(The Lion) — The Chicago Tribune is reporting more state charter schools are closing as the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) flexes its muscle, starving charters of money.
The plan seems to be to choke charters financially and take over schools when they fail.
Indeed, CTU President Stacey Gates Davis even celebrated the demise of charters last month, crowing that the “wheels have come off Chicago education reformers’ charter school experiment.”
About 12.5% of Chicago’s roughly 120 charter schools have failed over the last six years. The latest closure is the Chicago High School for the Arts, also known as ChiArts, the Tribune said.
The charter board told the newspaper the closure was in part because of a financial shortfall that is too common in charter operations, which are required to contract with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) for teaching services.
Critics argue CPS and CTU have actually conspired to create conditions where charters would fail.
“For over a decade, the CTU has worked relentlessly to destabilize, defund and delegitimize public charter schools in Chicago,” said Paul Vallas, who ran in 2023 against Mayor Brandon Johnson for the top spot in the city.
Vallas was previously CEO of Chicago Public Schools, while Johnson was a union organizer who helped engineer the 2012 teachers strike in the city.
Through its union contract, the CTU compelled the city to limit the creation of new charter schools and has frozen overall enrollment, despite thousands of students still waiting for seats, Vallas said.
CTU also has blocked access to CPS facilities and demanded charter schools remain underfunded in favor of traditional public schools.
Chicago spends roughly $18,700 per student at its legacy schools, though costs soar at smaller campuses – in some cases doubling or tripling that amount, said a study by Pro Publica.
One tiny school with just 28 students spent an astounding $93,000 per pupil, the study noted.
Charters, on the other hand, get $8,600 less per pupil – or just $10,100, according to Vallas.
In addition to the closing of ChiArts, the Tribune reported the closing of another major charter. EPIC Academy, with about 250 students, announced it will close at the end of the year.
This comes on the heels of the closure of a network charter with seven locations: In February, the Acero Charter Schools network announced plans to close seven campuses because of a $40 million deficit.
CPS voted to keep five of the locations open, so it can take over their operations as regular public schools by 2026-27.
Meanwhile, CTU head Gates gloated the shuttering of EPIC Academy will mark the 15th closing of a charter school in the last six years.
One school reformer blasted Gates over her plan to starve charters and have CPS absorb them.
“This woman is a terrorist. There, I’ll say it,” said Christian Maxwell, a black Republican running for Congress in Chicago’s 1st Congressional District. “She’s a terrorist and she needs to be held accountable for the massive detriment she has caused to the children of Chicago.”
Behind the scenes, the question isn’t whether the charters are successful, but who controls them, critics argue.
“That is why it is morally wrong and operationally backward for the CTU to fight charter school expansion at every turn,” Maxwell said. “They have not only lobbied to cap the number of charter schools allowed in the city, they have blocked proposals to allow charters to occupy vacant CPS buildings.”
Just as CPS voted to keep five of the seven Acero Charter locations, it looks as if the district will absorb ChiArts too.
CPS school board member Carlos Rivas, who represents ChiArts’ district, told the Tribune the public-school system has no intention of closing the art school after the charter folds.
“My goal is to keep it as a district-managed school, and then invest more so that we can expand the conservatory, so that more families have access,” Rivas told the Tribune.
