Chicago Teachers Union Accused of Giving Official’s Mother Multimillion-Dollar Contracts

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has been accused of a number of financial improprieties even while negotiating its new contract, including skipping out on financial audits and awarding multimillion-dollar contracts to the relative of a top union officer.

The CTU is in the midst of negotiating its next contract and is demanding a $50 billion package that includes free abortion services, cash to migrants, LGBTQ concessions, and a big hike in pay that would make Chicago’s teachers some of the highest paid in the country.

But complicating the contract talks, the CTU is being dogged with questions over its actions.

One problem is the huge contracts being given to a relative of the union’s VP.

According to the Illinois Policy Institute, since 2018, the CTU has been paying millions for legal services from a firm belonging to the mother of CTU Vice President Jackson Potter.

The analysis shows that the CTU has steered two huge lawsuits to Robin Potter worth upwards of $9.25 million, out of which her law firm received $4 million in fees. Between 2018 and 2023, Potter’s law firm also got $320,000 in business as well as a payout of $33,000 in undisclosed expenses.

Amid all of this, the CTU has also failed to conform to its own financial reporting rules, which require it to provide an annual internal audit of its spending to its members. It appears that the last time the union provided this audit was in 2019.

According to a review of the CTU website, the webpage for the required audits for 2019 through 2023 do not appear.

But despite the billions being spent every year on the Chicago Public Schools, students do not seem to be benefitting much from the bloated budgets.

For instance, in February, it was found that 55 of Chicago’s public schools had zero children proficient at grade-level in reading and math:

The Illinois Policy Institute also reported in 2023 that Chicago’s high school graduation rate lagged far behind the rest of the state, as fewer students graduated, test scores were lower, and fewer went on to attend college.

“In 2022, 83.2% of Chicago public students graduated within four years. That’s four percentage points below the statewide graduation rate,” the conservative think tank reported.

The CTU has been under fire in other ways, as well.

Last September, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates was criticized when news broke that she was sending her own son to a private school.

Gates attempted to make it a racial problem by claiming that “inequities” in the Chicago Public Schools are what led to her decision. She added that the “options for Black students, their families and entire Black communities on this city’s South and West Sides are limited,” WLS-TV reported at the time.

FLASHBACK — Mayor Lightfoot: ‘What the Chicago Teachers Union Did Was an Illegal Walkout’

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