CHICAGO—In advance of a Chicago Board of Education Charter Renewal Public Hearing tomorrow at Chicago Public School (CPS) headquarters, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) continues to call for an end to charter expansion and renewal while 129 traditional public schools remain in danger of being closed. The Board cannot in good faith close schools for budget reasons and simultaneously fund the creation of additional privately operated charter schools, for every seat created in a charter school potentially increases what CPS has called “chronic underutilization” of the public schools—its justification for mass school closings.

Charter purging—schools pushing out underperforming students at the beginning of each calendar year and boosting their academic numbers after receiving funding for all students the previous fall—is one of a number of issues surrounding charter schools. Other concerns include excessive fines for children from low-income families, who must pay the fines before receiving final grades (and often after being counseled out); labor management concerns and unfair charter teacher salaries; lesser-performing charter schools and the quality of education compared to Chicago Public Schools; and questionable financial practices and patronage among charter networks. 

The following schools are up for contract renewal, according to CPS:

• ACE Tech Charter School
• Amandla Charter School
• Aspira Charter School (Early College, Haugan and Ramirez campuses)
• Betty Shabazz International Charter School (DuSable, Shabazz and Sizemore campuses)
• Community Services West Career Academy
• KIPP Ascend Charter School
• North Lawndale College Prep (Christiana and Collins campuses)
• Passages Charter School
• Plato Learning Academy
• University of Chicago Charter School (Donoghue, North Kenwood/Oakland, Woodlawn and Woodson campuses)
• UNO (Casas, Fuentes, Homan Charter Elementary, Cisneros, Garcia, Paz, Marquez, Torres, Tamayo, Zizumbo, St. Marks, UNO Near West Elementary and UNO North Side Elementary campuses)
• Young Women’s Leadership Charter School of Chicago

A formal complaint was filed by parents and fair education reformers with the state of Illinois in January against one of the operators up for renewal, the UNO Charter Schools Network, asking for an investigation of the network’s finances. UNO, which has close ties to the Mayor’s office received $98 million from the state in 2009—the largest taxpayer subsidy to a single charter network—and was slated for an additional $35 million in state appropriations this year, which is the same amount earmarked for every CPS school combined. 

Last week, an UNO executive resigned after press reports revealed the network had provided contracts to companies owned by two of his brothers.

“There are thousands of families are starving for quality education in Chicago and we have the teachers, administrators and schools to satiate that need,” said CTU President Karen GJ Lewis. “But we can’t prove that these charters are any better than what’s currently being offered, and until we can, we cannot arbitrarily renew contracts at the expense of schools still in danger of closing.”