personnel than the entire Chicago Police Department has active officers.
City employees subject to municipal residency requirements bear a unique burden from these policies. The lack of quality public school choices, combined with the CTU’s opposition to structural reforms in underperforming schools and its efforts to eliminate alternatives — such as tax-credit scholarships, selective enrollment, and charter schools — places immense financial pressure on city workers.
Many municipal worker families seek private or parochial school alternatives. A landmark 2004 study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute revealed 39 percent of Chicago public school teachers chose private schools for their own children. City workers who are reluctant to enroll their children in underperforming neighborhood schools and are unable to secure admission to selective magnet programs face high tuition costs, with cumulative K-12 private education costs reaching well into six figures per child.
The CTU no longer operates solely as a traditional labor organization focused on workplace representation. It has transitioned into a political organization whose broader goals frequently conflict with working-class families and the broader labor movement. The political alignments of CTU leadership — including partnerships with ideological groups whose members have publicly attacked city public safety departments — reflect this shift in priorities.
The aggressive political agenda pursued by union leadership serves to deflect attention from stagnant academic outcomes, enrollment drops, and rising property tax demands. By advancing unsustainable financial demands, opposing school choice options, and resisting structural academic reforms, the CTU leadership is increasingly viewed not as a guardian of public education, but as a liability to Chicago taxpayers, municipal workers, and the broader labor movement.
