The Illinois State Board of Education revealed in a new report that 43.2 percent of teachers in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) logged 10 or more absences for the 2024-25 school year.
At the end of October every year, the Board reports the percentage of teachers who logged fewer than 10 absences for non-professional development reasons, family emergency leaves of absences, or other medical-related reasons.
The Illinois Policy Institute, a free market think tank, reported that this "marks the lowest teacher attendance rate recorded in CPS in nearly a decade. It's also nearly 10 percentage points lower than the statewide teacher attendance rate."
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The institute explained further to Fox News Digital that the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) should be striving to improve their own members' attendance.
"During the past 15 years, since the radical takeover of Chicago Teachers Union leadership, academics at Chicago Public Schools have taken a second seat to politics. The latest state report card shows just 43% of Chicago students can read at grade level and only 27% are proficient in math - even after Illinois lowered the bar for what 'proficient' means. This is happening as CTU leaders focus on politics outside the classroom, instead of what's best for children and families," said Hannah Schmid, policy researcher for the Illinois Policy Institute.
"CTU should be addressing the chronic absenteeism crisis among students, as well as improving their own members' attendance. Instead, CTU leadership encourages teachers to miss school for activist days and political lobbying, when CPS teachers already miss school more than teachers in the rest of the state. Illinois students require stability to learn and they deserve educators who lead by example. It leaves CPS students struggling," Schmid said.
The Chicago Tribune noted that Chicago teachers are paid a median salary of $95,000, "significantly more than what teachers are paid in the suburbs and more than any other large school district in the nation."
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On top of chronic teacher absence, CPS official enrollment continues to decline. Interim CPS CEO Macquline King announced in September that the current enrollment total is 316,224, a 2.8% drop compared to last school year.
Neither CTU, CPS, nor the board responded to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
