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Podcast: Chicago Public School priority union wages and jobs over educating children
Political consultant and analyst Frank Calabrese and syndicated political columnist and former Chicago City Hall reporter Ray Hanania dig deep into the challenges facing the Chicago Public Schools, detailing how spending shows the priority is protecting union jobs over enhancing student education in the latest episode of Political-Review.
The analysis and discussion come as Chicago Schools opened for the first day of classes on Monday, August 24, 2026, for the city’s 316,224 students at the 522 school campuses, including 500 schools that have fewer than 200 students. About 30 percent of the school/campuses are half empty.
Frederick Douglass Academy High School on Chicago’s West Side, 543 N. Waller Ave. in Austin, has a reported enrollment of only 33 students. The high school is spending just over $68,000 per student compared to the district average of $18,287.
The Political-Review podcast, available on Youtube, Spotify, Podbean and other major audio and video platforms, explores the history of the Chicago Public Schools and how the costs for administration have continued to increase dramatically while the number of students served has dropped significantly.
Calabrese and Hanania argue that something must be done to change the focus and emphasis back to enhancing student performance rather than increasing administrative and union salaries and benefits.
They note that five years ago, only 26 percent of Chicago Public School students met the minimum reading proficiency level set by the State of Illinois. Rather than strive to increase that, the state and CPS agreed to lower the performance level. Even with that artificial effort to improve the look of student performance, only 43 percent of students meet the new, lower reading proficiency level.
Chicago Public Schools has 316,224 students enrolled for the school year. The district includes 626 total schools including Charter Schools. That’s $31,623 “per student” spent. And yet, the bulk of that money goes to cover administration costs with only a small portion focused on educational enhancement.
Approximately 50 elementary and high schools combined in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) serve fewer than 200 students, though CPS does not publish a static, isolated roster exclusively naming every individual high school under this threshold.
Calabrese and Hanania debate whether the Chicago Public Schools and education leaders know what needs to be done, while the system has increasingly come under the control of the unions rather than parents.
In the past, City Government controlled the school board and made appointments. Now, the CPS Board consists of members “elected” in local districts heavily influenced by the unions.
Should the system return to the control of the Chicago Mayor to restore checks and balances with legitimate union needs and demands?
With the union controlling nearly everything — Mayor Brandon Johnson is a member of the Chicago Teachers Union, and now opposed by the SEIU union, which represents employees at the schools, there needs to be someone running the schools thata puts the priority back on education quality.
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Frank Calabrese can be reached at FrankCalabrese.com and Ray Hanania can be reached at Hanania.com.
Email the hosts at Ray Hanania or Frank Calabrese.
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
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