Voting-Age Students Led to Polls by Chicago Teachers

Voting-age students were led to polls by Chicago teachers who backed a tax increase to fund programs for the homeless.

By Eileen Griffin

Chicago teachers took voting-age students to the polls to vote in the Illinois primary during classroom time.

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) walked students out of class and to the polling place to vote on a referendum that the union favored, The Federalist reports.

Dozens of students were seen marching down the street going to the polls. They chanted slogans showing support for the referendum. In addition to student support, CTU also donated $200,000 towards the campaign.

The measure, called Bring Chicago Home, is backed by several homeless advocacy groups, labor unions, and progressive politicians, The Chicago Tribune reports. The measure was touted as a method of raising funds to provide more services for the homeless.

The proposal would have increased the city’s real estate transfer tax for property sales above $1 million. These funds are meant to go toward more permanent housing for Chicago’s homeless.

“Those who opposed the measure include the Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago, the Chicagoland Apartment Association and the Neighborhood Building Owners Alliance,” wrote Alice Yin for the outlet.

“The groups argue that if the referendum passes, it will dampen sales in an already-fragile market and say the city does not have concrete plans for how to spend the money.”

Students attended a rally at CTU headquarters for Bring Chicago Home prior to walking to the polls.

The use of students for political activities has drawn criticism, WGN reports. In a written statement provided to WGN, a CTU spokesperson said that public school teachers have an obligation to teach students about the electoral process.

The Illinois Policy Institute objected to this use of students and filed an ethics complaint with the Chicago Public Schools ethics office and the Inspector General.

CTU Vice President Jackson Potter demanded that the schools send students to vote, the complaint. Potter sent emails telling teachers to “provide the students” and to get voting age students organized for the rally.

“By asking teachers to prepare for and organize students to participate in the Student Power Forum, which is occurring during school hours and organized in part by a political campaign (Bring Chicago Home), it is clear the union is asking its members to violate the CPS Code of Ethics and possibly other state or city provisions,” the complaint says.

CTU members support the effort because they intend to become recipients of the funds, the Illinois Policy Institute said. A new teacher contract is expected to include financial assistance for CTU members living or working in the city.

Without specifics defining how the money will be spent, a funnel to the teachers’ union is a possibility.

“The union admits what was suspected all along: (Mayor) Johnson’s real estate transfer tax hike could be a slush fund for CTU leaders who want to use the funds generated for their own purposes,” wrote Mailee Smith, senior director of labor policy and staff attorney for the Illinois Policy Institute.

“CTU demanded provisions related to affordable housing in past negotiations, but its recently leaked document makes clear its topline demand is not to help homeless Chicagoans, but to help Chicago teachers whose median salary is already more than $93,000.”

Although it was billed as non-partisan, students were led by union members and all were marching and chanting in support of the referendum, NBC News reported.

“Repeat after me. We will not give up the fight. Housing is a human right,” the parade leader said while leading students to repeat the chant.

“Events like this have been criticized,” NBC journalist Charlie Wojciechowski reported. “Many claim it is an exploitation of students for the political purpose of those who bought them here.”

“You have a political organization taking children out of school to go vote,” Austin Berg of the Illinois Policy Institute told the outlet. “At the end of the day, that’s wrong and it’s a violation of CPS’s code of ethics. If any other group spent the kind of money and resources on politics that CTU does, did the same activity, it would be national news every single night.”

Students at the event ate pizza provided by the organizers. Some students told NBC they would not have voted had the event not been organized for them.

Voting is typically low in primaries, the Chicago Sun Times reported, particularly for down ballot referenda. Given the low turnout expected for this election, even a small number of votes, such as those garnered from high school students, could impact an election.

“Using public schools to push a political outcome like this is an attack on the legitimacy of the democratic process,” Berg wrote on X.

“Teachers unions, including CTU, have a long history of acting as an arm of the Democrat Party,” wrote Brianna Lyman, in The Federalist. “The Biden administration has also taken an active role in using taxpayer dollars to target student voters who are likely Biden supporters.”

Unions spend tens of millions of dollars on political issues, education freedom advocate and former teacher Rebecca Friedrichs and For Kids and Country Editor Roger Ruvolo wrote for Real Clear Education. They are not slowing down, but ramping up the amount they spend on far-left political efforts.

“Unions take membership dues from hard-working teachers and use it to finance a slew of politically driven efforts that have nothing to do with educating the nation’s children,” Friedrichs and Ruvolo wrote. “Additional millions are used to waylay successful charter schools and the desperate families flocking to them to escape dangerous and failing government schools.

“Millions more financed efforts to sexualize children, provide abortions for students, impose transgender ideology onto our children, and introduce biological boys into girls’ sports and locker rooms—in many cases without the knowledge or permission of parents. The unions subsidize suffocating taxes, open borders, and socialized health care too.”

Bring Chicago Home was rejected by Chicago voters, “with about 53.2 percent of voters rejecting the proposal and 46.8 percent of voters in favor,” the Associated Press reported.