Is criticism a crime?
As fond as I am of teachers, generally, and despite being a good union man myself, I couldn’t help but shake my head in wonder at the Chicago Teachers Union, which I consider a fairly savvy organization, suing a pair of conservative watchdogs, the Illinois Policy Institute and the Liberty Justice Center, for sinking their teeth into CTU finances and accusing the union of using “cooked” books.
First, way to turn a spotlight on their accusations. Believe it or not, I’m not checking the Illinois Policy Institute website every morning to see what’s in their crosshairs. Doing that, right now, I see their top story is on … pumpkins. “The state produces enough pumpkins to make nearly 8 billion pumpkin spice lattes, the most pumpkins in the U.S.” At first I thought it must be a mistake — the colorful, pumpkin-centric page labeled “Illinois Policy” must be different from “Illinois Policy Institute.”
Nope. Same folks.
But is it true? According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the top producer of pumpkins in the country is … Illinois, head and shoulders above the rest, responsible for 40% of all the big orange squashes grown nationwide.
Did you know that? I did not. Score one for the Illinois Policy Institute.
The second story “CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION UNDERMINES YET ANOTHER CHARTER SCHOOL” begins: “The Chicago Teachers Union’s relentless attacks on charter schools has claimed another victim. The Chicago High School for the Arts announced it will not renew its contract with Chicago Public Schools, citing financial struggles. It will stop operations at the end of the current 2025-2026 school year.”
Is that true? Kinda. The charter school will stop operations, but the school itself will transition into a public school. You could also say … as a Sun-Times story suggested last month … that CPS stepped in and saved the school after its charter operators decided to abandon it, one of the many downsides of privatizing public education. As a rule, the Chicago Public Schools are not shutting down schools willy-nilly, at least not since Rahm Emanuel left office.
That said, with Republicans dwelling in a near hallucinatory fantasy world where elections they lose are by definition fraudulent and along with inconvenient timbers of the Constitution can simply be wished away, I’d say that any thinking that bears even a rough resemblance to reality ought to be encouraged. So yes, just as the teachers union is opposed to charter schools, viewing them as corporate dodges to get around union protections, so the IPI is for them, as part of the parental choice/school voucher canard designed to direct public money into private pockets. Let the best man win.
Spin aside, I’m learning stuff. Honestly, quite an attractive website. I’ll have to add it to my list.
The third story, “WITHOUT REFORMS, PENSION INSOLVENCY WILL EAT CHICAGO ALIVE,” well, hard to argue that one. I’ve said for years that the city slides toward becoming one vast pension fund that also puts out fires. Maybe the CTU will sue me next.
Not to give them ideas. Back to suing Illinois Policy Institute. Bush league move. Did the CTU ever pause to wonder how this makes them look? Spend any time communicating in public and people are going to attack you. If I sued everyone who accused me of simply parroting whatever George Soros instructs me to say, I’d spend all my time in court.
Speaking of court. Since the lawsuit pivots on charges that the CTU “cooked” their books, doesn’t this lawsuit invite the Illinois Policy Institute to pick over the union’s finances with a lice comb, and show up in court with all sorts of charts highlighting every error, discrepancy and questionable meal expense they can find? Isn’t that exactly what the IPI wants to do anyway? And isn’t the CTU basically shining klieg lights, setting the stage for the IPI to parade their charges and theories across? I think they are.
In checking out the Illinois Policy Institute’s reputation, I found a 2018 article that says this about the organization:
“Its studies and opinion pieces on cutting government spending and boosting transparency became must-read material to many Republicans, some Democrats,” Mick Dumke and Tina Sfondeles wrote in the Sun-Times, while pointing out that its operator, John Tillman, was raking in millions.
“As the institute attacked political insiders for profiting off the system, Tillman parlayed its small-government message into growing paychecks for himself and other top staff members, tax filings and audits show,” the paper wrote.
Though the story questioned the legality of what the Illinois Policy Institute was doing, its leaders did not sue the Sun-Times. What do they know that the Chicago Teachers Union doesn’t?