Strengthening Public Education

The Chicago Teachers Union Foundation strives to strengthen public education by advocating and supporting local community organizations that address the Foundations’ thematics areas.

Public Education – Organizations that offer systematic processes to ask and answer the most critical questions confronting public education.

• Elected School Board
• Parent engagement
• Opt-Out Test Movement
• Community organizing around public education issues
• Public education policy reform

Restorative Practices in Schools – Programs and activities that seek to end policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of the classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. 

• Unfair youth sentencing policy
• Reduction of suspension and expulsions
• Support for juvenile justice system reforms – with a focus on the rehabilitation of young people and not punishment
• Addressing the disproportionately high rate of sentencing of Black and Brown youth

Societal Values – Programs and activities that promote a just and fair society by challenging injustice and valuing diversity.

• Economic Inequality – Programs and activities that seek to change employment opportunities for youth (ages 16-24).
• Mental health counseling for Chicago Public School (CPS) students and family support.
• Racial Inequality – Programs and activities that promote the belief that individuals, regardless of their racial characteristics, are morally, politically, and legally equal and should be treated as such.
• Gender Inequality – Programs and activities that promote the end of all forms of discrimination and violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including, but not limited to, trafficking and sexual exploitation.
• Food Inequality – Programs and activities that promote the availability of food and individual access to it.
• Housing Inequality – Programs and activities that seek to address the differences in the quality of housing that exist within CPS students and their families.
• LGBTQ – Programs and activities that continue to promote social, legal and institutional change for LGBTQ youth.
• Education Inequality – Programs and activities that promote public education as a path to better opportunity for generations of CPS students.
• Gender Identity – Programs and activities that enable all students, including transgender students, to attend school in an environment free from discrimination based on sex.
• Arts and Organized Sports – Programs and activities that help bridge the academic performance gap among underachieving students by offering after-school, structured, skill-building activities designed to help CPS students build self-confidence, character and values, and gain an opportunity for cultural discernment.
• Programs and activities that assist CPS undocumented students obtain loans and support for higher education.
• Programs and activities which include advocacy, legal and educational methods that focus on eliminating discrimination on the basis of disability for CPS students with disabilities.
• Violence Prevention – Programs and activities that address harmful behaviors and provide positive alternatives. Programs and activities can approach the issue of violence from the victim, an offender, or a witness.
• Program and activities which introduce CPS students to Green and sustainability concepts that help reduce the carbon footprint.
• Higher Education Attainment – Scholarship programs by invitation only.