UNO opens 13th charter school, despite looming budget shortfalls - Chicago News and Weather | FOX 32 News

Mayor Emanuel celebrated the re-opening of Chicago's public schools Wednesday, but he had no answers when asked about the huge budget shortfalls looming next year and beyond.

The new union contract's double-digit pay raises require money the Chicago Public Schools don't have, not when they're facing billion-dollar-a-year budget shortfalls in each of the next three years. But the mayor is committed to expanding one segment of CPS that union leaders despise.

In their shirts, ties and dress pants, students were easy to spot at Wednesday's formal dedication of UNO's 13th charter school in Galewood. The distinctive new campus cost $21 million and classes began two weeks ago. Because educators here are not unionized, they did not join the recent strike, much to the delight of mom Petra Gutierrez. She said son, Ramon, is much happier than at his previous public school.

When asked by Fox Chicago's Mike Flannery if she think teachers are actually better teachers, Petra Gutierrez, said, "Yes, I believe they give the attention to the kids' needs. That's what I definitely think. They do it more personal. "

Many of the immigrant parents here are also pleased that UNO aggressively embraces the concept that all its graduates will be fully American. That was the rule in all Chicago schools, but is now rejected by some.

"We focus on, not so much what is different, but what we all have in common, which is our citizenship to the United States of America," says UNO Galewood Academic Director Erin Neubert. "Assimilation's not a dirty word here."

But even though UNO Galewood has a waiting list of 100 families, its plans to expand are threatened by another set of dirty words at the Board of Education downtown: "billion-dollar budget shortfall." The biggest single problem facing the whole system next year is severe underfunding at the teachers pension fund.