Look Conehead - Money!

Tens of millions of dollars!

• Over half of Chicago Public Schools are underutilized, but the 10 emptiest schools cost nearly double per student the district average.

  At least 255 school buildings are underutilized, according to recent data from CPS for the current 2025-2026 school year. That means those schools’ enrollments decreased below 70% of their ideal capacity and “classroom spaces are unused and/or inefficiently programmed.”

  Empty schools mean high costs.

And Illinois Policy helpfully includes a table showing the most obvious places to make cuts:

The savings based simply on per-student spending at these ten schools?

• just over $36 million

We don't know exactly what the per-student totals include (salaries of teachers and staff, running the physical building itself, maintenance and upkeep, capital improvements) but that $36 million is obviously on the low side. Stretch it out over a five-or-ten-year span and the savings really start to add up. 

But expecting a democrat not to raise taxes might be a bridge too far.