Bills filed in the Illinois General Assembly would lay the groundwork to close charter schools or place more restrictions on them. Illinois has a history of restricting charter schools at the behest of teachers unions.

Illinois parents, especially low-income parents, are facing yet another assault on their educational freedom with an attack on charter schools.

Teachers unions got state lawmakers to kill the Invest in Kids program, which allowed 15,000 low-income students to attend private schools. Now they are attacking Illinois’ public charter schools, where 85% of students are low income.

State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, filed House Bill 1387 to create a clear transition procedure for charter school closures and consolidations, paving the way for the eventual shutdown of charter schools in Illinois. The bill also prohibits organizations that already operate private, religious or non-public schools from operating a charter school.

State Sens. Celina Villanueva, D-Chicago, and Ram Villivalam, D-Chicago, filed a companion bill, Senate Bill 144, which seeks to do the same damage to charter schools as HB 1387.

The sponsors of the two bills have all taken money from the Chicago Teachers Union. CTU has a history of denying access to charter schools for Chicago families, so it comes as no surprise that CTU-backed lawmakers have introduced legislation to weaken and regulate charter schools throughout the state.

What’s in the bills?

The bills seek to amend the Illinois School Code to create more regulations around who can be granted a charter to operate a charter school, how charter schools spend their budget and what a transition plan looks like for the closure or consolidation of a charter school.

Current statute does not allow an existing private, parochial or non-public school to be converted into a charter school. But organizations which operate those schools would be eligible to start a new charter school.

The bills seek to stop that by forbidding any organizations which operates a private, parochial or non-public school or child care facility from being granted a charter to open a new charter school.

The bills also seek to control how charter schools spend money. The school code currently allows charter schools to manage and operate their finances, including preparing their budgets. But the bills would create regulations around charter schools’ budgets, requiring charter schools to spend no less than 90% of their budget on direct-service costs for students.

The bills also begin laying the groundwork for the eventual elimination of charter schools by creating a process for closing or consolidating charter schools. This includes requiring local school districts to collaborate with charter schools facing closure to ensure every charter student gets a seat at the public school and all teachers at a closing charter school are guaranteed a job at the public school.

Illinois state law already hinders charter school growth and innovation

Illinois’ charter school provisions already impose a limit on the number of charter schools allowed to operate in the state.

The law currently caps the number of charter schools at 120, with no more than 70 allowed to operate in Chicago. However, many charter schools operate multiple campuses under the same charter agreement.

Teachers unions such as CTU have fought to keep charter schools from growing – both in collective bargaining agreements and in lobbying.

The current bills have much in common with some of CTU’s demands in its ongoing contract negotiations with Chicago Public Schools. The initial demands from CTU included multiple provisions to undermine charter schools in Chicago, including requiring charter schools to spend no less than 90% of their budgets on direct-service spending on students and directing the Chicago Board of Education to adopt clear procedures for charter school closures and reabsorption.

Limiting charter schools, then unionizing them to eliminate them are all part of CTU’s admitted strategy to deny parents alternatives to the educational product the union churns out. Acero Charter Schools announced it would close 7 of its 15 charter schools after CTU applied that strategy to them.

In negotiating the past two teacher contracts with CPS, CTU required a moratorium on the growth of charter schools. CTU has worked to prevent the growth of charter schools as well as the number of students who can choose them.

The union works against charter schools at the Statehouse as well. It opposed bills which would expand charter access and lobbied in favor of extended moratoriums on the creation of certain charters. It pushed for prohibitions on opening charter schools in any ZIP code in which a public school was closed in the previous 10 years or in ZIP codes contiguous to a ZIP code where a public school was closed.

Clearly, lobbying against the growth and flourishing of charter schools by CTU impacts the whole state, limiting parents’ options from East St. Louis to Rockford.