CTU Still Playing Politics Over In-Person Learning Amid Pandemic

CHICAGO — About 80 percent of American parents support a return to in-person learning amid the lingering coronavirus crisis.

President Joe Biden has encouraged local governments to get kids safely back into schools.

Public health experts say in-person learning has not been associated with high rates of in-school transmission of COVID-19.

Chicago's top doctor says there's no reason to delay the return of in-person learning at city public schools.

In Illinois, you can count on one hand the number of high school districts that don't offer parents the option of sending their kids back to classrooms.

Still, Chicago Teachers Union bosses don't want high school teachers to go back to work.

Not until City Hall agrees to a "vaccination plan" for teachers that for more than a month have been eligible to get themselves COVID-19 inoculations.

Not until Mayor Lori Lightfoot allows students age 16-and-up to get shots in the city, and earmarks doses for their parents.

Not until ...

At this point, the details of CTU's wish list don't matter much.

History tells us that whatever concessions Chicago Public School officials make are only met with new union demands.

Earlier this year, teachers union bosses even insisted school officials join them in lobbying for "defunding police" and "rent abatement," or in-person learning will remain a no-go as far as they're concerned.

CTU President Jesse Sharkey recently described the current state of public school affairs as "continuous bargaining."

In other words, parents of Chicago public school kids should always be prepared for a teachers strike.

And that's even more so since Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed provisions into law that allow the union to walk picket lines for almost any reason.

The union's fight is for political might.

CTU's continuous battles with City Hall are bigger than contract details and coronavirus safety measures.

They've got a state senator — whose campaign war chest is packed CTU taxpayer-funded union dues funneled through political action committees — leading a push to create a 21-member elected school board that's not accountable to City Hall.

Shortly after the bill was introduced, on March 30, CTU's political action committee made a $59,900 donation — the maximum allowed under state election laws — to the campaign fund of House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch, who ultimately controls whether a city elected school-board bill is put up for a vote.

Last week, the CTU's preferred mayoral candidate, Cook County Democratic Party Boss Toni Preckwinkle, pushed a first-of-its-kind symbolic endorsement asking legislative leaders to support the elected school board bill that would strip her bitter rival, Lightfoot, of public school influence.

CTU's battle over reopening classrooms at high schools when elementary school teachers and staff — the bulk of its membership – have been back at work for more than a month, is just an extension of a greater political power play.

At a time like this, it doesn't matter if public health experts, President Biden and about 80 percent of American parents say it time for kids to safely return to school.

CTU bosses have political interests to protect.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

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