Illinois Federation of Teachers lobbies for public school funding

Springfield, IL – Four buses departed from the parking lot of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) headquarters at sunrise on Wednesday morning, October 29. They carried hundreds of educators, students and parents to the State Capitol in Springfield where they joined people from all over the state mobilized by the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT). All united to demand fully funded schools across the state.

“We have rank-and-file members from all over the state of Illinois,” IFT President Stacy Davis Gates said at a fiery press conference on the steps of the Capitol. “We have people here who are walking children back and forth from school because of ICE. We have people who spend more money on materials for the kids than their district does.”

Wednesday was the fifth day of the Illinois legislature’s fall veto session. Unions and community organizations attended the veto session to demand funding for public education, transportation and healthcare, issues that legislators neglected in the spring session.

“The punchline is, we need to tax the rich,” Davis Gates continued. Other newly elected leaders of IFT and educators from across Illinois reiterated the need to make the rich pay for public services.

After the press conference, IFT members and allies flooded the building to get commitments from legislators to fight for fully-funded schools.

“Nothing is more important than making sure we’re fully funded because we don’t know what will happen by the end of the year,” Amaziah Burton, a special education teacher from Chicago, said after speaking to several state representatives who have not prioritized funds for education.

“Governor Pritzker’s kids will never know what it feels like to have no social worker and no books in the school. That’s why he says there’s no money,” Burton added. She then cited Trump’s efforts to destroy public education, and the state’s evidence based funding formula which says Illinois schools need over $3 billion more to be adequately funded.

“Illinois universities were already in a weakened state because of a lack of state funding and now we’re under attack by the Trump admin. They’re coming after diversity and inclusion programs and research grants and the system is already bare bones, so we have to get more support at the state level,” explained Aaron Krall, a UIC professor and the president of UIC United Faculty, a local of IFT. Krall and other IFT higher education members called on Pritzker to release $25 million currently being withheld from the state’s universities.

“My group’s main reason for being in Springfield is to promote the funding of transportation, but all our issues are connected,” said Lena Mackley, a member of the People’s Lobby and a middle school teacher in the West Suburbs. “This country has all the money in the world, but we don’t let it benefit our own communities. Instead, we give it to Israel.

“While American school unions protest their local governments for adequate funding, Israeli citizens enjoy free education at the expense of the American taxpayer. Even the special education programs in Palestine are struggling to support their special education population because American taxes fund the bombing of schools there instead of building up the schools here,” Mackley, who is Palestinian, explained the experience of teachers in her family in Palestine.

The buses drove back to Chicago as the sun went down. Educators and allies went home committed to building the fight against the Trump agenda and all state and local policies that steal from workers and give to billionaires.

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