The Chicago Teachers Union kept kids out of school for two years during COVID – and now they want to do it again.
This time they're not blaming a virus.
They want Chicago children to spend May 1st marching against Donald Trump – and they need the school board's permission to make it official.
How Brandon Johnson and Chicago Public Schools Handed CTU the May Day Strike It Wanted
The CTU just filed a petition asking Chicago Public Schools to excuse student absences on May 1st so kids can join the union's one-day strike against Trump. Union vice president Jackson Potter dressed it up as education: "Teaching our students what civic action looks like requires more than textbooks."
Translation: We're skipping work and we want to bring your kids.
The protest is part of a nationwide May Day push – organized alongside socialists, anti-ICE activists, and open-borders groups – to shut down schools, businesses, and workplaces in a coordinated strike against the Trump administration.
National Education Association union bosses are already distributing a toolkit with a map of planned events. The May Day Strong coalition includes the teachers union, the nurses union, and groups like Sunrise Movement and Indivisible.
This is not a civics lesson. This is a political operation dressed in a classroom.
And Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson – the same man CTU and its affiliates spent more than $5.6 million to put in office – has already signaled his support. His union bought the mayor's seat, and now the mayor is returning the favor with the school day.
The Chicago Teachers Union Strike Record Democrats Refuse to Talk About
Here is what the Chicago Teachers Union does. They declare a crisis. They use it to stop teaching. Then they demand money and political wins in exchange for going back to work.
They did it in 2012 when they shut down Chicago schools for 10 days and left 300,000 students stranded. They did it in 2019 with another strike that cost taxpayers at least $1.5 billion in contract concessions. They did it in 2021 and 2022 when they refused to return to classrooms long after every other major school district had reopened – ignoring their own district's reopening plans and the pleas of Chicago parents.
Now they're doing it again – except this time the union isn't even pretending the kids come first.
CTU's own announcement makes the real priorities clear: the May 1st action targets ICE, billionaires, and the Iran War alongside school funding. That list has nothing to do with reading scores in Chicago. It has everything to do with the radical Left's political agenda.
Illinois state law gives students one excused absence for a civic event. CTU wants to plant their flag on that exemption and hand it to a socialist political rally.
CTU Spent Millions Electing Brandon Johnson and Now Chicago Students Are Paying the Price
The CTU's political machine is worth understanding. CTU alone pumped $2.3 million into Johnson's campaign – at one point breaking its own internal rules to raid member dues for a $1.5 million contribution its own handbook explicitly prohibits.
Add the affiliates and the total tops $5.6 million. More than 60 percent of CTU's political giving goes to aldermen affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America.
This is not a union protecting workers. This is a political organization that bought City Hall and is now using the government school system as its ground game.
When CTU wants something from the Chicago School Board, Johnson delivers. When CTU wants to strike, Johnson doesn't stand in the way. And when CTU wants to cancel school to recruit children into a political protest, Johnson signals his support before the ink is dry on the petition.
Trump is enforcing the immigration laws that Congress passed. ICE is doing its job. And the Chicago Teachers Union – the same outfit that locked kids out of classrooms for two years and called it compassion – just announced it needs those same children to march against the president on May 1st.
They're not even pretending anymore. The union owns the mayor, the mayor owns the school board, and the school board is about to hand them the children.
That's how this works in Brandon Johnson's Chicago.
Sources:
- Jaryn Crouson, "Teachers Union Tries To Cancel School So Students Can Protest Trump With Them," Daily Caller, March 20, 2026.
- "Report: Chicago Teachers Union is new Chicago political machine," Illinois Policy Institute, February 10, 2025.
- "Johnson campaign up to $5.6M from teachers unions after another big donation," Illinois Policy Institute, March 29, 2023.
- "May Day 2026 Toolkit," National Education Association, 2026.
