Chicago Democrats Play Chicken with City’s Public School Budget

It’s no secret that Democrat politicians are bad with money, but liberal leaders in the Windy City – including Mayor Brandon Johnson – may have just set a new standard for irresponsibility.

Over the summer, the Chicago Board of Education approved a $10 billion budget for Chicago Public Schools (CPS). The only problem? With classes already underway, that budget relies on $150 million in funding from the state of Illinois – and the state has shown little indication thus far that it is willing to provide it.

In effect, Chicago Democrats are attempting to guilt the state into forking over the cash. They’re playing a dangerous game of chicken and betting that Governor J.B. Pritzker and Democrats in Springfield will blink first. But if Johnson’s risky – and totally unnecessary – gamble doesn’t pay off, it will be students, families, and teachers left paying the price.

Pritzker gave a less-than-optimistic response when asked about covering Chicago’s shortfalls. “It’s a hard thing to do if it’s not done within the context of the budget, because we have to find dollars that may or may not exist from somewhere, and so that’s why we need a plan,” Pritzker said. He punted the issue to Speaker of the House Chris Welch, who has said merely that he plans to put a budget together at some point.

But that did not stop the Chicago Board of Education from pushing through a budget that relied on state money. Meanwhile, the district’s debt continues to grow, reaching $9 billion at the end of Fiscal Year 2026.

The tenuous situation has led to “budget anxiety,” according to CBS News, with school leaders worried about potential midyear cuts when the bank runs dry. As school started in recent days, “the unstable [Chicago Public Schools’] budget has been in the back of many adults’ minds all along,” CBS News reported.

But while Johnson, Chicago Democrats, and their teachers’ union allies complain about a lack of funding and beg the state for more cash, it is their mismanagement of the district and stubborn refusal to make necessary cuts that exacerbated this crisis in the first place.

According to the Chicago Tribune, 300 staffers have been rehired from an initial 700 who were cut. But the shortfall means that even more could be let go if the state doesn’t provide the funding.

One major reason for the funding shortfall is largely empty schools that Johnson refuses to close or consolidate. According to NBC News, “There are 150 schools that operate at less than 50 percent capacity” in CPS. But Johnson has steadfastly refused to close any of them, even criticizing former Mayor Rahm Emanuel for making an “excuse” to close 50 schools in 2013.

Johnson bragged about going on a “hunger strike” to keep a low-enrollment school, Dyett High School, open. That school is now thriving, Johnson alleges, ignoring that it is only doing well because it innovated and became an open-access performing arts school, meaning it essentially functions like a charter school.

When reporters incredulously pressed Johnson on whether he really intends to refuse to close any schools, the mayor responded, “We have to reimagine how we support our schools.” What exactly “reimagine” means remained undefined.

He then went on to attack classic leftist boogeymen like “the ultra-rich” and “corporations,” blaming them for the woeful Democrat mismanagement of CPS.

But all the pablum and nonsense cannot change the reality on the ground: Chicago Public Schools is broke and being bled dry by low-performing, low-enrollment schools.

Frederick Douglass Academy is ground zero for this ugly reality. Supporters say it has a “target” on its back, but the reality is it has only 27 students enrolled. No, that’s not a typo. There are fewer students enrolled there than are in the average classroom in many schools nationwide. With 47 classrooms, that means every student could almost have two full rooms to himself.

Yet the high school still employs 28 full-time staff – more than one for every student.

While this boondoggle may sound like an outlier, it’s not. According to Executive Director of the Chicago Policy Center Austin Berg, “one-third of school buildings sit at least half empty.” CPS currently serves 312,000 students – half what it has the capacity for.

Other districts in Illinois likewise are being forced to make tough decisions as the state faces the fourth-worst enrollment numbers in the country. But Johnson wants special treatment, and political pressure may allow him to get it.

Democrat leaders know they need the vote-rich Chicago area to come through for them in the upcoming midterm elections. Governor Pritzker, likely considering a 2028 presidential run, also risks angering the key teachers’ union members he could need for support in contentious primaries. While he’s talking tough now, it seems unlikely he will actually let CPS go over the cliff that Democrats have led it to.

The crisis now plaguing CPS is a classic Democrat Party overspending problem – they refuse to make cuts to efficiently use public schools and instead are hoping everyone else in the state will bail them out.

But even if Pritzker came through with the $150 million this year, that will not fix the dismal long-term trend. Every year that Chicago refuses to close schools and streamline resources is another year the city goes deeper and deeper into debt.

Mayor Johnson wants to force every Illinois taxpayer to foot the bill for his delusional notion that schools with barely any students are worth keeping open instead of consolidating and saving resources – all so he can appease the teachers’ union allies that fill his campaign coffers. But perhaps worst of all, feckless Democrats in Springfield who finally have a chance to take a stand against Johnson’s selfish leadership may well end up giving him exactly what he wants.