Brandon Johnson Plays the Slavery Card- The Wall Street Journal Editorial

But who’s really keeping Chicago children captive? The Chicago Teachers Union.

Oct. 10, 2024

They say voters deserve what they get in a democracy, but no one deserves Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and certainly not Chicago school children. In seeking to reward his union benefactors, Hizzoner is having a political meltdown for the ages.

On Monday Mr. Johnson replaced the entire Chicago school board with his allies after the previous board resigned en masse last Friday. The previous board opposed the mayor’s plan to take a $300 million high-interest loan to hand raises to the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), which funded his election campaign. Asked about the opposition to his loan scheme, Mr. Johnson pulled out . . . wait for it . . . the slavery card.

“When our people wanted to be liberated and emancipated in this country, the argument was, you can’t free black people because it would be too expensive,” he said. “They said that it would be fiscally irresponsible for this country to liberate black people. And now you have detractors making the same argument of the Confederacy when it comes to public education in this system.”

The Chicago school district is junk rated, so Mr. Johnson’s plan for a $300 million loan would cost CPS more than $700 million. The union wants 9% annual raises, climate initiatives and affordable housing units, among other non-teaching benefits that would cost between $10.2 billion and 13.9 billion, according to the Illinois Policy Institute.

Equating his opponents to slavery defenders is nasty and ahistorical, and the question should be who is really keeping Chicago’s children enslaved? The CTU contract Mr. Johnson is advocating won’t improve results for students.

It will hand huge raises to his union pals who want to keep students trapped in their failing union-run schools. Only 25% of Chicago students are proficient in reading and only around 20% are proficient in math, according to data from Wirepoints.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, four CTU members sued the union for failing to produce a public audit of its finances since 2020. The CTU’s bylaws note that “[e]ach year, the Financial Secretary shall furnish an audited report of the Union which shall be printed in the Union’s publication,” but the union members haven’t received it.

The complaint, brought by the Liberty Justice Center, says one plaintiff has “made multiple written requests to the Union to publish copies of the audits which have been unanswered or ignored.” This is a breach of contract with dues-paying members. An audit could be instructive about the Chicago union that is keeping students captive.