Chicago's State-Sponsored Protest
Chicago’s teachers union isn’t just negotiating contracts anymore—it’s mobilizing children. Under the banner of “civic action,” the Chicago Teachers Union has pushed the public school system into a new role: not as an institution of learning, but as a vehicle for political organizing, backed by taxpayer dollars and institutional power.
In March, the CTU passed a resolution to have schools closed on May 1st for a “May Day” protest. Their resolution was a laundry list of far-left causes, ranging from anti-Trump rhetoric to specific foreign policy demands. After a standoff with the school board and CPS CEO Dr. Macquline King, a “compromise” was reached.
On Friday, May 1st I watched as hundreds, perhaps thousands of Chicago Public School students were bussed on-site to protest. The use of buses suggests organized logistics from school personnel and resources, with protest signs that were clearly assembled in groups beforehand, likely in the classroom as a group. What Chicago residents witnessed was an unofficial field trip, paid for with their tax dollars with extremist groups setting the agenda. From the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to city officials and union heads, students were used as foot soldiers to advance an far-left agenda set by radical progressives. A significant number of students took the day off to participate, which certainly impacted school operations for the students for those who stayed behind.
The May Day resolution spaned an extraordinary ideological spectrum: LGBTQ rights, racial justice, taxing the rich, voting rights, immigration, opposition to U.S. Middle East policy, and more. Those messages and more were present on protest signs carried through the streets by Chicago Public Schools employees and students.
How is an eight-year-old expected to form independent, nuanced political opinions across these complex issues simultaneously? The obvious answer is that they are not, especially considering the proficiency scores of Chicago’s students. In Chicago today, over 50 schools report a math proficiency level of exactly 0%. The 20 lowest enrollment schools have an average reading proficiency of 11% while spending over $33.5k per pupil.
They are being told what to think, not taught how to think. By treating children as a captive audience for a specific political agenda, the CTU is stripping them of the very thing education is supposed to provide: the intellectual autonomy to navigate the world as free-thinking and upstanding citizens. Instead, they are being used as political props to give the illusion of a youth-led mandate for CTU’s platform.
The Chicago Teachers Union possesses a level of influence that far exceeds any typical labor organization. Through aggressive lobbying and the passage of state-level legislation, they have secured broader bargaining rights than any teachers’ union in the country. This power is amplified by the complicity of Mayor Brandon Johnson—a former CTU organizer whose campaign was bankrolled by the union to the tune of millions. With their hand-picked ally in City Hall, the CTU is holding taxpayer funds captive to their agenda. When the city provides buses and lunches for a protest they are using the machinery of government to fund a “long march” through our institutions.
This escalation is not organic. It is a deliberate “strategic alliance” with revolutionary organizations that have no business being involved in a K-12 curriculum.
In March, the union sponsored “Hands Off Iran” protests alongside the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), a Marxist-Leninist group that openly calls for the overthrow of the U.S. government, and the Palestinian Youth Movement, which has documented ties to designated terrorist organizations.
Leaders like CTU Vice President Jackson Potter and other union brass have been linked to pro-Cuba calls and anti-Israel “teach-ins,” injecting high-stakes geopolitical conflicts into elementary classrooms.
My organization, the North American Values Institute, exposed the fact that a recent CTU-NEA (National Education Association) webinar and separate curriculum fair even trained educators to bring “social justice” activism to children as young as three years old.
In these workshops, teachers earned professional development credits for sessions like “Does my curriculum facilitate genocide?” The pedagogy being pushed is one that teaches children that “exploitation and oppression are foundational” to the United States, effectively arguing that traditional social studies education merely serves to uphold a “genocidal domestic and global status quo.”
This isn’t education; it is the systematic dismantling of civic knowledge and pride.
Despite CTU President Stacy Davis Gates’ frequent denials that her union operates as a political party or a political action committee, financial disclosures tell a different story. In 2025, less than 18% of CTU’s spending went toward representing teachers in their core professional duties—negotiating wages, benefits, and workplace safety.
The remaining 80%? It is funneled into political activities, lobbying, and overhead. They have become the primary engine for Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) candidates in Illinois. They are using teacher dues and public influence to maintain a political machine, yet they demand the protections and legal status of a labor union.
Rather than addressing the academic achievement emergency, CTU successfully lobbied the state to focus on “right-sizing” proficiency and graduation rates—essentially lowering the bar to mask plummeting proficiency. They are graduating students who can’t read but who are instead expertly trained to be the next generation of “rank-and-file” activists. This is a betrayal of the city’s most vulnerable families.
The mask has slipped, and Chicagoans are finally noticing. The union’s unfavorability has reached record highs, over 50%, and a legitimate, multi-racial opposition is forming among parents who are tired of their children being used as leverage. As part of the CTU-CPS May Day agreement, they have also secured May 1, 2028, as a professional development day. This is a date that CTU and other far-left organizations like the Party for Socialism & Liberation, Sunrise Movement, Democratic Socialists of America, and many others, are targeting for a general strike. They want to shut down schools, workplaces, and entire cities. Now CTU has secured their day off from school to participate, and bring their students along with them.
Chicago is the laboratory for this brand of “social justice unionism.” If the residents of this city allow it to happen without substantial opposition, this dangerous formula will spread to every major U.S. city.
The agreement between CTU and CPS is a warning for the entire country. If this state-sponsored radicalization is not loudly rejected by Chicago voters and a coalition of common-sense citizens, especially Democrats, the boundary between education and indoctrination will be permanently erased.
We cannot afford to wait until 2028 to realize that the “long march” has reached the finish line across our cities. We must reclaim our schools now—for the sake of our children’s autonomy and the future of our country—or accept that our tax dollars are being used to fund the forces that seek to dismantle America’s civic foundations. That’s the real “Day of Civic Action” the CTU is after.
