CTU President Lewis Blames "Elites" For Public Education Inequality

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jun 19, 2013 1:45PM

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, seen at a rally protesting school closings in March. (Photo credit: Aaron Cynic/Chicagoist)

In a scathing speech at a City Club of Chicago meeting rife with baseball metaphors, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis on Tuesday blamed the fiscal problems facing Chicago Public Schools on banks and “rich white people,” and called for the union and CPS officials to work together to find ways to fund the system.

Lewis said, “there is nothing radical about me other than I want each and every student in Chicago to get the best education we have to offer,” and added the union is more than willing to work with the Board of Education and the Emanuel administration to solve the myriad issues facing the school system, but “we can’t work together on these issues because they keep creating new problems.”

Some of Lewis’s most pointed criticisms were levied at Bank of America, which she blamed for the foreclosure crisis that devastated the neighborhoods where most of the school closures were centered. “These communities have been devastated by years of community disinvestment at the behest of city officials and most of these communities also have seen the most charter proliferation. The families have been driven out by the foreclosure crisis and more and more of the public schools are being shut down every year. Families lose their homes, teachers lose their jobs, children lose a trusted community institution. It's as if there is a concerted effort to make sure that these are not walkable, thriving, healthy communities,” she said

“We are currently hearing about the reduction in library, art, music and special education programming because of school-based budget cuts. For every million dollars that Bank of America has earned from toxic swaps in the last 5 years, there are over 10 library, art, music or world language programs that will be eliminated. If the banks had not crashed our economy, the district would have nearly $180 million more to invest in our classrooms, an amount that would restore all of the cuts to the better school day throughout the city.”