One of the most harmful legislative weapons in the corporate school “reform” arsenal has been deactivated. Last week, Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker signed a law ending drastic restrictions on collective bargaining rights for teachers in a single school district out of 859 in the state: Chicago, home of the free-market education reformers’ hated enemy, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).

For the CTU, this is a precious victory, one championed for years by Karen Lewis, the union’s late president emerita. The new law overturns portions of the 1995 Chicago School Reform Amendatory Act that barred Chicago teachers from negotiating over anything other than pay and benefits in their contract. Everything else — class size, school staffing, outsourcing, testing, educational equity — was off the table by legislative fiat.

The new law will give the CTU more leverage in its ongoing battle with Chicago’s spiteful mayor Lori Lightfoot over the reopening of high schools. Back in January, as the State Senate took up House Bill 2275, Lightfoot begged legislators to put off overturning the bargaining restrictions until 2024. Senators passed the bill anyway, and now Pritzker has signed it into law.