The Chicago Tribune is reporting more state charter schools are closing as the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) flexes its muscle, starving charters of money.
The plan seems to be to choke charters financially and take over schools when they fail.
Indeed, CTU President Stacey Gates Davis even celebrated the demise of charters last month, crowing that the “wheels have come off Chicago education reformers’ charter school experiment.”
About 12.5% of Chicago’s roughly 120 charter schools have failed over the last six years. The latest closure is the Chicago High School for the Arts, also known as ChiArts, the Tribune said.
The charter board told the newspaper the closure was in part because of a financial shortfall that is too common in charter operations, which are required to contract with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) for teaching services.
Critics argue CPS and CTU have actually conspired to create conditions where charters would fail.
