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Nearly two months after a contentious labor battle between Chicago teachers and the city, the Chicago Teachers Union is striking yet another blow in a report that calls the city's school system one of "educational apartheid." The report, which was prepared by five researchers working for the union, aims to highlight the shortcomings of the city’s efforts to close neighborhood schools and replace them with privately-run charter schools. It contends education reform efforts have fostered racial segregation and hindered academic gains.

“When it comes to matters of race and education in Chicago, the attack on public schools is endemic,” CTU President Karen Lewis said in a release. “Chicago is the most segregated city in the country, and our students of color are routinely deemed as second-class by a system that does nothing but present one failed policy after the next.”

According to the report, 88 percent of students affected by CPS closings since 2001 are African-American, and schools enrolling more than 99 percent students of color have been a primary target of CPS school actions, representing more than 80 percent of all affected schools. The union’s report also takes issue with the teacher-student diversity gap that is especially apparent in charter schools; while more than 95 percent of students at charters are black or Latino, only a combined 30 percent of teachers are.

However, a 2009 report by the RAND Corporation appears to contradict the union’s claims. Among other things, the RAND report examined the racial and ethnic mix of the student bodies at both new charter and old public schools. It found that transfers from neighborhood schools to charter schools in Chicago do not increase racial stratification across the schools; rather, transferred students moved to schools with similar or slightly lower proportions of other students of the same race and ethnicity.