The Chicago Teachers Union has been complaining about the prospect of layoffs amid annual pattern of budget shortfalls at Chicago Public Schools. Dan Proft cited the example of Frederick Douglass Academy High School, a facility built with 47 classrooms designed to accommodate roughly one thousand students but currently enrolling only 27, while still employing 28 full-time staff members. He noted that all seniors at the school are classified as chronically absent, that no eleventh grader tested at grade level in reading or math, and that per-student costs at the school reached roughly $93,000 as of two fiscal years ago, arguing that such figures undercut the union’s framing of the district’s financial challenges.
Proft welcomed Mark Glennon, founder of Wirepoints, to discuss the broader dynamics behind CPS’s financial troubles. Glennon agreed that the state of Illinois bears significant responsibility for allowing schools like Douglass Academy to continue operating despite dramatically low enrollment, noting that Springfield provides a majority of CPS’s funding and retains authority to intervene.
Glennon also discussed a formal partnership recently established between the Chicago Teachers Union’s internal communications staff and the Chicago News Guild, the labor organization representing journalists at outlets including the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and other local publications. Glennon explained that the teachers union’s communications employees, who are not employed by any media organization, have joined the News Guild’s structure as a formally recognized affiliate, allowing them to share resources with unionized reporters covering the district. He argued the arrangement effectively formalizes what he views as a pre-existing alignment between the union’s political messaging operation and local news coverage, raising questions about how objectively reporters covering CPS layoffs, school closures, or contract disputes can be expected to report given their institutional proximity to the union’s communications apparatus.
The conversation also turned to a proposed Chicago tenant rights ordinance championed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, which would require landlords to demonstrate just cause before evicting tenants and provide relocation assistance of up to ten thousand dollars in certain circumstances. Glennon characterized the proposal as effectively amounting to a seizure of private property, arguing that determining what qualifies as sufficient cause for eviction would become subject to ambiguous enforcement. He was similarly critical of a competing, more moderate ordinance proposed by a coalition of aldermen, including Alderman Gilbert Villegas, which would eliminate the just-cause requirement in favor of extended notice periods ranging from 30 to 120 days, while also expanding the legal definition of small landlords. Glennon argued both proposals fail to address the city’s core housing supply shortage and instead impose additional burdens on property owners.
Glennon closed by raising concerns over a recently approved allocation of $425 million in taxpayer funds toward infrastructure development at the site where Chicago Fire FC owner Joe Mansueto has begun constructing a new soccer stadium, a project Glennon said was originally understood to be entirely privately financed. He questioned the origin and rationale behind the public funding commitment, particularly given the city’s ongoing budget deficit and Mayor Johnson’s warnings about potential police department layoffs tied to a stalled corporate tax proposal, arguing the disconnect exemplifies a broader pattern of misplaced fiscal priorities in Chicago governance.