The Chicago Teachers Union: Taking on Racism and Building Social Movement Unionism

• In Event: Teachers Unions, Race, and Education Research: Innovations in Grassroots Organizing for Equity

Abstract

The second set of co-presenters turns to the Midwest. They analyze the Chicago Teacher Union’s (CTU) integration of research and organizing to challenge racially discriminatory school closings and education policies that produce “educational apartheid” (CTU, 2012). The authors’ analysis is framed by critical theories of race (Haymes, 1995; Lipsitz, 2006) and urban political economy (Brenner & Theodore, 2002). It is grounded in their extensive qualitative research (field notes, interviews, collaborative community research projects) and participation in education struggles as an activist-scholar and a scholar-teacher union member and leader of the CTU Black Caucus. The authors draw particularly on participation/observation in the 2012 CTU strike and Black Teachers Caucus (Author D & Jenkins, 2013), community/union organizing against school closings, and their research on racism in Chicago Public Schools and impact of school closings on Black students, communities, and teachers (Author C, 2013).

Chicago is a focal point of teacher union renewal and opposition to the assault on public education. The rebirth of the CTU as a social movement union under the leadership of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE), September 2012 strike, and alliances with parents and communities have shifted the ground on resistance to neoliberalism in the United States (Gutstein & Author C, 2013). This social movement unionism has facilitated the resurrection of the Chicago Black Caucus of Teachers, which has brought the demise of Black educators to national attention. Race is at the center of this contest—88% of students in closed schools are Black though they are just 40.5% of students in the district, contributing to disinvestment and destabilization of low-income Black communities (Author C, 2013). Moreover, the Black teaching force in Chicago declined from 40% in 2000 to 25% in 2012. This assault is seated in a history of racial segregation and denial of an equitable, culturally relevant education to students of color (Caref et al., 2012; CTU, 2012).

In sum, presenters analyze the role of CTU’s research and organizing in building coalitions with Black and Latino communities; (b) the role of CTU research in shifting the discourse on public school policy to expose racial inequities and privatization; and (c) the resurgence of Black militancy within the CTU as Black teachers galvanize to disrupt the machinations of the corporate education regime. Despite its gains, the union faces the complex challenge to transform top-down business unionism and CTU’s historic complicity with racism, and to build genuine solidarity with communities of color, while under siege from powerful forces that would dismantle public education and the union itself (Gutstein & Author C, 2013; Weiner, 2012). Presenters conclude with commentary on these challenges and lessons up to this point.

Authors

• Pauline Lipman, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Monique Rise Redeaux, University of Illinois at Chicago