School consolidation a must for Chicago Public Schools, argues Tribune editorial board

Should Chicago Public Schools (CPS) keep a 900-seat facility open while it’s serving fewer than 30 students?

Such “absurdities” only highlight the need for the city to reopen the unpopular but important topic of school consolidations, the Chicago Tribune editorial board argued in a recent op-ed.

“(Douglass High School) has become the poster child for a militant teachers union that clearly places a higher priority on preserving and growing its membership than it does on the welfare of Chicago’s public school students,” the board noted. “Not to mention taxpayers.”

Although the district hasn’t confirmed official enrollment for the 2025-26 academic year, preliminary reports indicate about 12,000 fewer students from the previous year – dwindling to an estimated 313,000 total.

“That’s a 4% decrease from 325,000 last year and the lowest CPS student total in decades,” editorialists wrote. “It’s clear now that a modest two-year increase in CPS enrollment was a mirage, as we and many others believed.”

‘Petrified’ policymakers under pressure

Consolidations need to become more of a priority given the likelihood of even lower attendance in the future, the board wrote.

“CPS projects that within three years enrollment could dip to as low as 300,000, remarkable given that more than 400,000 students attended CPS schools as recently as 2013-14.”

All these statistics point to “rightsizing a school district built to serve at least a third more students than it currently does,” the Tribune concludes.

However, the editors acknowledge the last time Chicago underwent school closures triggered a community backlash.

“The shuttering of the 50 schools in 2013 was by most accounts a chaotic process,” the editorial board writes. “There was a need back then to close schools, but the method left something to be desired.”

As a result, politicians face “politically hazardous waters” whenever bringing up the topic – no matter how necessary the conversation, according to the Tribune.

“With a mayor who talks repeatedly of his 2016 hunger strike to reopen Dyett High School on the South Side and a Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) that considers Rahm Emanuel’s closures to be an act of pure evil, CPS and too many state and local policymakers have become paralyzed.

“They’re petrified even to discuss what any other school district in the state or the nation would be doing under similar circumstances — close near-empty schools.”

One potential improvement involves the end of mayoral appointees to the city’s school board by 2026, according to the board.

“When — and it will be when, not if – Chicago finally gets serious about rationalizing its school system, it could well be a blessing that the process will be overseen by school board members who are elected rather than mayoral appointees.”

Elected members can avoid some of the political pressure from CTU – a union growing increasingly unpopular in Illinois after its refusal to release audits and pushing LGBT, pro-abortion and other policies.

“It will be harder — not impossible, unfortunately — for CTU to attempt to demonize school board members who are trying to make difficult but responsible decisions,” the editors note. “Fortunately, those decision-makers ultimately will be answerable directly to voters rather than to a mayor, and that will help shield them from CTU’s proven ability to put mayors under intense pressure.”