The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) in its own words “For 75 years the Chicago Teachers Union has been in the forefront of education advocacy and public school reform in Chicago. The Chicago Teachers Union represents nearly 30,000 teachers and educational support personnel working in the Chicago Public Schools and, by extension, the students and families they serve. CTU, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, is the third largest teachers local in the country and the largest local union in Illinois. The Chicago Teachers Union is an organization of educators dedicated to advancing and promoting quality public education, improving teaching and learning conditions, and protecting members' rights. Chicago Teachers Union affiliations include the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL), the Illinois State Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (ISFL-CIO), the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)” (see: http://www.ctunet.com/about ).
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) on Educational Apartheid in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system (2012): “CPS schools operate in an environment of intense segregation, a culmination of decades of racist public policies and market forces that have segregated Chicago's communities and neighborhoods. Within CPS, 69 percent of all African American students (and 42 percent of Latinos) go to schools that are "intensely segregated"--schools that have more than 90 percent of their student body composed of the same ethnicity. Chicago Public Schools remains one of the urban school systems that [is] "only a few percentage points from an experience of total apartheid.”” [1].
[1]. Lee Sustar, “A struggle for education justice in Chicago”, Socialist Worker, 13 March 2012: http://socialistworker.org/2012/03/13/education-justice-in-chicago .