After nasty clashes involving character assassinations and a mass resignation, a showdown is drawing closer in Chicago between the most powerful local teachers’ union in the country and the most financially distressed school district. 

The growing possibility of a teachers’ strike in a city with a long history of labor upheavals highlights the troubles rocking public schools nationwide. First came drops in academic performance and enrollment from lower birth rates and the pull of charter and home schools promising a better education and sometimes delivering it. Enrollment has plunged 20% in Chicago since 2012, a bigger decline than in many large cities.

After the pandemic hit, a windfall of $190 billion in federal emergency funding helped districts like Chicago paper over years of deficit spending and significantly expand the ranks of teachers, social workers, and counselors. Now that the federal aid has ended, students have only partly recovered from their devastating learning loss while budget deficits have ballooned, prompting widespread education cuts in Houston and upcoming reductions in San Francisco, to name just a few districts facing fiscal woes.

Chicago may be the most financially dysfunctional of them all, says Marguerite Roza, head of Georgetown’s Edunomics Lab. At the center of the drama is the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), which has become a dominant force in city politics after playing a pivotal role in the election of one of its own, Brandon Johnson, as mayor two years ago.