Nov. 06--Chicago Public Schools teachers threaten a strike later this school year if local officials balance their severely out-of-whack budget with massive firings.
That makes sense. Who can blame the Chicago Teachers Union and its members for plotting a work stoppage in the face of layoffs that would devastate classrooms?
The Democrats who wrote the laws and enacted the policies that have ruined the finances of CPS now can winch the district back to safety. But that will mean compromising with a governor who insists on reform of governing and labor policies that have indebted taxpayers, and that keep Illinois from growing more taxpaying jobs.
CPS is $480 million short for this school year's $5.7 billion budget. If the district makes $480 million in classroom cuts, if 5,000 teachers lose their jobs, if class sizes balloon beyond reason, then the system descends into chaos. The fiasco would be magnified because cuts wouldn't be spread over a full school year but telescoped into its last few months.
How to avert this disaster for Chicago's students? CPS CEO Forrest Claypool has, in his brief time on the job, found more central office efficiencies. Beyond that, though, the strategy has thus far amounted to: Beg Springfield for $480 million. Threaten layoffs. Threaten more of the reckless borrowing that's drowning the district in debt. Beg Springfield again. Threaten again. Repeat.
What Claypool had warned for weeks would be a Thanksgiving deadline to resolve the impasse or fire thousands of teachers has now been rolled back to a February deadline. Springfield has yawned.
A primer on the quest for a rescue: In August, the Illinois Senate passed a package of bills sponsored by President John Cullerton. That plan would fill the $480 million gap by easing the pressure on CPS pension payments while freezing property taxes across the state for two years and revamping the state's school funding formula.
Under the bills, about $200 million in state money would go to the Chicago teachers pension fund. Another $24.5 million would go to CPS for operations. The rest of the bailout essentially would come from changing CPS' pension payment schedule, giving the district more time to bring the pension system closer to recommended funding levels. So far, House Speaker Michael Madigan hasn't shown much interest in that deal.
