With the “Workers Rights” Amendment now part of the state constitution, expect local teachers unions to test the limits of their new powers. Sure they’ll demand more pay given the record inflation, but it’s around school curriculums where Illinois parents should be most concerned. The amendment gives Illinois teachers new collective bargaining rights to negotiate over more issues, including curriculums, potentially eroding parents’ rights further.
That makes local government elections in April all the more important to parents and taxpayers. The school board candidates Illinoisans elect will be the first to negotiate new contracts under the “Workers Rights” Amendment. Teacher contracts in 200 Illinois school districts are set to expire in 2023 and another 264 contracts expire in 2024. In all, more than half of Illinois’ 860 school districts will be bargaining with teachers over the next two years.
Parents would be smart to carefully vet candidates in those districts on their positions on everything from taxes to DEI to make sure officials won’t sacrifice their rights in favor of union powers.
Expiration dates for St. Clair County teachers union contracts
| Wirepoints
The trend in Illinois and across the country has been the steady loss of parents’ rights.
Here, state laws like “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading” (CRTL) standards have transformed teacher education standards from “critical thinking” to “systems of oppression” and other equity issues that politicize education. The new standards weren’t even passed by the legislature, but instead were created by special interest and advocacy groups and then implemented by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). See Politicizing the classroom: 9 things to know about Illinois’ pending ‘culturally responsive’ K-12 teaching mandate for more details.
There’s Illinois’ first-in-nation adoption of controversial national sex education standards that include materials for children as young as five. Yes, the state has made the adoption of the standards optional for school districts, but the pressure on school board members to implement them from both teachers unions and the administration will continue indefinitely.
And then there’s the state’s draconian, one-size-fits-all policies imposed during the pandemic – from school shutdowns to students masking to vaccinations requirements – that took away control from parents and put decisions in the hands of state officials, local administrators and teachers unions. Some examples:
- Notes from the front: Illinois parents, students continue to protest school mask mandates
- No “gathering outside the home” extends into winter break, school administrators tell parents
- Demand a return to normalcy for New Trier students this fall
- Appease the Chicago Teachers Union and this is what you get
- School Closings, Sports And A Tragic Suicide At An Illinois High School
- True inequality: In-class at Chicago’s Catholic schools but remote learning at public schools
But since then, teachers unions have pushed back hard against parents’ rights. Even in Republican-controlled Indiana, for example, the unions and their allies managed to quash legislation that would have “given more power over curriculum and classroom activities to parents.”
Banding together
Illinois parents’ have a chance to stop the erosion of their rights by electing local school board members that hold firm against union demands. That means banding together to activate and educate about the upcoming election like parents in Tazewell County have done.
If not, parents across Illinois will continue to find their rights eroded in favor of teachers unions with every new contract that’s signed.