Chicago City Wire

Former Chicago Public Schools Superintendent Paul Vallas says the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is directly to blame for the city’s surging crime and the very reason President Donald Trump is considering sending the National Guard into the city.

The latest flashpoint came on Sept. 5, when CPS promoted a union-backed “solidarity walk-in” via a district-wide email to families. 

But Vallas and other critics say it was taxpayer-funded political theater aimed at exploiting fears over Trump’s plan to send federal troops to Chicago following a violent Labor Day weekend.

Paul Vallas | Facebook

“The Chicago Teachers Union has become a political party,” Vallas told Chicago City Wire. “They've become a far-left political party, and they're less about education and more about advancing their political agenda. Whether it's using their union dues secretly and without transparency, or, for that matter, using tax dollars.”

Vallas says the CTU has abandoned its core educational mission in favor of far-left political activism that has destabilized schools, endangered students and eroded public trust. 

“You discover that well over 80% of the money is not going to benefit their members, but they're using that money for political campaigns,” he said. “They're using it for political activity.” 

From pushing to remove police officers from campuses to keeping schools closed for 78 consecutive weeks during COVID, he argues, the union has helped fuel a crisis of youth violence and community fear.

“The union has blood on their hands,” Vallas said. “They have been responsible for the dramatic increase in violent crime against and committed by school-age youth by shutting down schools and making it difficult for schools to remain open on weekends and into the evening, et cetera.”

As the school year begins under the shadow of rising crime, Vallas said until CTU is held accountable, Chicago’s most vulnerable children will continue to suffer the consequences.

“They’re clearly trying to create a sense of hysteria,” Vallas said regarding the Sept. 5 protest. “The fact that they are talking about shutting down schools and returning to remote learning is alarming. This is the same union that kept schools closed for 78 consecutive weeks, with catastrophic effects not only academically, but also in terms of health and safety.” 

According to Vallas, who has written extensively on the issue, the Covid school closures were a key driver of Chicago’s youth crime surge.

“The University of Chicago Crime Lab reported a 15% increase in murders of school-age youth during COVID, and violence committed by kids in that age group skyrocketed,” he said. 

Vallas added that carjackings by minors jumped from roughly 22% to over 50% during that time, a shift he attributes to students being out of school and unsupervised.

He argues the impact of the closures rippled far beyond academics. 

“38,000 students disappeared from the rolls during that period,” Vallas said. “They were literally walking the streets. If you want to know why crime shrunk post-COVID, it was because schools and summer programs reopened.”

Vallas also criticized CTU’s successful push to remove Chicago police officers from CPS high schools, a move backed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CTU lobbyist, and the union-controlled school board.

He argued the decision has already had serious consequences. In 2023, school-based violent crime surged 26%, returning to pre-pandemic levels. Yet arrests dropped to a record low, with only 18 made across 224 violent incidents in 163 schools.

Vallas said CTU claims schools are safer without police, but data shows otherwise. He noted that the school-based police program made up just 0.1% of the CPS budget and argued the decision was driven by ideology, not student safety.

“Removing police officers from the high schools,” Vallas said. “Police officers are there to deter active shooters. And of course, not only have they removed the high school police officers, but they also demonize the police."

Vallas said the union is now pushing anti-police curriculum that portrays officers in a negative light, undermines student trust in law enforcement, and puts vulnerable children at greater risk.

"There is a course that has to be taught, it's mandated…on police abuse,” he said. “So they constantly demonize police. They're part of the defund the police movement. They talk about police discriminating against minorities. That undermines the relationship that police need to have with students so that they can help keep them safe. This union is having a destructive impact on children in the city, not only academically, but also in terms of their health."

While pushing anti-police rhetoric, Vallas said the CTU has ignored a far more urgent issue: widespread sexual misconduct by CPS staff, including union members, often involving young children and occurring on school grounds.

He noted that Chicago Public Schools continues to face a systemic sex abuse crisis, with hundreds of cases reported annually involving teachers, security guards and other personnel.

“If you want to talk about student safety, remember this is a district that has had hundreds of complaints made against its CTU members, yet there has been virtually no action, as the union resists any accountability to its members, even in instances of sexual abuse,” Vallas said. 

Many of these incidents occur on school grounds, often involving very young students and ranging from inappropriate communications to assault. Despite repeated public exposure and mounting evidence, CPS has yet to implement safeguards comparable to other institutions. 

“The union really resists any accountability to its members, even for instances of sexual abuse,” Vallas said. 

Vallas, who ran for mayor in 2023 and narrowly lost to Johnson, said the CTU’s transformation into a radical political organization began around 2010 with the rise of the CORE (Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators) caucus and the national shift toward charter schools under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

“The [CTU] really created an apartheid school system,” he said. “[CTU President] Stacey Davis Gates calls anyone who criticizes her or tries to bring accountability ‘Jim Crow’ all the time. You've created a ‘Jim Crow’ system. If you're low-income, Black, and Latino, you're literally held hostage in your failing school. You're a hostage to your zip code. You're a hostage to your household income.”

Vallas insists that Trump’s consideration of the National Guard is grounded in a very real and deadly crisis that CTU policies have made worse.

“It’s unbelievable," he said. "If you’re Black, you’re 22 times more likely to be murdered in Chicago than if you were white. If you are a white teenager or a white woman, you’re 14 times more likely to get assaulted. A Black teenager is also 14 times more likely to be assaulted. 30% of all violent crime victims in the city are Black women. There’s a real crime pandemic in these neighborhoods.”

He emphasized Chicago’s troubling standing in violent crime compared to the rest of the country.

“We still lead the nation by a wide margin in youth and school-age murders and shootings If we were a state, we would be second only to California in mass shootings,” he said. “There have been 50 mass shootings in the city this year. We’ve just cornered the market on mass shootings.” 

Vallas pointed to recent polling that reveals sharp differences in public opinion on federal intervention and policing.

“A poll asked about federal intervention,” he said. “While the majority of voters—Black, Latino and white—opposed the National Guard, most Black and Latino voters wanted more police. The vast majority wanted other forms of federal intervention. Whites were the least interested in federal interventions, while Blacks and Latinos were the most supportive of more police and other federal actions.”

Vallas reserved some of his sharpest criticism for CTU leaders and their political allies. 

“Chicago is being run by failed teachers, by teachers who couldn't cut it in the classroom," he said. "So they became union organizers and union radicals. That's it. That's who's governing this. Combine all the governments that the city controls. It's what, $28 billion or $30 billion? Governmental enterprise, the CTA, the CHA, whatever. Yeah, and we're being governed by failed teachers.” 

Vallas said the Chicago Teachers Union has fostered a culture of low expectations and chaos, radicalizing a generation of students.

“Students are just another constituency to be radicalized and taken advantage of,” he said. “The teacher unions have literally taken Chicago’s poor children hostage. If you are low income, you have very few, if any, options. And if the union has it for you, you’ll have no alternatives to your failing neighborhood school.”

He also noted that these problems have led to record-high teacher absenteeism.

“Teacher truancy is at a record high,” Vallas said. “More and more teachers are finding excuses not to show up.”

Vallas offered a stark assessment of the CTU’s legacy. 

“What the union is doing is a disaster,” he said. “The Chicago Teachers Union has cost Chicago’s children—it has cost lives."

Vallas emphasized the urgent need for accountability and change within the union.

“[The CTU] presents a clear and present danger to the city socially and economically," he said. "Their policies, programs, and posturing increasingly put children at risk. Hopefully, voters take note, and the polls showing their approval rating has plummeted into the low 20s will translate into changes at the ballot box.”