Chicago City Wire

Chicago Contrarian announced on X that it shared commentary from Paul Vallas, former Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO, arguing the Chicago Teachers Union’s (CTU) actions contradict its said commitment to protecting and educating CPS students.

According to Chicago Contrarian, Vallas contends that the CTU’s leadership has shifted away from prioritizing educational outcomes, instead emphasizing its political influence. He argues that CPS under CTU leadership has abrogated responsibility for maintaining high standards by socially promoting students—moving them from grade to grade regardless of mastery of content. Vallas also claims that the policy shift includes scrapping school ranking systems and replacing academic accountability measures with "social and emotional" metrics that are more vague.

According to Illinois Policy Institute, the CTU has pushed for reducing the frequency and rigor of teacher evaluations—for example, they want tenured teachers rated "excellent" or "proficient" to be reviewed only every three years rather than annually. The report also notes that the number of required classroom observations is being reduced, with only two observations per evaluation cycle unless both parties agree to a third. Additionally, Illinois Policy claims that CPS has stopped factoring standardized test results into internal school evaluations while CTU leaders, including Stacy Davis Gates, have publicly criticized such assessments as problematic.

As reported by Illinois Policy and Chicago Contrarian, CTU leadership, particularly Stacy Davis Gates, has labeled standardized assessments as relics of "white supremacy," and opposed their use in evaluation systems. CPS has replaced its School Quality Rating Policy with one that largely ignores academic outcomes in favor of more subjective metrics. The claim is that this shift undermines the ability of parents and the community to see clear indicators of school performance.

Chicago Contrarian is a Chicago-based opinion and analysis outlet focusing on education, local politics, and public policy. It publishes pieces like Paul Vallas’s commentary critical of education union leadership, particularly the CTU, using platforms like its blog and X (formerly Twitter) to disseminate its arguments. According to its website, its audience includes readers interested in reform-oriented perspectives on how schools are administered and held accountable.