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According to a WBEZ news report, officials at Chicago Public Schools (CPS) wrote a letter to CPS board members on Tuesday outlining possible ways of dealing with the district’s $529 million budget deficit. Among the plans being floated by CPS are proposals to “delay” implementation of parts of the recently concluded teachers’ contract, including the hiring of librarians, nurses and staff needed to reduce class sizes.
These plans completely vindicate the warnings of the WSWS that the contract was brought to teachers under false pretenses, and that educators would come under immediate attack if the Chicago Teachers Union and Johnson administration were allowed to block strike action.
Pointing to precedents in Detroit and other cities, the WSWS wrote in an April 6, 2025 statement, titled, “Chicago teachers: Reject the CTU sellout agreement and mobilize against Trump’s war on public education”:
But the reality is that any agreement that is signed will be subject to revision or renegotiation once Mayor Brandon Johnson and school officials announce a “financial emergency.”
CPS officials issued their letter following the approval of a budget by the state General Assembly on May 31, which included no additional funding for CPS or other school districts. Even though there was no money in the CPS budget to fund pay raises or any of the other provisions in the new contract, CTU and CPS officials, along with Mayor Brandon Johnson, tried to disarm teachers by claiming they would jointly lobby Springfield for additional state funding.
This was despite the fact that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said last July the state would not “rescue the school districts that might have been irresponsible with the one-time money they received,” referencing the end of federal pandemic funding which school districts around the country, including CPS, were using to plug budget holes and fund necessary programs.
According to the new teachers’ contract, 30 librarians were supposed to be hired in the upcoming school year, and 40 teachers per year were slated to receive training and education to become certified as school librarians. The demand for school librarians has been overwhelmingly popular among parents and teachers in a district where they are currently present in only about 15 percent of schools. At least one was even laid off recently by CPS. Not hiring these librarians in the upcoming year, as well as not hiring needed nurses, would save around $30 million.
Additionally, the new contract specified that $40 million per year would be allocated to class size reduction. This provision, which CTU touted as introducing “enforceable” class size limits, would still leave class sizes dangerously high in many cases and relied on a “Joint Class Size Assessment Council” with limited authority for enforcement.
Ignoring these contract provisions would still leave a $459 million deficit, as well as a separate $175 million pension payment that CPS is supposed to make after Brandon Johnson elected to continue shifting this burden from the city’s budget to the school district.
This is to say nothing of the impact of cuts to federal funding by the Trump administration for low-income students, English learners and free and reduced meals. In addition, Trump has been threatening the city over its sanctuary city policy and purported commitment to DEI policies. Around 16 percent of CPS funding comes from the federal government.
The WSWS warned:
In fact, the agreement was pushed through on entirely false pretenses. It not only fails to meet teachers’ demands for substantial pay improvements to keep up with skyrocketing living expenses, increased staffing and smaller class sizes. It also leaves educators and students exposed to devastating cuts due to the budgetary crisis in the school district, the municipal government and Trump’s savage cuts to federal funding.
We said:
The contract will resolve nothing. It will soon be followed by demands for layoffs, school closures and program cuts due to the $700 million-plus school deficit, which will only be increased due to proposed Republican cuts of 25 percent or more in aid to low-income, disabled and English learner students, along with cuts to free and reduced school meals. Illinois is set to lose pre-school funding for 28,000 children due to cuts in the Head Start program, according to a recent report.
Already, the district has announced the layoff of 530 tutors, whose last day was May 30, and reports have indicated more to come. According to Chalkbeat, a presentation given to board members by district leaders indicated that “between 1,600 and 1,700 positions based inside schools could be cut.”
The WBEZ report noted that some CPS officials and board members have said borrowing is on the table to address the shortfall. CPS CEO Pedro Martinez strongly opposed taking out loans to cover the budget shortfall despite being urged to by Johnson, eventually leading to the former’s firing. Credit rating agencies Moody’s and S&P both warned CPS during contract negotiations that relying on borrowing would result in a credit downgrade and increased future borrowing costs.
Even if the district were to take out loans to cover part of the shortfall, it would only be a small reprieve that would set the stage for even larger deficits and layoffs for the next budget year. But it would not stave off the need for layoffs entirely.
Teacher positions are being cut already at many schools, according to recent posts shared on a Facebook group for Chicago teachers. One educator said, “Our union had a meeting after school indicating we might need to cut 12 (!) sped [special education] positions. Considering the gains we made in our new contract with librarian positions, is it possible we will be required to let go of CURRENT staff at the expense of hiring NEW staff? This feels disruptive to the culture that many schools have established.”
Other educators chimed in, with one responding, “We had cuts and we are pretty high on the opportunity index.” Another noted, “A lot of cuts. Truly don’t know how we are going to make it work.” A third added, “A lot of cuts … admin said 5 sped positions and a SECA [special education classroom assistant]. He then said ‘cuts to general staff’ as well. So maybe looking at clerks or office staff as well as non Sped teaching staff?”
Yet another educator expressed anger, saying, “It’s unbelievable that cuts include one SECA from the 2 SECAS in the k-2 Cluster room! The room can’t be run effectively with just one SECA and one SPED teacher. What a travesty!”
CTU bureaucrat Nora Flanagan answered the first educator, responding that “No school will be forced to hire a librarian.” She continued, saying complacently that “Threatened/theoretical cuts happen every year, and we organize to fight them every year. (It’s being discussed at HoD Q&A right now, so ask your delegate tomorrow for more info.)”
For its part, CTU leadership has limited itself to issuing legal threats to CPS. CTU president Stacy Davis Gates called the CPS proposals “attempts at vindictive sabotage,” and appealed to the legality of the contract. She wrote, “To be clear, the district does not have the option of delaying investments it is contractually obligated to make under our (collective bargaining agreement), for FY26 or any other year of the agreement.”
Urging educators to rely on the capitalist courts for salvation, particularly under conditions in which Trump is openly flouting judges’ decisions, is a dead end.
The courts are not neutral arbiters but tools of the most powerful corporate and financial interests. Moreover, even on the slim chance some judge ruled in favor of the CTU bureaucracy—largely to prop up its credibility—alternative means would be found to impose equally devastating cuts.
It should be remembered that last December, the courts weighed in on the side of Martinez, who had recently been fired by the CPS board, issuing a temporary restraining order preventing CTU-aligned CPS board members from being involved in contract negotiations or interfering with him.
Furthermore, the CTU contract (Appendix H) explicitly allows the district wide latitude to carry out layoffs by eliminating or reducing positions and even allows for increased class sizes due to lack of funds at the district, unit, or school level.
CPS teachers must not allow the CTU to restrict opposition to layoffs to the legal plane. The CTU and Democratic Party worked above all to prevent strike action by Chicago teachers during the run-up to the contract, afraid that they would lose control over the situation and allow teachers to galvanize a more general working class opposition to the policies of the Trump administration.
But that is exactly what is needed. Educators should draw the conclusions of this betrayal by the CTU and its apologists in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and other pseudo-left organizations, and build new organs of self-determination for teachers.
As the WSWS recently noted:
To defend public education, educators must organize independently of the CTU bureaucracy and the Democratic Party. Rank-and-file committees must be formed in every school and neighborhood—not to petition the powers-that-be but to fight all layoffs, school closures and budget cuts. These committees will unite Chicago educators with their counterparts in New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other districts where teachers are facing massive budget cuts or upcoming contract battles. What is needed is an industrial and political counteroffensive to defend the right to high-quality public education against Trump’s drive to destroy public schooling.
The Chicago Educators Rank-and-File Committee will be reaching out to the 77,000 educators on the West Coast and 14,000 Philadelphia teachers, and help them draw the lessons from Chicago and assist them in building rank-and-file committees for the struggle ahead.
To join the Chicago Educators Rank-and-File Committee, fill out the form below.