Above photo: Chicago teachers rally at school board meeting. Paul Goyette / Fight Back! News.
Chicago, IL – A crowd of Chicago Teachers Union members attended the school board meeting, July 24, carrying giant cardboard cupcakes with price tags representing the net worth of Illinois billionaires. Their demands are for Governor JB Pritzker to call a special legislative session and secure more funding for public education and other services, and for higher taxes on the rich to counteract the effects of Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.”
“The top 5% of top earners in Illinois got $7.7 billion in tax cuts from the Big Horrible Bill,” Jackson Potter, the CTU vice president, explaining that these tax cuts are happening while public education, healthcare and transportation each face hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts.
“This is not just a number. We are real people being cut away from our students and our jobs,” Deena DuBose, a 34-year veteran music teacher, spoke on how the loss of her position will affect her students and school community. Layoffs are a consequence of annual budget cuts. This year more than 1600 school staff have lost their jobs.
“We cannot be disgruntled about teenage upheavals while actively defunding and underfunding the institutions responsible for the development of our children,” Catlyn Savado, a youth organizer and recent CPS high school graduate, addressed the ongoing topic of “teen takeovers” downtown.
“If you actually put parents and children in the seat, they can tell you what they want to see in every school,” said Senator Graciela Guzman, recounting the demands of parents at a recent CPS budget hearing.
“CPS families have said ‘no more cuts!’ And there’s no reason families should be worrying about the $734 million deficit when the state of Illinois by law has committed to providing full funding to all schools in the state of Illinois by 2027,” said Pavlyn Jankov, CTU research director. “CPS is still $1.2 billion away from having enough to provide an adequate education for all its students.”
“There’s nothing left to cut but there’s plenty to fund. Our problem is a problem of political will,” said special education teacher Arturo Alvarez. “We need our legislators, especially JB Pritzker, to step up!”
“We cannot watch as JB Pritzker idealizes this concept of Trump-proofing our state while not acting on it,” Savado said.
“We are calling for action! We are calling for an emergency session,” Potter proclaimed at the end of the press conference. “If [Pritzker] doesn’t see a crisis in the state, I don’t see how he can talk about a constitutional crisis in the country.”
