Teachers union wants $768M Meta settlement used for education funding

A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general announced a $17.1 billion settlement with Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, in a lawsuit over risks its platforms pose to young users. 

Illinois’ portion of the settlement totals $768 million, though the funds aren’t being directly given to impacted users or their parents. Instead, the state gets to choose how to use the funds.

The Illinois Federation of Teachers said the new funds could fund a statewide education gap, which has been a focus of state lawmakers, the governor and at Chicago Public Schools.

IFT president Stacy Davis Gates, who also serves as Chicago Teachers Union president, said in a statement that the state should use the funds for Illinois students.

“The governor has said he supports more funding for education but didn’t know where it would come from. The settlement with Meta just made that answer even easier. Schools from Peoria to Belleville to Chicago are counting on the Governor and the General Assembly to prioritize students the way we’ve seen them prioritize big tech and billionaire stadium owners,” Gates said.

CPS is currently running a deficit, but passed a budget last month for the current school year. That budget relies on $150 million in state funds not-yet appropriated.

Without a budget passed, the district couldn’t secure a short-term loan that leaders said will make it possible to give teachers their first paycheck.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he’s not sure using the funds for CPS’s deficit would solve the state’s larger problem with funding education.

“I'm not opposed to contemplating if there's a real required short-term need filling a small budget hole, but $150 million for Chicago added on top of what is needed across the state, that's maybe using all of this one-time money for an ongoing need,” Pritzker said.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul told the Chicago Tribune last week that talk of the settlement funds being used any one way is premature, and his office has said a majority of the funds will go toward addressing teen social media overuse and other harms presented by the multi-state lawsuit.

House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, told the CTU before the budget passed he doesn’t plan to call a special session, but said he would back a bill for funding later this year.

“I'm strongly committed in the veto session to supporting the supplemental funding bill because I know we're all going to be there for the veto session,” Welch said. “I will lead that effort in the veto session. We got two weeks in November that we can get it done.”

Following the budget’s passage, Welch said he hadn’t committed a specific dollar amount to the union.

Pritzker also said the Meta settlement funds wouldn’t solve a wider lack of funding for education across Illinois.

“One-time money should really be used for one-time needs. And while I understand that some people may view the shortfall in the budget in Chicago as a one-time need, it's not,” Pritzker said. “I understand that education is not the only need that the state has, and so we've got to invest across what had been a hollowed-out government.”