The Chicago Public Schools are facing a major truancy problem…among teachers.
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) was up in arms over suggestions that classes should be held on May 1 when teachers wanted to be out protesting.
Called International Workers’ Day, May Day is a global day of protest for socialist, communist, and unionist groups.
The CTU was upset when parents objected that canceling a day of class for teachers to join a political protest was a burden for working parents. These teachers believe that they are teaching something far more important through their activism. In defending the demand for publicly subsidized protests, CTU Vice President Jackson Potter explained that “teaching our students what civic action looks like requires more than textbooks.”
While that does not help with the dismal proficiency scores of actual students, it is vital to training students as political foot soldiers.
The CTU and the National Education Association recently collaborated on a “curriculum build” to bring “social justice into the classroom” ahead of May Day. Dave Stieber, a history teacher in Chicago Public Schools is shown declaring that “May Day is a dress rehearsal for maybe there’s a random day in, you know, June that we all are, like, no work, no school, no shopping…So this is a continuation and a buildup of that.”
In the meantime, with only 2 of 5 students reading at grade level, the Chicago teachers chose to lower proficiency levels rather than improve their teaching record.
While failing on actually teaching students, the CTU is proficient at instructing politicians such as Mayor Brandon Johnson through the use of union dues to fund Democratic campaigns. The CTU and other teachers’ unions funneled millions into Johnson’s campaign. By one estimate, 93 percent of Johnson’s campaign budget came from unions.
The CTU has long held the distinction of being the most radical teachers’ union in the country. It was a CTU delegation that went to Venezuela during the Maduro regime to praise conditions under socialism. In a country where dissenters and reporters were being jailed and killed, the Chicago teachers gushed about how “we did not see a single homeless person!”
Chicago area teachers have been charged with violent protests.
Suggesting that teachers should work rather than attend May Day protests set off the Chicago teachers. Now, the union has confirmed that classes will be held without the participating teachers, and Chicago Public Schools will pay for buses for both students and educators to go to the protests.
The city further promised that there would be no repercussions for either students or teachers playing hooky from school.
This is not the first time unions and teachers have allowed students to skip classes to support left-wing protests. In New York, teachers and students were allowed to skip school to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Previously, students were allowed to skip school to protest climate change.
These school districts do not show the same participatory support for protests on the right. There is no accommodation or city-subsidized buses for pro-life protests or demonstrations in favor of Israel.
Nevertheless, the Chicago school system is declaring that this is what schooling is all about in the Windy City. CPS CEO Macquline King stated that “the agreement honors the proud history of civic action in Chicago and beyond.”
Decades ago, my parents helped create an organization to stem the exodus of families from public schools and to reinforce academic standards in the Chicago Public School system. They convinced more families to remain in the system because they believed (as I do) that public schools can play a critical role in shaping citizens through a diverse and shared experience.
I was long skeptical of voucher systems because of that commitment to public education. However, teacher unions and administrators are destroying public education in America. They are treating families as captive audiences while infusing education with social and political agendas. The only way to break this decades-long cycle of failure, in my opinion, is to give families alternatives by allowing them to send their children to schools with core educational (as opposed to advocacy) priorities.
Nevertheless, Mayor Johnson celebrated the funding of the May Day protests:
“We are pleased all parties are working together to ensure school communities can participate in commemorating International Workers Day…Encouraging participating allows Chicagoans to honor our history while advocating for our future. We look forward to a day of meaningful solidarity and community resistance to the forces trying to tear us apart.
Schools have long been a target for indoctrination by radical elements. The Cultural Revolution in China was the most extreme example where children were forced into protests and taught that political activism came before scholastics under the slogan “to rebel is justified.”
Mao declared that “our educational policy must enable everyone who receives an education to develop morally, intellectually and physically and become a worker with both socialist consciousness and culture.”
In the CTU/NEA seminar, Kirstin Roberts, a pre-school teacher in Chicago Public Schools, is shown explaining that the purpose is to “encourage teachers of young children not to feel like this is stuff that’s way beyond their students, not to be afraid of raising up social justice issues, including workers’ rights, anti-racism, pro LGBT, LGBTQIA plus issues, immigration and immigrants rights.”
The erosion of the line between education and advocacy is now occurring on every level of our educational system. Some universities now have “resident activist” programs or offer degrees in advocacy.
In my book Rage and the Republic, I discuss the rise of the “new Jacobins” in the United States, including a cadre of radical educators who use our schools to pursue fundamental changes in our constitutional system. Law professors and deans are now calling for trashing our Constitution as a threat to the nation while teachers are using classes to radicalize students.
Chicago’s subsidy of May Day protests uses public funds in the struggling school system to foster radical political agendas. It removes any doubt for parents about the priority of Johnson, the CTU, and many of these teachers.
Some of the sentiments expressed in Chicago could have been ripped from Mao’s Little Red Book and speeches. He insisted “education must serve proletarian politics” and demanded “the period of schooling should be shortened, education should be revolutionized.”
In Chicago, the “period for schooling” is now being shortened in favor of “solidarity and community resistance.” While the students may not be able to actually read, they will learn the three R’s of modern education: resisting, raging, and rebelling.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution
