Chicago Teachers Union details impact of outsourcing on schools in new report issued August 22, 2016...
Two days before the Chicago Board of Eduction is scheduled to meet (and approve its Proposed Budget for 2016 - 2017), the Chicago Teachers Union issued a detailed research report criticizing the outsourcing of major educational and school functions in Chicago. The report is available in full on the CTU website (www.ctunet.com) and is summarized in the CTU press release here:
NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Stephanie Gadlin
August 22, 2016 312/329-6250
StephanieGadlin@ctulocal1.com
New CTU reports reveals rampant and unaccountable outsourcing is impoverishing and undermining Chicago's public schools
CHICAGO-The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) today released a report detailing the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) on privatized services-services which have resulted in multiple conflicts of interests and an extremely poor level service in Chicago's public schools. The report, titled "Outsourced: How CPS Sells its Own Governance to the Highest Bidder," comes as CPS claims to have insufficient funds for providing students much-needed classroom services, but continues to dole out millions to for-profit corporations.
More than 1,000 staff members were laid off on Aug 5 and special education funding drastically cut as part of CPS' "balanced budget" for fiscal year 2017. This budget includes nearly $2 billion in private contracts for a wide variety of services-with minimal oversight or accountability.
"Teachers and students are returning to school buildings that are unsafe due to potential lead contamination, unclean, unhealthy and understaffed," said CTU President Karen Lewis. "This is no way to run a school district."
"Our report is just the beginning-digging deeper would undoubtedly reveal even more overspending and mismanagement," Lewis added.
The 1995 Illinois School Reform Act marked the beginning of both mayoral control and outrageous outsourcing in CPS, and the use of private vendors is now justified by claims of "cost savings" and "higher quality services." "Outsourced," however, finds that the opposite is true. For example:
* Custodial contracts: These were among the first services to be outsourced in 1995. CPS has gone through a slew of contracts with various corporations over the last 20 years but the most egregious have been the recent three-year contracts with Aramark ($260,300,000) and SodexoMagic ($80,000,000). Instead of cleaner schools, less principal oversight and management, and reduced costs, the reality has been deplorable and unsanitary conditions that have forced teachers, clerks and principals to do much of the cleaning themselves.
* Food service contracts: Before the 1995 Reform Act, school lunches were prepared in-house by staff hired from local communities. After numerous scandals with various contractors, CPS now spends $102,351,381 to Aramark for food service. This is the same company that lost its contract with Michigan prisons for serving maggot-laden food!
* Nursing contracts: CPS previously supplemented school nurse staffing with a variety of temporary agency nurses. RCM Technologies Incorporated now has an exclusive $30,000,000 contract for three years. CPS students are subjected to a revolving door of insufficiently trained nurses, many of whom cannot perform assigned healthcare duties because they are unfamiliar with procedures.
* IT department: In FY15 alone, CPS spent $14,349,849 in cost overruns for seven IT contracts that were originally budgeted at $22,750,151, a 63% increase. This is the problem with IT contracts. They are sole-sourced with proprietary licenses and CPS is locked into them, no matter what the cost overruns.
* Charter schools: In fiscal year 2015, at least $161,775,498 was spent by charter schools on office and administration, management fees, rent, interest payments on loans, and "other." This amounts to approximately 27% of public funds (local, state and federal) that are not being spent on students in classrooms.
* AUSL turnaround schools: With no discernable academic benefit, CPS has given the Academy of Urban School Leadership, an organization with strong ties to the CPS Board of Education and its financiers, $49,277,577 in direct contracts since 2004 plus at least $37,378,875 in AUSL Program Support since 2014 for a total of at least $86,656,452.
* Management and planning: CPS often claims to make central office cuts, but then contracts out much of that work. The powerful influence of strategic planning consulting firms (instrumental in the massive school closures of 2013) has also contributed to increased outsourcing.
"CPS administrative chaos and the increasing reduction of support services are driving families out of the district, thereby creating a negative spiral of continuous cuts," said CTU researcher Sarah Hainds. "Elected school boards in suburban districts do not allow this to happen."
The conclusion of the report finds that CPS is not saving money by outsourcing, as years of declining enrollment has reduced the district's revenue. The CTU makes five recommendations to reverse the trend of rampant and unaccountable outsourcing, which are: in-sourcing, more oversight and contract management, public input, proof of cost savings, and the support of financing options through municipal banks.
"At Wednesday's Board of Ed meeting, the mayor's handpicked school board will vote to approve nearly $270 million in contracts and borrow $945 million for school construction without a real capital improvement plan," Hainds added. "All of this is done while asking teachers for a pay cut and refusing to fund sufficient numbers of social workers, counselors, nurses and psychologists."
Ultimately, what Chicago's public schools need are more stability, public oversight through an elected school board, and a significantly stronger contract procurement process that will not undermine the pursuit of a quality education and the schools our students deserve.
Teachers, paraprofessionals, clinicians, students and others are set to picket the Board of Ed this Wednesday, Aug. 24, at 9 a.m.
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The Chicago Teachers Union represents nearly 27,000 teachers and educational support personnel working in the Chicago Public Schools, and by extension, the more than 400,000 students and families they serve. The CTU is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers and is the third largest teachers local in the United States and the largest local union in Illinois. For more information please visit CTU's website at www.ctunet.com.
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