CHICAGO

FLIPS RED

Investigation Report

The Education Machine

How Chicago Public Schools spends $34,631 per student who actually shows up — nearly triple private school tuition — while outcomes collapse and the Chicago Teachers Union's $41 million goes to politics.

$9.7B

CPS Total Budget

FY2024

$34,631

Per Pupil Cost

Total budget ÷ ADA

75.8%

Schools Unrated

SY2023-24

82.9%

"Graduation Rate"

Up from 68.2% — suspicious

Part I

The Scissors: Spending Up, Outcomes Down

Since 2015, CPS per-pupil spending has nearly doubled while enrollment dropped 18%. The money is flowing. The results are not.

Per-Pupil Spending vs. Enrollment — Indexed to FY2015 = 100

📐 Do the math

CPS lost 69,000 students between 2015 and 2024 — but spending grew by $3.4 billion. If funding tracked enrollment, the budget should have shrunk by ~$1.1 billion. Instead it grew by 55%. That's a $4.5 billion gap between what enrollment-based funding would predict and what CPS actually spends. Per student who actually shows up (total budget ÷ average daily attendance): $34,631.

Fiscal Year	Enrollment	Expenditures	Per Pupil (ADA)	Change
FY2015	392,285	$6.25B	$15,310	—
FY2016	381,349	$5.96B	$16,133	+5.4%
FY2017	371,382	$5.83B	$16,696	+3.5%
FY2018	361,314	$6.25B	$17,746	+6.3%
FY2019	355,156	$6.88B	$18,413	+3.8%
FY2020	340,658	$7.13B	$19,698	+7.0%
FY2021	321,561	$7.48B	$22,758	+15.5%
FY2022	322,106	$8.44B	$24,108	+5.9%
FY2023	323,251	—	$23,780	-1.4%
FY2024	323,251	$9.70B	$25,459	+7.1%

For context: The average private school tuition in Illinois is ~$12,000/year. CPS spends nearly triple what private schools charge — $34,631 per student who actually shows up — with worse outcomes on nearly every metric.

Part I-B

Where $8.7 Billion Actually Goes

CPS publishes a budget book every year. We extracted and structured all 11 available books (FY2014–FY2026). Here's what the money buys.

CPS Operating Budget by Expense Category (FY2014–FY2026)

Salaries + Benefits = 71% of the budget. In FY2026, CPS will spend $3.86B on salaries and $2.29B on benefits — a combined $6.15 billion on compensation alone. Contracts (charter tuition, consultants, legal, transportation) add another $1.85B. Only $364M goes to commodities — the line that includes actual textbooks and classroom supplies.

Central Office Headcount vs. Teachers

Central Office Growth (Indexed to FY2016 = 100)

📐 Do the math

From FY2016 to FY2025, Central Office personnel grew 78% (933 → 1,662) while teachers grew just 8% (20,760 → 22,365) and enrollment dropped 18%. CPS added 729 central office bureaucrats while serving 58,000 fewer students. At an average loaded cost of ~$130K/position, that's roughly $95 million/year in added central office overhead.

Category	FY2014	FY2018	FY2022	FY2026	Growth
Salaries	$2,558M	$2,409M	$3,071M	$3,860M	+50.9%
Benefits	$1,248M	$1,400M	$1,731M	$2,288M	+83.3%
Contracts	$1,101M	$1,191M	$1,543M	$1,853M	+68.3%
Commodities	$257M	$243M	$270M	$364M	+41.6%
Equipment	$38M	$17M	$18M	$12M	-68.4%
Total	$5,592M	$5,750M	$7,822M	$8,657M	+54.8%

Where the Revenue Comes From (FY2026)

Property taxes fund 48% of CPS. Chicago homeowners paid $4.16 billion to CPS in FY2026 — nearly double the $2.14B they paid in FY2014. Federal funding dropped from $2.07B (FY2022 pandemic peak) back to $903M. The pandemic money is gone, but the spending it enabled isn't.

Part II

The Measurement Blackout

You can't fail if you're never tested. In SY2023-24, CPS stopped rating 76% of its schools — making it nearly impossible to hold the district accountable.

School Ratings: SY2018-19

School Ratings: SY2023-24

491 out of 648 schools received "No Data Available" for their attainment rating in SY2023-24. Of the 157 schools that were rated, 89% were below expectations (140 out of 157). That's not improvement — that's hiding the evidence.

939

Avg SAT Score

Down from 969 in SY1819

45.2%

Chronic Truancy

Up from 33.2% in SY1718

82.9%

"Graduation Rate"

Up from 68.2%

-18%

Enrollment Drop

69K students gone since 2015

📐 Do the math

Graduation rate up 21.5%. SAT scores down 3.1%. Chronic truancy up 36%. Nearly half of all students are chronically truant — but more are "graduating" than ever. How do you graduate kids who don't show up? You lower the bar.

Part III

Follow the Union Money

The Chicago Teachers Union collects $41 million a year from mandatory dues. Where does it go? Federal LM-2 filings reveal a political machine, not a labor organization.

$41.3M

CTU Total Spending

FY2025

17.7%

On Representing Teachers

$7.3M of $41.3M

$4.2M

Political Spending

Up 455% from FY2021

29,646

Dues-Paying Members

$1,396/member/year

CTU Spending by Category (FY2021–FY2025)

82% of CTU spending goes to something other than representing teachers. The largest single expenditure? $4.5 million to the Illinois Federation of Teachers — dues paid on top of dues. Teachers pay the CTU. The CTU pays the IFT. The IFT pays the AFT. It's a money ladder.

Political Spending: $8.1M in 4 Years

Every dollar below comes from mandatory teacher dues. None of it was voted on by members.

Political Spending Growth (FY2021–FY2025)

Payee	Total (4 Years)	Purpose
CTU PAC / COPE / PAC Local 1	$4.9M	Political action committees
PAC Local 1	$800K	PAC contributions (FY2025)
Lawrence Suffredin	$659K	Political consulting
End Homelessness	$400K	Political advocacy org
Conway Consulting Group	$329K	Political consulting
Deliver Strategies LLC	$261K	Political strategy
Our Schools Action	$180K	CTU-aligned political org
United Working Families	$168K	Socialist electoral org
Lake Research Partners	$239K	DC polling firm
Gabriel Lopez	$70K	Individual — political
Democratic Majority	$48K	Party organization
Friends for Foxx	$15K	Kim Foxx campaign

📐 Do the math

Lawrence Suffredin — a Cook County Commissioner — received $659,000 from CTU over 4 years for "political consulting." That's a sitting elected official being paid by the union that lobbies his own government body. Conway Consulting has received $329,000 — $84K/year like clockwork. United Working Families, a democratic-socialist electoral organization, gets $56,160/year in mandatory teacher dues.

Part IV

The Money Ladder

CTU's top vendors tell the story of where teacher dues actually end up.

Illinois Federation of Teachers

Dues pass-through — CTU members pay CTU, CTU pays IFT, IFT pays AFT

$15.6M

4-year total • Largest single vendor

CTU Foundation / Rent

Foundation receives CTU funds; shares leadership. Merchandise Mart office lease.

$6.6M

4-year total • Foundation + Merch Mart

Dowd, Bloch, Bennett, Cervone

Law firm — representational. Primary outside counsel.

$1.8M

4-year total

Poltrock & Poltrock

Law firm — representational. Second outside counsel.

$1.0M

4-year total

APS and Associates LLC

Lobbying firm — "representational" but functionally political

$364K

FY2025 only — new vendor

Lawrence Suffredin

Cook County Commissioner — paid as "political consultant"

$659K

4-year total • Sitting elected official

Part V

The Officers

CTU leadership compensation from federal LM-2 filings. All figures include salary, allowances, and other disbursements.

Officer	Title	FY2021	FY2022	FY2024	FY2025
Stacy Davis-Gates	VP → President	$147K	$150K	$188K	$195K
Jesse Sharkey	President (departed)	$152K	$153K	—	—
Jackson Potter	Vice President	—	—	$145K	$150K
Christel Williams	Recording Secretary	$142K	$146K	$164K	$169K
Maria Moreno	Financial Secretary	$142K	$144K	—	$169K
Zeidre Foster	Field Service Director	—	—	$187K	$192K

Note: Stacy Davis-Gates enrolled her own son in a private Catholic school in 2023 while publicly campaigning against school choice. She earns $195K/year from mandatory dues paid by teachers in the public system she calls "underfunded."

Part VI

The Audit Gap

CTU has gone over 1,900 days without releasing a financial audit — while collecting over $160 million in member dues during that period.

August 2019

CTU leadership travels to Venezuela to meet with the Maduro government during a humanitarian crisis. Trip funded by union-adjacent organizations.

October 2019

CTU launches an 11-day strike — the longest CPS strike since 1987. Costs estimated at $100M+ in lost instruction time.

FY2019–2020

Last known CTU financial audit released. After this point, no audits are made public despite union bylaws requiring annual disclosure.

2021–2024

CTU collects $148 million in total receipts across 4 fiscal years. Political spending increases from $761K to $4.2M. No audit released.

2023

CTU skips its FY2023 LM-2 federal filing entirely — a gap year in DOL records (file #545-781). No explanation given.

October 2024

CTU members file a lawsuit demanding the release of financial audits. Union leadership has now gone 1,900+ days without transparency.

$148 million collected. Zero audits released. The CTU collected $148M in total receipts ($129M in dues alone) across four fiscal years, but refuses to show members where the money goes. When members sued for transparency in October 2024, it was the first time in CTU's history that its own membership had to take legal action against its own union.

The Bottom Line

What Needs to Happen

This isn't about politics. It's about 323,000 kids and 29,000 teachers who deserve better than this.

1. Restore School Ratings

76% of schools going unrated is not a data gap — it's a cover-up. Every school should be measured every year, with results published publicly.

2. Audit the CTU

Five years without a released audit is unacceptable. An independent forensic audit should be mandated — not by the CTU, but by the members whose money it is.

3. Abolish Public Sector Unions

The CTU does not represent teachers — it is a political machine that extracts mandatory dues to fund its own power. Public sector unions negotiate against taxpayers, not corporations. There is no adversarial employer to justify collective bargaining — the "employer" is the public. FDR understood this. It's time to say it plainly: abolish the CTU and all public sector unions. Pay teachers more, protect them with civil service law, and cut out the middleman taking $1,400/year from every one of them.

4. Follow the Per-Pupil Dollar

$25,459 per student. Where does it go? CPS should publish line-item per-pupil breakdowns for every school, every year — not just district-wide averages.

5. Pay Teachers More — Hire Better Ones

Good teachers deserve higher pay. But ed-school credentialing blocks experienced professionals — engineers, scientists, tradespeople, veterans — from ever entering a classroom. Open the pipeline to real-world expertise and raise pay for great teachers.

6. Get Ideology Out of the Classroom

Across the country, teachers are organizing student walkouts and protests during school hours — using children as political props in taxpayer-funded activism. A teacher's job is to teach math, reading, science, and history — not to recruit the next generation of activists. Fire the ones who treat classrooms as political organizing spaces.

Sources

CPS Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports (ACFRs), FY2007–FY2024 — Statistical Section, 10-year trend tables
CPS School Progress Reports, SY2011-12 through SY2023-24 — Chicago Data Portal (Socrata)
CTU LM-2 Federal Financial Filings, FY2021, FY2022, FY2024, FY2025 — US DOL Office of Labor-Management Standards, File #545-781
NCES Common Core of Data / F-33 Finance Survey, FY2015–FY2022 — National Center for Education Statistics
ISBE 15-Year Trend Report, 2011–2025 — Illinois State Board of Education
"CTU members sue union over withheld financial audits" — October 2024
"CTU leaders traveled to Venezuela in 2019" — contemporaneous reporting
Stacy Davis-Gates private school enrollment — Chicago Sun-Times, 2023
CPS Budget Books, FY2014–FY2026 — Chicago Public Schools Office of Budget & Grants Management

All financial data sourced from audited reports and federal filings. Data warehouse: 23+ tables, 26.5MB SQLite database built from primary sources. Report prepared by Chicago Flips Red, February 2026.