Chicago City Wire

Mike Flannery of Fox 32 said when he posed questions to the Chicago Teachers Union about empty schools described in a recent Wirepoints article, a union official cursed at the group. 

Flannery recently interviewed Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski and mentioned that somebody from the union verbally expressed disdain for the organization.

"When I mentioned your group Mr. Dabrowski, Wirepoints.Org, a person who speaks for the union said, on the record, I could say their response was f*** Wirepoints…and they didn’t use ‘f’, they used the full word and we do look forward to hearing from defenders of the system,” Flannery said.

In its report, Wirepoints stated that “Teachers union power politics, weak administrations, and absent political leadership have left Chicago Public Schools with a glaring and intractable problem: increasingly empty, failing schools."  It also mentioned that out "Of CPS’ 478 stand-alone 'traditional' or non-charter, non-contract schools, one third of them, 150, are less than half-full, according to CPS.” The most empty schools, according to Wirepoints, are those that are barely 5% to 25%  full and have poor educational performance on a statewide level. Despite the poor attendance figures, the Chicago Teachers Union has justified keeping the schools open. 

“It’s why taxpayers should demand real school choice in the form of vouchers," Wirepoints reported. "Take Manley High School. It’s a glaring example of just how far CPS and CTU are willing to go. The school’s capacity? 1,296 students. The number of students now? Just 64 – 4.9% of available seats. Douglas High School? Capacity 888. Seats filled? 44. Uplift High School has a capacity of 720 seats but only 55, or 7.6 percent, are filled. The list goes on.” 

Earlier this year the CTU, which represents 25,000 employees in Chicago Public Schools, the fourth largest district in the country with over 340,000, forced children into remote learning after a planned work action, Chicago City Wire reported.

Teachers in the Chicago Public Schools who chose not to take part in that labor action were threatened by their peers, who pretended to be worried about Covid.

A Twitter commentator posted an image of a CTU flyer posted during the work action and called into question the union and its affiliates motives.

“The CTU isn't a union," a Twitter user who goes by 16th & 17th District Chicago Police Scanner noted. "It's a political party with a very strict agenda. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar. UWF = United Working Families, btw."