It’s not always nice to be noticed. The editors of the Wall Street Journal take note of the brouhaha in Chicago:
Chicago’s machine politics is legendary, but the power play now on display in the Windy City would make the late Richard Daley blush. On Friday Mayor Brandon Johnson’s handpicked school board voted 6-0 to fire Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez without cause to jam through a new contract for the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).
The city is in revolt over the move. Chicago City Council members and school principals oppose the mayor’s putsch. Alderman Andre Vasquez called the mayor’s leadership “dysfunctional.” Alderman Silvana Tabares told the school board “there is still a difference between right and wrong, and you know this is wrong.” By following the orders of the mayor who will “personally benefit from a costly union contract,” she continued, “you’re intentionally clearing a way to saddle taxpayers with billions of costs.” All true.
concluding:
The corrupt bargain between the union and the mayor is now in plain sight. Mr. Johnson and Ms. Davis Gates want a blowout contract that funds the union political machine that funds the mayor. Only 17 cents of every dollar of union money is spent on teacher representation: your big-city Democratic rulers at work.
The editors are wrong in one particular. Mayor Johnson’s machinations have nothing to do with Chicago machine politics and everything to do with the hopelessly corrupt Chicago Teachers Union.
Mayor Johnson’s approval rating is presently 15%. If Chicago voters had the power to remove obviously incompetent and/or corrupt politicians as should be the case there is little question in my mind that he would be impeached. As I have been saying since he was elected, I have no idea what those who voted for him expected him to do. Presumably, not spend money the city didn’t have on migrants.
He’s doing exactly what I expected him to do: whatever the CTU wants him to do. Fewer than a third of CPS students read at grade level and their proficiency in math, which remains stubbornly below 2019 levels, is even worse. Spending per student is between $15,000 and $24,000 per year and the CTU wants more. There is little demonstrable relationship between increased spending per pupil and improved performance by students.
The CPS is broken and cannot be fixed. It should be dissolved and public education contracted out.
